Of Anne and Willie

“Customers who bought this book also bought . . .” I always check the list that follows.

Every once in a while, a couple books that Amazon.com would never match with each other come home in the same bag. So it was with The Tao of Willie by Willie Nelson and Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott.

An explanation is in order. For several decades I’ve enjoyed Willie Nelson’s music. A couple months before he came to our island I spotted his book and picked it up. Good for getting into the concert mood.

On the same trip to Chapters, my eye also chanced upon Anne Lamott’s current bestseller. I’d never read anything by Anne Lamott, but cutting-edge Christians seem to like to her, so why not check her out? Thus she landed in the bag next to Willie.

Willie I know, so I gave the volume the kind of dabbling attention a book with the title The Tao of Willie deserves. It was worth the time. He’s one of the most prolific songwriters and performers of our time. Who doesn’t know “Crazy,” “Whiskey River,” and of course, “Family Bible”?

Willie Nelson loves to wallow in the contradictions of life. “I played dance halls on Saturday and taught Sunday school the next morning.” He’s an advocate for “medicinal” marijuana, consorts with outlaw bikers, and thrives on the imagery of infidelity and drunkenness.

But at every concert he makes sure to include a couple old hymns because of his deep conviction that society needs the foundations of faith he grew up with.

Now this old world of ours
is filled with trouble
This old world would oh so better be
If we found more Bibles on the table
And mothers singing
“Rock of Ages, cleft for me.”

(from “Family Bible”)

As his co-writer puts it, Willy is actually “more Baptist than Buddhist.” If no one thinks you should be consistent, you can get away with contradictions. Willy was postmodern before postmodern was cool.

Meanwhile Anne Lamott languished on my desk. I do have a rule: if you buy it, you have to read at least 50 pages. So before it was to be transferred to the “Spent The Money But Not Worth The Time” pile with the last Marcus Borg, I picked up the book and started in.

To my surprise, my heart started to warm. I did have some hurdles to cross; I have the same visceral disgust for characters of the political left that she has for the right. The delight she takes in her misspent years wore a little thin. Granted, we’re all a bit neurotic; I just didn’t connect with the feminist version.

And if that weren’t enough, she like Willie, doesn’t seem to discern New Age nonsense from elementary theology.

But under all that clutter a simple faith in Jesus and genuine desire to get things right bubbled to the surface. For faith to have meaning it has to work in the trenches. It has to work in the hidden corners and awkward places of our homes and hearts. It isn’t always pretty down there and for the most part there are more loose edges than answers.

Once it was clear we were on the same road, I found a kindred spirit.

Anne Lamott didn’t grow up on the revival circuit but she, like Willie and me, speaks the language of the sawdust trail – of trying and failing; of repenting and backsliding; and ultimately, of getting back up and trying again. People who understand that understand each other, even when vast chasms separate them.

Why bother with Willie and Anne at all? We only have so much time, why spend any of it on the fringes? Even granting space for political diversity, there’s a lot of chaff here. Why not stick with writers who have winnowed their stories more carefully, whose theologies have some semblance of basic coherence?

Because we, and our lives, are full of chaff – real junk that clutters everything up. We work hard, and for good reason, putting on makeup and straightening things up. This is an important, non-negotiable assignment.

But it’s important not to confuse the goal with the reality of who we are. “Wretched man that I am.” And sometimes it takes people who know they aren’t role models for anyone – who have given up on polite company – to say the kind of things we don’t even want to admit we think and to remind us who we are under our veneers.

So don’t confine your reading or your music to the “good” Christians. Take an occasional walk with tarnished saints.

But when you do, take some of Willie’s advice. “It’s important to keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out.”

James Toews is pastor at Neighbourhood Church, Nanaimo, B.C.