SuperSoul Sunday: Anne Lamott

major well the best-selling and much beloved author of help banks Wow and Lamont is here you know anything about Anne you know she's got a unique take on the world I say to God sometimes you have got to be kidding she's got a special and very spiritual perspective silence can be prayer rage can be prayer it's true it's all prayer and today she's gonna share what she calls the three essential prayers help thanks tuo they've been her salvation during life's darkest moments why did you start doing drugs by how she fought a painful addiction gathered up the broken pieces of her life and found the light holy Toledo my mind is blown it's a joyful spirited hour you're gonna have a lot of highs and I hope they'll leave you saying ah I love that let's talk about wow the inspiring story of Facebook's oldest user she's a hundred and five in today's super soul original short super soul Sunday starts now I wanted a place for people to go every Sunday to wake up provoking oh you couldn't have said that better than by opening and inspiring this is my favorite thing to talk about this will lick you right on it it's food for your soul every single Sunday this is super soul Sunday I'm so happy that you're here you know you're a person I was so excited to meet I actually followed on Twitter oh thank you thank you yeah that happened for like over a year now I think yeah I just started last March I think yeah now it's my life now it's your life you give you give really intelligent thoughtful writer like tweets oh thank you and also so happy to talk about this book help things well and your life and Lamont was born in 1954 to San Francisco intellectuals Kenneth and Dorothy Lamont she was the middle child and their only girl her father a writer was raised in Tokyo to Christian missionaries it was a religious upbringing that he found cold and unsupportive so when he had a family of his own he turned away from religion and God encouraging and and her brothers to instead put their faith in books in music and nature they were a family of non-believers except for n as early as age five she says she secretly began to pray believing in her heart that someone was listening it's so interesting that so many of the teachers that have appeared on super soul Sunday come from parents who were atheists your parents were - my parents are a theist my mom was raised in Liverpool she was actually baptized Church of England with her twin sister and then she came over here and she I think to have my father's love and respect sort of renounced the the belief of not just Christianity but just a spiritual way of life so I would take her to midnight mass on Christmas and that was it yes but it's a good thing was I got to really find my own way yes but your parents were active atheist not just because a lot of people are sort of agnostic atheists you know but not fervently wanting their children to believe in absolutely nothing and that's how you grew up oh yeah absolutely my parents I always thought they worshiped at like the Miles Davis holiness temple you know the solonius monk Holiness simple the New York Times was the Golden Calf at which we bow down we worship their very individual swing intellectual very avant-garde progressive uh-huh yeah like her parents little Annie was bright a good student but the kids at school teased her relentlessly for her unruly hair and skinny build a shy and sensitive child she learned to fight back by making jokes writing gave her solace too but by eighth grade she says she turned to alcohol soon she was drinking regularly saying it made her feel brilliant and attractive like the best version of herself at 19 she was hooked and began experimenting with cocaine speed and LSD why did you start doing drugs why well I just love not to feel my feelings and I think I probably have a predisposition I'll probably think I think I have I'm definitely so addictive I was a very frightened and shy child I was too smart I was too sensitive and I was shy and I was funny-looking I got bullied horribly and I could hardly breathe I always felt like everybody else had been given the owners manual that one day in second grade when I was homesick you know everybody else had the manual on how to have decent self-esteem and just enjoy yourself while you're here I'd miss school that day and I was scared and I was sad and I was all it I was different and when I drank I didn't feel any of those things I felt pretty if I was too thin I felt the right way to prized overweight I felt thin I felt whole I could breathe again I would drink and I loved it and everyone loved me I was you know desperate desperate people pleaser desperate for people to approve of me but doing very very long world but on the inside it just felt like Swiss cheese you know and I had been raised to believe that what I was seeking was out there that you could buy it achieve it lease it date it bring it home and I didn't know that it was going to be an inside job and I didn't have a little toolbox of how to find it on the inside I only knew to do better and better and better so when you figure it out that it was an inside job how old were you I think I probably had just gotten sober because actually that's a gradual coming isn't it when you find I still believe I can buy a date chief and lease it and my default it's like my Basecamp is believing it's out there and I like if I can just get you to think I'm the greatest person I can just get the main reviewer to New York Times it's going to be like the FDA seal of approval and I'm gonna have finally arrived but then I go oh honey that's okay and we have a cup of tea and I play with the dogs and I go it's an inside job and I pray and and pass I love the title of your book help thanks while