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Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Traveling Mercies

So Traveling Mercies is a book I read quite some time ago..by accident really. The book found it's way in my stack of reading materials after my Mom and I duplicated a Christmas Gift to Rockin Rachel... And well now it's this battered looking piece of a book. One that I've savored and remains in my nightstand and I re-read certain chapters regularly.

Here's what I like about Anne Lamott. She's not the vision of the church lady. Her walk in Faith is a honest, flawed one that I totally relate to- but at the end of the day she just puts it all there for God and humbly asks for Grace. She's relatable. For me she's real. I get annoyed sometimes with Spiritual books that paint this picture of what we should be or do or say. That's been sort of the focus of the series at church lately..the demise of the Church as we know it. "Christians" have the wrap of being too busy judging you or trying to save you to just embrace you. Pretty deep stuff if you think about it.

Kinda got off track there. Traveling Mercies so I just visited wallwords.com and I'm working on my newest project for the house.. over the door I'm thinking I'll tell folks what Traveling Mercies means when they leave mine & Cole's crib... "Traveling Mercies: love the journey, God is with you, come home safe and sound." When I finally got to know what Traveling Mercies meant on pg 106 of the book it made me think of my Jr. High Speech Teacher. Theressa Patrick. Every Friday she would say: "Don't get in the car with strangers, say No to Drugs and come back to me safe.." It never failed. Funny how you remember those things...

So while I was thumbing through Traveling Mercies for my wallwords project...this passage managed to move me again..and I'm throwing it out there in my random blog tonite because we've got a team leaving for Uganda later this week...

"...our preacher Veronica said recently that this is life's nature: that lives and hearts get broken-those of people we love, those of people we'll never meet. She said that the world sometimes feels like the waiting room of the emergency ward and that we who are more or less OK for now need to take the tenderest possible care of the more wounded people in the waiting room, until the Healer comes. You sit with people, she said, you bring them juice and crackers.."

Or you bring kids in Uganda shoes and socks so they can go to school. Traveling Mercies.

Holla!! I gotta go watch some TiVo'd Bachlorette.. I know that officially classifies me a a LOSER but it's summer TV and when I began this blog I said I would be honest and I'm kind of rooting for the dorky single Dad...

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