Hello Dearest...

"Hello Dearest, I'm so glad it's you!"
Anne Lamott, "Almost Everything"

Author Anne Lamott has a friend who always answers the phone, "Hello Dearest, I'm so glad it's you!" Anne says she thinks that is how God responds when she prays, even at her "least attractive." I read this book while on retreat and the minute I read that line (and  it's early--page 6) I heard God saying that to me too. I don't know how any of us survived with any kind of spirituality when we were raised with the idea that God was still mad at us for the sin of Adam. Really? We were taught to do this and that to appease God and this was to be a lifelong pursuit. I still shudder when I remember nervously entering the confessional to tell all my most heinous sins (I was 8) to an invisible man behind a screen. Gratefully, things changed, and were a bit more user-friendly, by the time our kids went through the process, but still. What if we had been taught that whenever we pray God is tickled to death to hear from us and says joyfully, "Hello Dearest! I'm so glad it's YOU!" God loves us. Even at our most unattractive or disagreeable. We need to accept and get used to that fact. Maybe it would help us if we could imagine God so delighted to hear from us, each time we reach out. "Hello Dearest! I'm so glad it's YOU!" Let's bask in that beautiful image this autumn Monday! Love, heidi