“If we stay where we are, where we’re stuck, where we’re comfortable and safe, we die there. We become like mushrooms, living in the dark, with poop up to our chins. If you want to know only what you already know, you’re dying. You’re saying: Leave me alone; I don’t mind this little rathole. It’s warm and dry. Really, it’s fine.

“When nothing new can get in, that’s death. When oxygen can’t find a way in, you die. But new is scary, and new can be disappointing, and confusing – we had this all figured out, and now we don’t.

“New is life.”
― Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

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 there’s 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.’ It’s certainly not what TV Christians mean. It’s 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. Let’s say it is communication from one’s 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 Lamott, pg. 1] relief we don’t need to define or have proof of or any established contact with. Let’s say it is what the Greeks call the Really Real, what lies within us, beyond the scrim of our values, positions, convictions, and wounds. Or let’s say is is a cry from deep within to Life or Love, with capital L’s. [Lamott, pg.2] …

“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 [Lamott, pg.3] 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. 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 prayer, too, because it is real, it is truth, and maybe it is the first sincere thought you’ve had in months.[Lamott, pg.4] …

“It [Prayer] 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 {Lamott, pg. 5]  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….

“So prayer is our sometimes real selves trying to communicate with the Real, with Truth, with the Light It is us reaching out to be heard, hoping to be found by a light and warmth in the world, instead of darkness and cold. Even mushrooms respond to light–I suppose they blink their mushroomy little eyes, like the rest of us.

“Light reveals us to ourselves, which is not always so great if you find yourself in a big disgusting mess, possibly of your own creation. But like sunflowers we turn toward the light, Light warms, and in most cases it draws us to itself. And in this light, we can see beyond shadow and illusion to something beyond our modest receptors, to what is beyond us, and deep inside, [Lamott, pg. 7]

“My three prayers are variations on Help, Thanks, Wow. That’s all I ever need, besides the silence, the pain, and the pause sufficient for me to stop, close my eyes, and turn inward. [Lamott, pg.8]

“We can pray for things (‘Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz). We can pray for people (‘Please heal Martin’s cancer.’ ‘Please help me not be such an asshole’). We may pray [Lamott, pg. 5] things that would destroy us… [Lamott, pg. 4] ‘More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.’ We can pray or. 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?’ [Lamott, pg. 5]

“We can say anything to God, It’s all prayer.” [Lamott, pg. 5]