I’ve been reading Anne Lamott’s Traveling Mercies this week. My niece loaned me her autographed copy. If your not familiar with this author let me warn you she is this first person I’ve found who can be reverent and irreverent all at the same time. Her writing is not for the faint of heart. If you love soft touching stories about God and spirituality this is not your girl. If you love soft touching stories about God and spirituality set in the harsh realities of life you might just like her.

I always enjoy reading someone else’s book, especially if they underline their favorite parts. This allows you to read the author and the owner of the book. You also get to ask the question, why didn’t you underline this? Here’s one that struck me this morning that wasn't underlined. Lamott is working out of town and describes her experience this way.

I was working too hard and staying up too late every night, and the people I was with were drinking a lot. I started to feel like a wired little kid at a birthday party who has had way too much sugar, who is in all ways on overload, but still finds herself blind folded for a game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey, and then pushed more or less in the direction of the wall with the donkey on it. But I was so turned around, so lost and overwhelmed and stressed that I couldn’t even remember where the wall with the Donkey was-or even in what direction it might be found. So I couldn’t take one step forward without there being a chance I was actually walking farther away from it. And it took me awhile to remember that for me, the wall with the donkey on it is Jesus.

Now there is an image I can understand. The wall with the donkey on it, for me, is Jesus.