you say that these are the three essential prayers and tell me how you came to that well let's see I got sober when I was 32 I had converted the year before converted to Christianity at this funny little integrated Church in Marin City with about 40 people so there was a sort of gap year where I came to church in not always excellent shape but this thing was they just welcomed me they didn't you know they loved me they didn't house with me they didn't want to make home visits you know wish I would have run screaming for my cute little life they didn't want me to learn anything you know they just let me be and Annie was ready to just be her father had died of brain cancer when Annie was 25 and she found herself turning more and more to alcohol and pills to dull the pain while coming down from drug binges and would often wander through the flea market and on Sunday she was drawn to the sounds of gospel music coming out of a little neighborhood church across the street called Saint Andrew the community there helped her get sober it took a year but she says it felt like God picked her up by the scruff of her neck when she needed it most when I first got sober a lot of people would sort of remind me that we were walking prayers we were miracles we've been fished out of the stream and and you go around saying help me help me please I'm so doomed it's all hopeless and then you get a break you get grace appears you get a little bit of stamina you hadn't had a little bit of second wind and you know and then you go thank you thank you thank you and then I realized maybe 10 or 15 years ago that if he were stuck spiritually that if he just went outside if you looked around if you looked up you went wow you know if it was nighttime and the stars were out you don't step outside and go well it's a medium starry night yeah last night yes yes but to me the three essential prayers are helped me and then oh thank you thank you and then Wow Wow Wow I love that you say it prayer is taking a chance that against all odds and past history we are loved and chosen we are loved and chosen yeah coming up and unique take for definition of prayer silence can be a prayer rage can be prayer it's true it's all prayer what is your definition of prayer Facebook or tweet me using the hashtag super souls and we'll be back in a moment [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] she's the author of 15 books and Lamont published her first novel in 1980 when she was only 26 known for her quirky self-deprecating humor for warmth and her honest spiritual explorations of often taboo topics and has attracted a large community of loyal and devoted fans to help her readers navigate tough times she compiled what she calls the three essential prayers in her recent book help thanks Wow it's easy to thank God for life when things are going well you say on page 44 but life is much bigger than we give it credit for and much of the time it's harder than we would like oh yeah I mean it's very easy to see God here it's very easy for me to see God in my backyard with the dogs and with the very bitter cat that I call my own but when I think someone's sick when you get a bad phone call when someone's heard from the doctor when the appearance of life is very very shaky and seeming it throws me completely off off my game it throws me for a loop I think this can't be right and I know now you believe that we can pray anytime anywhere anytime and you can say anything yeah and you I say to God sometimes you have got to be kidding it would be so much skin off your nose to cut this person a little frock and I think you can say anything you can say I'm mad at you and I'm not gonna be a good sport about it how about that and that's prayer silence can be prayer rage can be prayer it's truth it's all prayer when we are talking to something that the rest of the world may not be seeing right Simon and we were talking about that deep as part of our heart we're trying to tell the truth that's prayer that's prayer why is it so important to not get bogged down in what our whom we are praying to because you know there are people who believe that if you only pray this way and if you only call it this but why do you say that's not important well because I just don't think that this side of the grave we're really gonna understand the mystery of God and grace you know we get little shards here and there a little bits of light we know so little we think we know so much and to just use God as an acronym for life for love for good orderly direction I love that you called him Phil for so long I'm callin Phil because my favorite scripture is Philippians 4:4 through seven rejoice in God I say again rejoice whatever is happening so thank you rejoice so I was down in Mexico and one of those guys a vendor who writes your name on an embroider asked me my name and I said I want you to write Phil four through seven he said okay but he got busted before he'd finished it so it just said Phil that's a great name for God so but it also reminds me four four through seven which is says just joy rejoice yeah you said we could also call God Howard if you want to imagine the voice yeah yeah because people say our Father who art in heaven Howard be thy name Howard G that yeah I don't think God cares you know what I so agree with you any because I can't imagine an am impotent force that created all of this getting hung up on a name or title right so a position or a position all right you know our all the people that omnipotence is the position yeah love is the position and Einstein says there's exactly one thing it's called energy mass is energy yeah so it's going really fast like like something's going really slow like a table that could save only energy can't be created can't be