Anne Lamott - Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

ALSO BY ANNE LAMOTT

NONFICTION

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Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith

Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Sons First Son
(with Sam Lamott)

FICTION

Hard Laughter

Rosie

Joe Jones

All New People

Crooked Little Heart

Blue Shoe

Imperfect Birds

RIVERHEAD BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books, Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North 2193, South Africa Penguin China, B7 Jaiming Center, 27 East Third Ring Road North, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100020, China

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Copyright 2012 by Anne Lamott

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the authors rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

Published simultaneously in Canada

The author gratefully acknowledges permission to quote from: Translation of verses by Rumi Coleman Barks. Late Fragment from All of Us by Raymond Carver 1988; 1989 Tess Gallagher.

ISBN 978-1-101-60773-2

For Sarah Chalfant
and
Jake Morrissey

CONTENTS

Does sunset sometimes look like the sun is coming up?

Do you know what a faithful love is like?

Youre crying; you say youve burned yourself.

But can you think of anyone whos not

hazy with smoke?

Rumi

PRELUDE

Prayer 101

I do not know much about God and prayer, but I have come to believe, over the past twenty-five years, that theres something to be said about keeping prayer simple.

Help. Thanks. Wow.

You may in fact be wondering what I even mean when I use the word prayer. Its certainly not what TV Christians mean. Its not for display purposes, like plastic sushi or neon. Prayer is private, even when we pray with others. It is communication from the heart to that which surpasses understanding. Lets say it is communication from ones heart to God. Or if that is too triggering or ludicrous a concept for you, to the Good, the force that is beyond our comprehension but that in our pain or supplication or relief we dont need to define or have proof of or any established contact with. Lets say it is what the Greeks called the Really Real, what lies within us, beyond the scrim of our values, positions, convictions, and wounds. Or lets say it is a cry from deep within to Life or Love, with capital Ls.

Nothing could matter less than what we call this force. I know some ironic believers who call God Howard, as in Our Father, who art in Heaven, Howard be thy name. I called God Phil for a long time, after a Mexican bracelet maker promised to write Phil 4:47 on my bracelet, Philippians 4:47 being my favorite passage of Scripture, but got only as far as Phil before having to dismantle his booth. Phil is a great name for God.

My friend Robyn calls God the Grandmothers. The Deteriorata, a parody of the Desiderata, counsels us, Therefore, make peace with your god, / Whatever you conceive him to be / Hairy thunderer, or cosmic muffin.

Lets not get bogged down on whom or what we pray to. Lets just say prayer is communication from our hearts to the great mystery, or Goodness, or Howard; to the animating energy of love we are sometimes bold enough to believe in; to something unimaginably big, and not us. We could call this force Not Me, and Not Preachers Onstage with a Choir of 800. Or for convenience we could just say God.

Some of you were taught to pray at bedtime with your parents, and when I spent the night at your houses, I heard all of you saying these terrifying words: Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake...

Wait, what? What did you say? I could die in my sleep? Im only seven years old....

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

That so, so did not work for me, especially in the dark in a strange home. Dont be taking my soul. You leave my soul right here, in my fifty-pound body. Help.

Sometimes the first time we pray, we cry out in the deepest desperation, God help me. This is a great prayer, as we are then at our absolutely most degraded and isolated, which means we are nice and juicy with the consequences of our best thinking and are thus possibly teachable.

Or I might be in one of my dangerously good moods and say casually: Hey, hi, Person. Me again. The princess. Thank you for my sobriety, my grandson, my flowering pear tree.

Or you might shout at the top of your lungs or whisper into your sleeve, I hate you, God. That is a prayer, too, because it is real, it is truth, and maybe it is the first sincere thought youve had in months.

Some of us have cavernous vibrations inside us when we communicate with God. Others are more rational and less messy in our spiritual sense of reality, in our petitions and gratitude and expressions of pain or anger or desolation or praise. Prayer means that, in some unique way, we believe were invited into a relationship with someone who hears us when we speak in silence.

We can pray for things (Lord, wont you buy me a Mercedes-Benz). We can pray for people (Please heal Martins cancer. Please help me not be such an asshole). We may pray for things that would destroy us; as Teresa of vila said, More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones. We can pray for a shot at having a life in which we are present and awake and paying attention and being kind to ourselves. We can pray, Hello? Is there anyone there? We can pray, Am I too far gone, or can you help me get out of my isolated self-obsession? We can say anything to God. Its all prayer.

Prayer can be motion and stillness and energyall at the same time. It begins with stopping in our tracks, or with our backs against the wall, or when we are going under the waves, or when we are just so sick and tired of being psychically sick and tired that we surrender, or at least we finally stop running away and at long last walk or lurch or crawl toward something. Or maybe, miraculously, we just release our grip slightly.

Prayer is talking to something or anything with which we seek union, even if we are bitter or insane or broken. (In fact, these are probably the best possible conditions under which to pray.) Prayer is taking a chance that against all odds and past history, we are loved and chosen, and do not have to get it together before we show up. The opposite may be true: We may not be able to get it together until after we show up in such miserable shape.