I've had an ongoing love affair with Anne Lamott's writing guides for several years.

Whenever I feel overwhelmed by current events and the latest misadventures of the crooks, thieves, and miscreants inhabiting the White House, I am reminded of her father's advice: "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird."

Imagine my joy upon revisiting Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life when I came across a passage that is surely the daVinci code of liberally blogging.

I honestly think in order to be a writer, you have to learn to be reverent. If not, why are you writing? Why are you here?

Let's think of reverence as awe, as presence and openness to the world. The alternative is that we stultify, we shut down. Think of those times when you've read prose or poetry that is presented in such a way that you have a fleeting sense of being startled by beauty or insight, by a glimpse into someone's soul. All of a sudden everything seems to fit together or at least to have some meaning for a moment. This is our goal as writers, I think; to help others have this sense of—please forgive me—wonder, of seeing things anew, things that can catch us off guard, that break in our small, bordered worlds. When this happens, everything feels more spacious. Try walking around with a child who's going, 'Wow, wow! Look at that dirty dog! Look at that burned-down house! lLok at the red sky!" And the child points and you look, and you see, and you start going, "Wow! Look at that huge crazy hedge! Look at that teeny little baby! Look at that scary dark cloud!" I think this is how we are supposed to be in the world—present and in awe.

Now compare that concept to the writing style of your favorite liberal bloggers. Notice the sense of awe and reverence? The respect they have of language and a turn of phrase to convey the inter-connectedness of life?

None of that exists in the rightwing blogosphere. I've read the so-called A-List conservative bloggers and their essays are rife with fear, stereotypes, and embittered presumptions. Or as Anne so aptly concludes:

To be engrossed by something outside of ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently has its head up its own ass—seeing things in such a narrow and darkly narcissistic way that it presents a colo-rectal theology, offering hope to no one.

• blogging