Sometimes when I read Anne Lamott’s books I feel as lost as she does. Her philosophical musings in Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival and Courage are filled with fear, frustration, despair, sarcasm, and love. She often uses her language as a weapon to strike out at her own fears. But, she never hides them. Other times, her rambling thoughts lead to moments of insight and understanding.

In the “third third of her life”, Lamott celebrates her new marriage to Neal, a wonderful man who drives her nuts at times because he’s a know-it-all, as are others in his family. When he proposed to her, she asked if they could get a cat. But, that cat led to panic when they both thought it was gone, a victim of a car or a coyote. Anyone who ever had a cat knows that feeling of fear and hopelessness when the cat disappears. It takes Lamott to find a lesson in a normal moment of life with a cat. Remember. “The kitten isn’t dead. The kitten is in the living room.”

Sometimes, it’s Lamott’s irreverent comments and questions about her faith that strike me. One night, she and Neal went to see a friend perform with a storytelling guild. And, it hadn’t even started when Lamott started to hate the entire experience, facing anxiety and panic. It’s an extended episode in her life, but the comment I remember is, “I’d like to know if God gives us points for showing up or simply marks us present.”

In one chapter, Lamott discusses the prophets. Her off-the-wall comments are the ones that always surprise me. “Most of these prophets were introverts. Jesus definitely was. He’s never really doing all that much, if you really think about it. He doesn’t even tell His own stories.”

Anne Lamott is a fearful, anxious survivor of her own past, as we all are. But, despite her fears and anxieties, she puts one step in front of another, and steps up to confess her fears and discuss her attempts to lead a better life. It takes courage. She never really talks openly about that subtitle that includes the word courage. But, somewhere in the stream of consciousness storytelling, she makes the reader see the courage it takes just to live.

Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival and Courage by Anne Lamott. Riverhead Books, 2021. ISBN 9780593189696 (hardcover), 210p.

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