destroyed you're made of it so I think it's some sort of love energy you know and I think I made of it I think I made for it I think I'm made to be a part of something really huge that I'm never gonna understand with my really limited human resources this side of the grave we'll be right back coming up how to craft a spiritual practice even if you have never prayed in your whole life you start where you are you start where your butt is plus a big lesson on the powerful little prayer thanks say thank you because you know that there's a rainbow in every cloud super soul Sunday we'll be back in a moment [Music] Carolyn Mays told us on the show a while back that people confuse prayer with wishes can I have more stuff or where's my stuff but that's not really prayer prayer is dialogue with God okay it's not petition you know most people know prayer through petition planner can I have can I want yeah yeah you know can more stuff yes my stuff but this not really not prayer holiness of prayer what do you say about that what's the difference between prayer and what we wish for well I think talking to God is prayer and you know we kind of don't know what we're doing a lot of the time which is what this book is about you start where you are you start where your butt is of course you want certain things or you wish certain things would unfold but my pastor of talks about that we live in the hope not in the hope that we will get or that this will work out or that we'll find this we live in the hope that love is true and that God is true and goodness is true and that that the light shines in the darkness and the light has never been extinguished not after Newtown not after the tsunami and Sri Lanka the light is not we live in the hope that that is true and when my best friend Pammy was dying 20 years ago I said to a priest friend I said do you believe that God will catch her as she crosses over and her little daughter will be okay and will be loved and safe here without her and that I will see Pammy again and he said I hope so and I never forgot that because we live in the hope and the hope in the hope of truth in the hope of light in the hope of spiritual healing because first of all to hope makes you so vulnerable I mean if your heart is open it's gonna get bruised and knocked around the world then life is going to knock you around but to hope it is to be a child again and you must become hopeless to put yourself in the vulnerable space hope is to be vulnerable again instead of to go you know whatever it to be in armor is what the world teaches you to do to have a strong surface to have a show and when you're in Hope you're kind of like a snail between shells and you're trying to get from a very bad dark scary place to where you can breathe where you can get to sunlight on you get the air on you and you can we can be together and we're gonna be okay gonna be okay 100% of the time in my experience but where do you say to people and I know you've been in these conversations when terrible things happen horrible things happen all the time in our country in our lives and community and people say well where was God where was God in that where was God well you know mr. Roger saw what said was look his mother used to say look to the helpers look for the helpers because that's where God is going to be God didn't cause the tsunami God didn't cause the shooter at Newtown to go crazy the shooter at Newtown had mental illness and there's 300 million guns in this country but the God is in the help God is in the healing God is in the crying the tears are gonna bathe us the cheers are gonna cleanse us that tears are gonna hydrate the ground at our feet and who knows what's going to grow the tears are the baptism the baptism means in an ecumenical sense that you go under the water and you come out a different person and the reason why it always works is because help is the prayer of surrender yes you say that right and when you open you of when Dianna was here and she said everyone thinks or many people think surrender is this but it's really that exactly you get to choose yeah either I'm gonna do this as hard as it is or I'm gonna do that i'ma pick up a needle I'm gonna drink I'm gonna cuss I'm gonna stay angry or I'm gonna say father into thy hands I commit me yeah my soul my life yeah and that's what I do it is understanding the surrender and that that really is all there there needs to be rendered people think cementum looks like this yes that looks like that yes it does now the other prayer that you use is thanks which I think there is no greater way to create abundance in your life then then through being thankful for what you have right now yeah life is just a phenomenon to have been born is a miracle where is God's yes and he'll just go well get it but thank you yes thank you yes yeah you know the greatest lesson I got uh thank you I received Unthank you came from my Angela one day I was upset about something somebody had written something that wasn't true and I was upset about something somebody had said the tabloids were saying and she said stop right now and say thank you and I was like but why would I say thank you because this is a horrible it's not rude and she was saying say thank you because you know that there's a rainbow in every cloud and wherever you are right now you're gonna come out on the other side of whatever it is and all you got to do is walk right through it so say thank you right now for allowing me to walk to the other side yeah that has been a great I say when I prayer I said my prayers say to guys thank you in advance for your tender mercies and I'm livid at mercy is living in the hope of that you know William Blake's a great crazy wonderful mystic said we are here to learn to endure the beams