Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Gotta love her

I'm presently re-reading Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott. The book is in journal form, recounting the first year of her son's life. It's hilarious, especially for me as a new mother. She has such a fantastic way of putting things into perspective. Here's an excerpt I read today and loved. It's so true!

A man from church showed up at our front door, smiling and waving to me and Sam, and I went to let him in. He is a white man named Gordon, fiftyish, married to our associate pastor, and after exchanging pleasantries he said, "Margaret and I wanted to do something for you and the baby. So what I want to ask is, What if a fairy appeared on your doorstep and said that he or she would do any favor for you at all, anything you wanted around the house that you felt too exhausted to do by yourself and too ashamed to ask anyone else to help you with?"
"I can't even say," I said. "It's too horrible."
But he finally convinced me to tell him, and I said it would be to clean the bathroom, and he ended up spending an hour scrubbing the bathtub and toilet and sink with Ajax and lots of hot water. I sat on the couch while he worked, watching TV, feeling vaugely guilty and nursing Sam to sleep. But it made me feel sure of Christ again, of that kind of love. This, a man scrubbing a new mother's bathtub, is what Jesus means to me. As Bill Rankin, my priest friend, once said, spare me the earnest Christians.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read that book after Claire was born and LOVED it! I love her writing style, and hope it's how I would write...if I ever write a book.

Lisa said...

erin, i heard through the grape vine that you're up north this weekend.

i was going to say something else, but the thought escaped me. figures... owell... let's do something again soon! :)

love you-
lisa