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"laughter is carbonated holiness"
Writer Anne Lamott dips into a rich well of faith to quench fires great and small

... Lamott's writing on faith touches a nerve among those "who've given up on God and church because of how far away God seems in this modern world," says Lamott. She also sees herself as an antidote to religious conservatives. "I try to carry this candle around for regular people about Christ and counter the dogma of the Christian right. I speak about the simple, accepting love of Jesus," she says. "That's what I have to offer."

Theologically, Lamott admits, she's not especially articulate. "I'm saying that spiritually this might be helpful, if you have a minute," she says. Readers, she adds, "are struggling with their old painful relationship with God, and they're asking a lot of questions about faith." Lamott believes she's helping the spiritually disenfranchised "find their way back into the fold."

If that's so, she's doing it in a distinctly unorthodox way. In "Plan B's" first essay, titled "Ham of God," for instance, Lamott prays for help in dealing with the George Bush presidency and the war in Iraq, both of which she opposes. God's response is to let her win a ham at a supermarket.

She's not exactly happy about the ham - which she rarely eats - but in the parking lot outside the supermarket, she runs into a desperately needy friend who loves ham, and Lamott gives it to her.

It's not exactly loaves and fishes, but it works in today's world....