of love and everything is opportunity to learn to endure the beams of love with strangers at airports at the Department of Motor Vehicles you know I hear the heart is open you start flirting with people if you're a person who's here because you understand we're so hungry for giving we're not hungry for getting we're not we're hungry for giving so you start flirting in line at the DMV people start responding you create the love you weren't feeling you create this energy you get in a good mood right and you get a better photo and you get a cute it's true because there's always an opportunity to let that through and to just learn to endure the beams of love the culture tells you if you do well enough if you achieve this if you stop doing that and if you really don't need quite so much of that then oh so much love will come your way and Blake says no we are immerse in it and we learn to endure it we breathe in it and then we say thank you coming up the simple three letter prayer that Anne called a miracle now let's get to Wow Wow what makes you send one super Solars we've been talking about the power prayer all morning and I want to hear from you all what's your personal prayer post it on Facebook or tweet me using the hashtag super soul Sunday we'll be right back [Music] we're talking about writer and lamotte's three essential prayers the only prayer she says she's ever needed help Thanks and my personal favorite Wow and now let's get to Wow Wow what makes you say wow everything I wake up in the morning and I say wow because for all those years when I was drinking almost 20 years I was not waking up in the morning going well I was working in the right oh my god oh my god what did i do what did I say Oh whoo step joy know that person how did it go last night and then you have to call around to sort of see if people are start still speaking here so you don't wake up in the morning going wow life is just a phenomenon and I wake up every single morning any I can be in pain that's a WoW and I say hi you know hi it's really a huge prayer to I wake up first thing I do in the morning is I say hi that's me and I look when I say wow my dogs are on the bed I have like this much space usually to sleep inside the dogs begin their healing ministry of love I let the doctor and I say wow I say wow I love that is what it is a healing ministry of love when they start their little morning thing and they want to be hugged and they were looking you and all like oh my god I just love you so much how are you how are you I kind of have to pee though but I love you so much okay let's go get up okay I'm kind of hungry too can you get up and you know what you're gonna do that morning but I say wow I love him I look at uh I mean I woke up in Maui this morning and I went wow oh my god and went out on a visa I went to church and I said thank you thank you I don't know how you got me here wow what a trip well it also means worship another way of saying it is holy Toledo oh my god my mind is blown by the beauty my mind is well you know I notice every single bird and I say wow and I stop and if they're close by I want it I say hi I noticed every single but I notice everything I go wow oh my god I would say I notice every single bird cuz there are a lot of them particularly in the evening but yeah and someone should say to a better if I look at you like you would a little child with a great there was a monarch yesterday morning and I'm saying look at you yeah you say oh my god right yes Wow I say wow yeah Sam when he was about eight I said the funniest thing he said mom she's always hugged me rather strictly he says mom I have figured out why people used to say the word God for God I said okay what was that honey he goes when you see something so beautiful and so amazing that you can't believe your eyes you just go god I started to say maybe it's the other way and then I said yeah I think you're right yes I think that's pretty cool god when you wrote the book about what it was like to raise your son yeah operating its operating instructions known as the author who perfected the art of saying the unsayable and certainly did that when she published the bestseller operating instructions this raw and unflinching memoir documents the good the bad and everything in between during the first year of her life as a single mother to her beloved son Sam and brutal honesty gave mothers everywhere permission to just be themselves when you wrote operating instructions were you writing that as much for yourself as for everyone else no I was writing it for myself you're writing it Sam's father who he didn't meet for a few years his best friend came over and was very excited that I was going to have a baby and and he gave me a leather journal he gave me the gift of a leather journal and he said I want you to write down a sentence every day when I tell people you've read my Twitter I say write down a sentence every day yes just do it because God's giving you a gift and you want to tell your story and I wanted to tell the story of how Sam was given to me by God at the age of 35 years old started writing little by little bird by bird and I sent it to my agent and she said and remember writing on paper remember that sacred scritchy sounded PS and pencil well that was how I wrote it on on these journal pages and I'd scare him out and send him to my agent she'd say they're speckled with tears she said these pages and she said just keep doing it so I said to keep doing and I did everything she ever said so I kept doing it but you know if you tell the truth it turns out to be universal so I was saying all this outlandish stuff about being a mother and I would tell people and they wouldn't go well that is just terrifying but yeah but yeah they needed to go me