You Can Come In

I’m now reading “Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith” by Anne Lamott and it’s wonderful. She used to write for Salon and they have a good archive of her writing there, of which some of the pieces ended up in the book I’m reading now. Anyway, I just had to share a passage with you, where she describes her “conversion” experience:

“[E]verywhere I went, I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to reach down and pick it up, wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen: you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk, and then it stays forever.”

Then she talks about being in the church where she would go just to sing and she’d always leave before the sermon, because she didn’t want to hear any sermons about Jesus, but this one day, she gets caught up in the last hymn before the sermon, and so she stays, but:

“I began to cry and left before the benediction, and I raced home and felt the little cat running along at my heels, and I walked down the dock past dozens of potted flowers, under a sky as blue as one of God’s own dreams, and I opened the door to my houseboat, and I stood there a minute, and then I hung my head and said, “Fuck it: I quit.” I took a long deep breath and said out loud, “All right. You can come in.” So this was my beautiful moment of conversion.”

I may have just discovered my new favourite author…