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Traveling Mercies found me. I didn't look for it. Traveling Mercies, a book about faith written by prolific author, Anne Lamott, was mentioned to me on a number of occasions by friends and acquaintances who'd read Buechner or Donald Miller. They would chuckle as they mentioned her name, "oh if you loved Miller's Blue Like Jazz, you'll love Traveling Mercies. Anne Lamott, she curses like a sailor, she's hilarious. She's real. Her words will cut right through the crap - to your core."

I filed the name of this book in the back of my mind, hoping that the cob webs that seem to have taken permanent residence there wouldn't completely obscure it.

One day, oh a few days before I would really find out just how little I know and how close to not knowing anything I'll be when I die, I slunk into a book store to use a gift card. It was like picking out my favorite dessert after being on a sugar free diet that wasn't my idea. I always seem to have Madeleine L'Engle on the brain when thinking of a book to purchase - something I've read before and decided to add to my collection. I looked and looked for this one book by her and felt a bit challenged by the way the books were categorized, organized. I didn't feel so bad when a cute 20 something guy admitted that he thought he might have learned the alphabet incorrectly and couldn't find a book that started with a P under the Ps (!!!!). So we continued to search with the kind promise that should we find something close to what the other was looking for - we'd let the other know.

I found mine finally - Walking on Water, by L'Engle. I was thrilled. It only took me 20 minutes to find a book that was sitting in front of me the entire time. Waiting. The funny thing was that there was a book waiting just next to it that I wasn't planning on, that had cobwebs from my mind all over it. I reached over, next to Walking on Water and picked up Traveling Mercies. I decided I'd do something bold - live on the edge - and get them both. Woo.

As I walked up to the cash register, another 20 something gestures towards Traveling Mercies and says "I loved that book. You'll love it too." Hm. Glad to know I'm not spending money on crap.

So I take it home and I devote myself to reading Walking on Water which is about artists and creativity and connecting with the creator himself. But Traveling Mercies kept catching my eye. So I picked it up and started to read.

Yes. The 20 something was right. I loved it. I was baffled, filled with disgust, a bit of hate (this has a bit to do with finding out how little I know recently), a bit of anger and overwhelmed with love. I laughed with her, cried with her (I know, blah blah). Felt like I had a conversation with her where we were thinking and saying the same thing like some of my friends and I, finishing each other's sentences. She described the place that I know most of us feel we've lived sometimes - The Land of the Fucked - I believe there are different counties in this place of course (sick kids, failed marriages, lost dreams, pain, hurt, death, etc., etc.). And she just as boldly proclaimed hope within that overcast land:

"I was desperate to fix him, fix the situation, make everything happy again, and
then I remembered this basic religious principle that God isn't here to take
away our suffering or our pain but to fill it with his or her presence, so I
prayed for the health simply to enter into Sam's disappointment and keep him company."

Yes, I loved this book. I will read it again, note the authors I've never heard of that she references, let the words roll around in my brain, clear out the cob webs so I'll remember other words, books, poems and particularly the word of God. And these authors, along with my own writing will accent the journey that we're all on, the experiences we have in our traveling mercies. So that, by my life's end, although I may not know much, I'll have gained in plenty.