too coming up have you ever ever experienced anything my mind was so blown mine teeth turns out Annie and I both had a life changing adventure on the other side of the world but first she had to board a plane I don't travel while I don't believe in the concept of flying and I'm terrified no I don't believe in it conceptually super soul Sunday will be back in a moment [Music] well I remember once when I was going I was going to India and I always and I hate I don't travel well I don't believe in the concept of flying and I'm terrible no I don't accept schewe Lee and I went up to the altar and I asked my people in my church to pray for me because I was getting on the plane the next day she said you know honey when you get on an airplane it's sort of too late to ask for begi prayers and she said it's really time for trust and surrender don't you just love that it is too late to ask for begi prayers it's time for trust and surrender so to make her trek to India and surrendered and opened her heart to what would become the trip of a lifetime and she found herself immersed in a country that exemplifies Wow in two years after an visited India I experienced some of the same I own an adventure no other place I'd ever been no other culture I'd ever experienced showed me more about what living spiritually really looks like there it seemed impossible to separate life from spirit what did you think of India have you ever ever experienced anything my mind was so blown my mind was blown I was just there for like 12 days and I loved it more than I could ever put into words and I you know to 1 billion people praying at the same time 1 billion people in prayer right yes what it felt like to me was that here it is an entire nation of people who are living breathing spirituality all the time they are it they exhibit it they demonstrate it and everything they are they are pure being and you feel that pulse that vibrate up no there's a vibrational thing and it it's my it's mind-altering it changes you you come it's like baptism you come back a different person yes and how did it change you I expand your perception and you like a new pair of glasses and I see everything differently now you know I see the poorest of the poor I see the most has destitute people on earth and they're living in the hope that they will be provided for their living in the hope that people will see them and say here is some rice and they're getting it they're living on the streets they're getting each other up you're getting your kids ready for school I know and a little bit of food has come by getting their kids ready for school you know we visit a family where their entire house was the size of from this chair and there are five people sleeping in the same room she'll never forget it and there is a level of contentment and order and harmony with the rest of the people and everybody's taking care of everybody else whether in India or at home in California and Lamont writes what she says is on her heart so it makes sense that when she heard about the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut she put pen to paper hoping to give her readers that sense of order harmony and meaning during that time of such great loss well this whole show is about talking about the search for meaning that's what we do I'm super soul Sunday so search for meaning and now you've written a book about the search for me I have it's called stitches a handbook on meaning hope and repair and it's a epic I started the day after Newtown because I was beyond stunned and I thought where do you find meaning anymore where do you even start and I've asked myself that a number of times over the years where do you even interesting I wasn't stunned by Newtown at all no you know why I wasn't stunned I wasn't some because I started out as a young reporter in Baltimore and I remember consciously being aware of Mothers Against Drunk Driving that movement and how it affected drunk driving and how hard it was to build momentum and I remember as a young reporter going out to cover stories an accident and the assignment editor on the desk would say you know is it how many people injured and you know the nature of news is that oh two people injured well okay that will decide where it is lineup five people injured seven people injured by a drunk driver coming from choir practice oh that's going to be headline story that's gonna make the six o'clock headline that'll be the 11 o'clock headline and what I started to see was that it took seven children and a school bus driver who was drunk to really get people's attention before people would start to think and so the second I heard about Newtown I said so that's what it took in order for people to stop and pay enough attention to have the conversation I feel the same way about texting and driving how many learns to be a critical mass number of people harmed before people realize oh that's a bad thing maybe we shouldn't do that but it got that country's attention at least started the conversation in a way that we hadn't had it before breaks your heart but you know a Leonard Cohen poem that there's cracks and everything and that's how the light gets in so a little bit of light got in but and for that we're grateful yes and I love the parents the wheelers who were on Capitol Hill and and and did that beautiful interview with bill moyers who said and when they said you know we are not going to give up and we are determined to use this moment in time to get people to sit and listen to people of different opinions because we cannot continue to move forward unless we're willing to listen to each other and these are parents who lost their six-year-old boy who can come to that kind of resolution and peace about it yeah and that willingness to