Wisdom from a Writing File

Today, while browsing in one of my writing files, I discovered a scrap of paper with quotes from Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird. This is a book I highly recommend. Somehow she manages to provide insights into writing alongside insights into spiritual living. She is brutally honest and transparent. She makes me think and she inspires me to work harder at writing.

Here are a few of her thoughts:
(On getting outside of ourselves)

"To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently has its head up its own a$$ - seeing things in such a narrow and darkly narcissistic way that it presents a colo-rectal theology, offering hope to no one."

(On God's perspective)

"I heard Marianne Williamson say once that when you ask God into your life, you think he or she is going to come into your psychic house, look around, and see that you just need a new floor or better furniture and that everything needs just a little cleaning - and so you go along for the first six months thinking how nice life is now that God is there. Then you look out the window one day and see that there's a wrecking ball outside. It turns out God actually thinks your whole foundation is shot and you're going to have to start over from scratch."

(On the wealth of life's conflicts)

"That's one reason you write. Your child and your work hold you hostage, suck you dry, ruin your sleep, mess with your head, treat you like dirt, and then you discover they've given you that gold nugget you were looking for all along."