Summary Of In The Overture By Anne Lamott

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith is a confrontational and truthful representation of an individual’s life story. Lamott, not only offers the reader a glimpse at her personal struggles and spiritual development, it also epitomizing the duplicity of life. Her analogy of the lily pads on page 3 paints a clear portrait of what we can expect throughout the pages of the book. In the Overture and Part One, Lamott walks you through the struggles she experience as a child and young adult. Describing and explaining the different masks that she dons based on the company that she retains. She talks about motherhood, alcoholism and Jesus, 3 topics that can provoke polarizing and strong opposition, however her smart, funny and endearing delivery builds overwhelming empathy and compassion.
Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then help me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear (Lamott, 1999, p. 3)”. I felt a kind of kindship with her as she described her emotional repressed family life and her ability to retreat to the safety of another family while battling internal demons of lingering alcohol and drug addictions. Her ability to use humor and vivid descriptions of situations make the reader feel part of the story by relating to the circumstance of the state of affairs of her life. She even made deeply spiritual encounters with Jesus seem tangible and probable for all not just the extremely devote