With all the vitriol and praying and summoning of the opinion of Jesus, I thought I had logged onto the 700 Club web site by mistake. I think the carpet dude was lucky Anne didn't waterboard him.

A year ago, Anne wrote a piece about meeting Ted Kennedy -http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/lamott/2004/10/27/teddy/index.html - you could almost smell the stain she left on her seat, such was her swooning for the fat womanizing liberal from MA. So I sent her a note wondering how she felt about Kennedy's reputation as a rake and his cowardice and lying regarding the death of Mary Jo Kopechne - her reply: FUCK YOU! She later sent a note of apology, but I'd say her first note was the real Anne - and all the Jesus shit is about a faker who talks a nice Christian game but is as piggish as the carpet guy (not to mention, you'd think a best selling author could shell out for a new carpet, but hey, money is money...)

The idea of turning the other cheek is not solely a Christian idea. It's in Buddhism and in Spinoza's work, to name two places. The intention is to look for peace in your own head before you start trying to impose rightness on the rest of humanity.

I thought Salon was relatively Jesus-free. This smarmy, self-righteous, badly written, hypocrtical slush belongs somewhere else - Readers' Digest maybe - but not here. Let's hope the poor little asthmatic Sunday school mites get a cut of her fee along with the religious brainwashing they are powerless to avoid. Oh, and why are there seven pages of identical letters?

Is this article supposed to be instructive???? All I got out of it is that Anne Lamott is one stupid woman. By extending grace and forgiveness to this crook, all she has done is ensure that he'll go on cheating other people. She should have called the police. Then, once he was locked up, she could forgive and forget.

Dear Anne lamott

My dear there are far more serious things going on in the world than the trivial story of your carpet.There people right down in dark places because their sons & daughters are mutilated in iraq,cancer patient grasping for their life,natural disasters overtaking the world,David Letterman meeting Oprah after all his whinnings-i mean-- seriously Anne????

Bashir

Not sure if this writer is one of those rare birds: a liberal Christian. But her surprise and annoyance over the actions of the carpet guy needs a dash of perspective. First, you do business with someone like that (not know them, not check out their products, not have any leverage with them), don't be surprised when they rip you for 50$. And, unless you're willing to follow him home and take a monkey-wrench to his knees, don't expect your money back. A good slap in the mouth usually works (but the legal price does out-weight the satisfaction). Fuming and praying is useless. Yahweh is the greatest trickster we've ever imagined. Remeber that bit about creating the earth, then drowning everyone in it (except of few lucky lottery winners)? Yeah, that's the world we live in. It's mad. Don't be surprised. Be prepared. Next time, take out a big bible and smack him in the face with it (binder side, deary). When the cops come, claim you simply laid it at his feet. Then flick the stunned carpet guy off behind their backs. That will be worth the 50$. At least you'll have a story with some backbone in it.

It's pretty easy to get caught up in the way we've been mistreated, the nastiness of the person who did it, etc., etc. And even when all of that's true, it's not that productive to go soaring off into self-righteousness. So I'm grateful for Ann's reminder that we are, in fact, morally and ethically responsible to clean up our side of the street.

On the other hand, turning the other cheek isn't about being a doormat for others, though this is unfortunately the way many Christians and others think about it. It's possible to both say "I could have done better" and "what you're doing is not O.K." The problem with Ann's column isn't that it's wrong, but simply that it doesn't go far enough. Ann did right in giving up violence and retaliation in her interactions with the carpet guy (even emotional violence and retaliation). The next crucial step, and one this column didn't explore, would have been to figure out what nonviolent ENGAGEMENT with the carpet man could have looked like. The point of forgiveness is both to free us from passivity in the face of abuse and to offer those who wrong us freedom from their abusive behavior.

I get the point of this story. She got mad, she overcame her anger, she used her religion as a crutch to get there. I get it.

But it is a lame story about a lame person reacting lamely. Hooray that she was able to get past her anger, I guess. But the crook still ripped her off. And she rolled over for him. And then she rewarded him. Hooray for Anne.

This woman is a best-selling author? Yikes!!

When I read this piece I saw it as a metaphor about how to live with the rage over the way Bush and his cronies are swindling America. The solution might not be as easy as taking him to small claims court. It makes sense to me that we have to each deal with our anger through forgiveness rather than living in a constant state of anger, fighting to get repayment from someone who may just be bankrupt.

(am I the only one who has a loop of repeating prior messages?)

this article is making me cry, making me cry.

julien650 writes:

The guy was a criminal and a jerk. There is no doubt that he has done this to people before and will do it to people again. But, why is that Anne's problem?

Here is why I think it is Anne's problem:

When we know someone is a criminal, it is our duty as citizens to, at the very least, warn other people about that fact. Ideally, we will take the steps necessary make it impossible for that criminal to victimize others. But at the very least, we must warn others about him. If we don't, then we bear a measure of the responsibility the next time that criminal steals from someone. It is part of the implied covenant of society.