Anne Lamott [Lamott - Hallelujah Anyway

FAMOUS

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,

which knew it would inherit the earth

before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds

watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom

is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,

more famous than the dress shoe,

which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it

and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men

who smile while crossing streets,

sticky children in grocery lines,

famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,

or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,

but because it never forgot what it could do.

Naomi Shihab Nye

T here are times in our livesscary, unsettling timeswhen we know that we need help or answers but were not sure what kind, or even what the problem or question is. We look and look, tearing apart our lives like were searching for car keys in our couch, and we come up empty-handed. Then when were doing something stupid, like staring at the dogs mismatched paws, we stumble across what we needed to find. Or even better, it finds us. It wasnt what we were looking or hoping for, which was usually advice, approval, an advantage, safety, or relief from pain. I was raised to seek or achieve them, but like everyone, I realized at some point that they do not bring lasting peace, relief, or uplift. This does not seem fair, after a lifetime spent in their pursuit. Where, then, do I turn in these increasingly frightening days? Where do I look for answers when Im afraid, or confused, or numb? To an elegant Japanese sage? A dream-dancing Sioux grandmother with a tinkling laugh? No. More often than not, the North Star that guides me through the darkness is the Old Testament prophet Micah. He must have looked like a complete stoner or a Game of Thrones extra, and smelled like a goat, yet nearly three thousand years ago, he spoke the words that often remind me of my path and purpose: What doth God require of thee but to do justice and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

Oh, is that all? Justice, mercy, and humility? Thats nice. Right off the bat I can tell you that walk humbly with thy God is not going to happen anytime soon, for me or my closest friends. Arrogance Us. My humility can kick your humilitys butt. What Micah is talking about is grad school curriculum, while, spiritually speaking, I remain in junior high school, superior and cringing at the same time. And to do justice may be a trick, since we all think we do this anyway. We think that if our values arent the correct ones, we would have other ones, which would then be the correct ones.

Otherwise, these words are both plainsong and sublime. How can you not love mercykindness, compassion, forgiveness? Its like not loving dessert, or cheese. If nothing makes people happier than service, especially to the poor, why not tap into the model of the Buddha, Jesus, or Wavy Gravy, the knowledge that if you do loving things, youll have loving feelings?

Heres how: Were so often rattled by lingering effects of trauma and paralyzing fear.

At first glance, they seem inextricable. Trauma, which is stored differently in the brain than memory, seeps out of us as warnings of worse to come. Our self-centered fears whisper at us all day: our fear of exposure, of death, and that we will lose those we love most, that we will lose whatever advantage we hold, whatever meager gains weve made. We live in terror that our butts will show and people will run from us, screaming.

But lets say we believe that mercy and forgiveness are in fact foundational, innate, what we are grown from and can build on; also that they are hard to access because of these traumas and fears. What if we know that forgiveness and mercy are what heal and restore and define us, that they actually are the fragrance that the rose leaves on the heel that crushes it? So why today is it absolutely all I can do to extend mercy to myself for wanting to nip an annoying relatives heel like a river rat? Forget extending mercy to this relative, who has so messed with me and my sonshe doesnt even know she needs my mercy. She thinks she is fierce and superior, while I believe she secretly ate her first child. Horribly, she is perfectly fine. Im the one who needs mercymy mercy. The need for this, for my own motley mercy, underpinned most of my lifelong agitation, my separation from life and self.