Mamalicious!

Last month, I had the pleasure of hearing Anne Lamott speak and read from her latest book, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith. That evening, she read from one of the book’s early chapters, “Wailing Wall.” In this chapter, she recounts a Sunday school class she taught to a group of rambunctious young boys who ranged in age from 3-6. An excerpt:

Next, as always, we did Loved and Chosen.

I sat on the couch and glanced slowly around in a goofy, menacing way, and then said, “Is anyone here wearing a blue sweatshirt with Pokemon on it?” The four-year-old looked down at his chest, astonished to discover that he matched this description–like, What are the odds? He raised his hand. “Come over here to the couch,” I said. “You are so loved and so chosen.” He clutched at himself like a beauty pageant finalist…

She goes on with this–”anyone wearing green socks?…a Giants cap?…an argyle vest?”–until every boy knows that he is loved and chosen. I laughed when I heard her read this story that night, laughed at the humor and the beauty of it. And I laughed aloud again a few nights later when I was reading it from my very own copy of the book. Mini-Me and BabyGirl were nearby as I read, and they wanted to know what was so funny. At first, I considered brushing it aside–”Nothing. It’s grown up stuff”–assuming that they wouldn’t understand. But then I thought about it: Why couldn’t they understand being loved and chosen? And if for some reason they don’t, they should.

So, I gave them the backstory and then read the entire section about loved and chosen. My girls ate it up. They wanted me to read more, so I did. They laughed at the funny parts, and asked thoughtful questions (”Is Jerusalem far away– like, far, far away?”). And then they wanted to know if we could do loved and chosen, and thus, a bedtime tradition was born.

Tonight at bedtime, I asked, “Is anyone here wearing Hello Kitty undies?” And BabyGirl dove on me as I declared her loved and chosen.

“Is anyone here…wearing a Gore Lieberman 2000 t-shirt?” Mini-Me actually, seriously, looked down at herself to check. She did the beauty pageant clutch and then scrambled over to me so that I could pronounce her loved and chosen.

And then we prayed, thanking God for loving and choosing us.

One last excerpt from Anne Lamott:

My Jesuit friend Tom once told me that this is a good exercise because in truth, everyone, is loved and chosen, even Dick Cheney, even Saddam Hussein. That God loves them, because God loves.

“This–more than anything else–does not make sense to me,” I said.

“Because you are a little angry,” Tom explained…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 8:59 pm and is filed under Books and Writers, Bush has Blood on His Hands, Cool Stuff, Currently Reading, Faith, Fun Times, Love 101, Mama-hood, Offspring. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.