I have appreciated Anne Lamott’s wisdom and spiritual honesty for quite a while now.  Her earlier books; Traveling Mercies (2000) and Plan B (2006) were both books that I found to be wise, honest, funny and profound.  This new book on prayer, Help, Thanks, Wow is also quite wonderful.  Lamott, in her own inimitable way, has the ability to take on spiritual topics like faith, the spiritual life, and now prayer and tell it straight, without the heady theological language and get right down to the essence of  what it means to pray.

Prayer is us-humans merely being, as e.e.cummings puts it -reaching out to something having to do with the eternal, with vitality, intelligence, kindness, even when we are at our most utterly doomed and skeptical. God can handle honesty, and prayer begins an honest conversation.

Anne offers these three prayers, Help, Thanks, Wow as the only prayers you will ever need since they get to essence of all matters.

Praying “Help” means that we ask that Something give us the courage to stop in our tracks, right where we are, and turn our fixation away from the Gordian knot of our problems. We stop the toxic peering and instead turn our eyes to something else: to our feet on the sidewalk, to the middle distance, to the hills, whence our help comes-someplace else, anything else. Maybe this is a shift of only eight degrees but it can be a miracle.

By giving thanks we show that we understand that even in the midst of life and all its craziness and unfairness, there are still moments where we can be truly grateful and gratitude helps shift something inside us.

“Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior. It almost always makes you willing to be of service, which is where the joy resides. It means that you are willing to stop being such a jerk. When you are aware of all that has been given to you, in your lifetime and the past few days, it is hard not to be humbled, and pleased to give back.”

“Wow” is a prayer of amazement, of joy, or astonishment to the amazing things that are happening all around us if we were only able to stop and acknowledge them.

Gorgeous amazing things come into our lives when we are paying attention: mangoes, grandnieces, Bach, ponds. This happens more often when we have as little expectation as possible.  …We just have to be open for business.

Lamott’s words are simple, often irreverent, and always honest.  It is because she is so honest that her words remain with you much longer that you expect, giving you that  little extra kick in the butt to say Help, Thanks and most importantly, Wow!

Brenda’s Rating: *****(5 Stars out of 5)

Recommend this book: Keith, Lauren and Sharon

Book Study Worthy: Yes

Read in ebook format.