I’ve been reading Anne Lamott’s latest book, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, and I’ve just read a chapter about the amazing David Roche. David was born with a large benign tumour on the lower left side of his face. Surgery to remove it removed his lower lip as well, and intensive radiation therapy has left him with many burns and scars. David had to grow up with this very severe facial deformity and I’m certain it left scars inside as well.

But a funny thing happened. David has turned his experiences into a career as, of all things, a humourist and motivational speaker. You see, as David sees it, he was blessed to have his “shadow side” on the outside, where he has been forced to deal with it. And he believes that his experiences are universal, that everyone struggles with feeling “deformed” and that our responses to his face are really about our own fears.

Anne Lamott says:

“There is no physical church but his own life: Both his performances and his work teaching people to tell their stories, their marvelous, screwed-up and often hilarious resurrection stories. Voilà: a church.

‘We in the Church of 80 Percent Sincerity do not believe in miracles,’ he said. ‘But we do believe that you have to stay alert, because good things happen. When God opens the door, you’ve got to put your foot in it.’

‘Look, 80 percent sincerity is about as good as it’s going to get. So is 80 percent compassion. 80 percent celibacy. So 20 percent of the time, you just get to be yourself.’

God, it’s such subversive material, so contrary to everything society leads us to believe–that if you look good, you’ll be happy, and have it all together, and then you’ll be successful and nothing will go wrong and you won’t have to die, and the rot can’t get in.”

Amen!