neutral witness

I've been following Anne Lamott's Twitter feed of late. Not that I've migrated to Twitter, mind you. I just like reading her tweets. If you're familiar with this author, you know already that she's an endless source of inspiration, a writer with lots of interesting (pithy! ironic! self-deprecating! affirming!)) things to say.

I'm not sure I could carve my own thoughts into 140-character soundbites. But boy howdy, she knows how to cut the chase. Here, for instance, is a recent tweet:

You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should've behaved better.

It was food for this memoirist's soul…an amuse bouche, so to speak. When I posted it to Facebook, lots of people hit the "like" button. Some friends weighed in with their opinions, positive and not. Ah, that's more like it, I thought to myself. I love an open exchange of ideas, even (especially) when we disagree.

You and I might read Anne's tweet differently, each according to our own background experiences and beliefs. Most certainly (as it is with most things), it's not to everyone's taste. But I saw it as a playful wink to the Objective Observer (aka Sati)…a gentle reminder to make an offering of Truth — in peace and compassion — and to claim that birthright for myself.

On a related note, I'm celebrating Mother's Day with Anne! She's a featured speaker in the "Food for Thought" series at Westwood Presbyterian Church, May 13 in Los Angeles. On a whim, I treated myself to tickets. I have an extra, if you'd like to join me…