c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is publisher of RNS.)

UNDATED _ It’s one thing if you live in a convent or a rural Southern town. But for the rest of us, letting people in on the fact that you actually are, well, religious, is a confession fraught with caveats.

You don’t want anyone thinking you’re a nut or a fundamentalist or a proselytizer. You want folks to know that you still have a sense of humor and you won’t blush if they swear. And furthermore, you don’t want them expecting so much that when you cut them off in traffic they forever lose faith in God.

Of course you don’t want to explain away too much, either, or you could find true believers thinking you are one of those liberal New Agers who doesn’t really have a clue.

The answer to this dilemma is to buy a case of Anne Lamott’s”Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith”(Pantheon) and send copies to all of your favorite pagans. As for your fellow believers, dole the copies out carefully. Lamott’s honesty about faith and life might be more than some can handle.

Lamott is a self-proclaimed political liberal, recovering alcoholic and single mother who also happens to be a born-again Christian. As she says,”Believe me, this boggles even my mind.” Lamott writes hilariously about real life and real faith. Her words are gently humorous at times and searingly, breath-takingly honest at others. She is a gifted writer but even more gifted at peeling away the veneer that masks pain or glory.

She’s from the Old Testament tradition of David and the New Testament tradition of Saul turned Paul. Having sinned boldly, she is not inclined to wimp out when it comes to believing. Nor does she seem tempted to adopt a certain Christian cultural norm that might get her booked on the 700 Club. I think it is safe to assume that Pat Robertson won’t be calling her soon.

Yet Christendom would be much better off if he did. She might be one of the few dread-locked Presbyterians on the face of the earth, a woman who in her irreverent jacket photo seems to be saying,”Can you believe God actually hangs out with the likes of me?” Clearly, he (or she, as Lamott would inclusively say) does, since”Traveling Mercies”contains some very personal accounts of travels with God.

During a traumatic plane ride she is seated next to man who asks her if she is born again. She tells him she is, then writes:”My friends like to tell each other that I am not really a born-again Christian. They think of me more along the lines of that old Jonathan Miller routine, where he said, `I’m not really a Jew _ I’m Jew-ish.’ They think I am Christian-ish. But I’m not. I’m just a bad Christian. A bad born-again Christian.” But don’t start thinking Lamott is going to show up at your local Christian bookstore to autograph her books. She is not one of those people who finds God and loses her memory about her previous life. Refreshingly aware of worldly temptations, she mixes her metaphors with enough candor to make her unacceptable for evangelical prime time.

Writing about the perfect mother of one of her son’s classmates, she says,”I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.” Other even more wonderful passages cannot be quoted because certain words are not allowed in family newspapers. But Lamott’s use of such words is not meant to shock or be sacrilegious. In fact, she almost seems to be saying she remembers exactly what Jesus has saved her from. It might have been fun at times, but this new life is much bigger and brighter and more beautiful.

Lamott has developed an entirely new genre of religious writing. Gritty, stark and humorous, she catches the reader by surprise when she points her pen heavenward. She even seems to catch herself by surprise, as if she started out to mock the”One Way”gesture and decided it suited her after all.

Those who don’t believe will find”Traveling Mercies”offers a glimpse of how a person who is fully alive can become other worldly at the same time. Those who do believe will be challenged to be more honest about the highs and lows of faith.

And those somewhere in between will make Anne Lamott the patron saint of struggling sinners, a woman who loves God enough to be divinely human.

DEA END BOURKE