show up and the willing to show up no matter that it breaks our heart every time they say those same words yes yes yes and so to write the book stitches about finding meaning in a world that produces Newtown what is the answer the answer is always you start where you are start where your butt is you start in the not knowing you start in grief you start in being speechless yes you start in the silence you starting to tears certain community you gather together the book is called stitches because all you have to do and you start preparing something is no one place to start one place on the torn fabric that will hold the knot you start there and so it's not metaphorically you just need to know one place that's right and then you start you find one place and you test it will it hold it's torn but will it hold if you fold it over it'll hold a stitch I've brought in two pieces of fragment together and I just keep going one day at a time we'll be back with Sol de Sol that's great thank you coming up we take on some of our biggest questions yet you believe in heaven and hell yeah I don't believe in a hell of eternity because God is a God of love Plus get ready for today's super soul original short over the years I've seen a lot two world wars and 19 different presidents it's a lifetime of super soulful lessons from a hundred and five year old Edith Kirk Meyer when we come back [Music] [Music] what is your experience of God now what is your experience 0:04 I just feel him I just feel you know I always have said and written that I feel like the love of a dog is the closest we come to knowing divine love this side of of eternity this side of the grave and and I just experience his companionship I just feel God I just feel that I am loved and and chosen and that he's my best friend and that when the two of us are sitting right here that there's three of us and that were made of that energy were made of holy spirit energy so you experience God in all things all people do you see God and other people I see God in every person you believe in heaven in hell I do yeah I don't believe in a hell of eternity because God is a God of love I know how I know hell on earth so are you optimistic for where we are I am a very very optimist yeah if I again we're God's West Coast rap I would have things work out better sooner I would have a system that was more predictable and and and because grace that's obviously not the way the world works yeah well I really it used to be pretty predictable in the fifties when yeah we're born and I was born it was pretty predictable world is a lot safer I mean I'm sure in the 50s you went to kids houses you go over at dusk you can run down to your house and now like you'd have to have armed guards you know it does to get children say it let your children know and we should just get on our bikes and we would ride literally oh I really know that he's so good then he'd find a nickel and you go to the drugstore and buy Hershey bar and all day you check in with your parents at dinnertime oh my goodness yeah so I met her she was a domestic I believe that when all is said and done that love is sovereign here that when my grandchild is 50 year olds love will still be sovereign and that grace will be sufficient for whatever appears in his life and in the greater reality of this earth grace will be sufficient thank you welcome thank you you were my mod thank you thank you what a pleasure to sit with you I wanna thank you for coming all this way grace will be sufficient grace will be sufficient before we go here's today's super soul original short my name's Edith Kirk fire and I'm a hundred and five years old when I was 95 my children gave me a computer a printer for the digital camera turned me loose they say on Facebook's oldest user I have more than 32,000 friends I've always liked to help people when I was in the second grade my mother had a garden and I went home and I asked her if I could take some potatoes and anything else from the garden and she wanted to know why and I said well it's for the poor children and she looked at me and said oh honey there isn't anyone poorer than we are oh but she said yes you could you can take some food and I think that's how my desire to help people got its start I met my husband Joseph in Chicago when I was 30 years old we worked in the same welfare office during the Depression I was his supervisor so we spent time together every day consulting and we fell in love he was almost two and a half years younger than I I robbed the cradle Joseph and I were married for almost seven years he was almost 98 years old when he died I do miss him very much over the years I've seen a lot two world wars and 19 different presidents people's attitudes have changed over the years I think when we're concerned about what what we can get out of life rather than what we can give I've been volunteering at Direct Relief for almost 40 years it's a humanitarian organization it sends medical aid around the world even though it's just addressing envelopes or writing thank-you notes it's very meaningful to those of us who do it it really feeds my soul and I think it's God's plan for us to leave the world a better place God is like a voice in my heart I think we have to learn that the voice is trying to lead us in the right way sometimes we're slow learners I think if we could just love one another it'll be less pain less fighting or harmony I think we can win over all of our adversities with love [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: MR.X

Views: 78,370

Rating: 4.8124404 out of 5

Keywords: Oprah Gail Winfrey, Sunday, SuperSoul Sunday, Soul, talk show, Super, guest

Id: _jcARCRSb7c

Length: 41min 55sec (2515 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 20 2020