O'Connor: Prophet and Realist

"People without hope not only don't write novels, but what is more to the point,
they don't read them. They don't take long looks at anything, because they
lack the courage. The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of
experience. The lady who only read books that improved her mind was taking
a safe course--and a hopeless one. She'll never know whether her mind is
improved or not, but should she ever, by some mistake, read a great novel,
she'll know might well that something is happening to her." -- Flannery O'
Connor

While I have so far found many things that I haven't thought thoroughly enough about to say that I agree with, Mystery and Manners has yet to say anything that my sense of writing finds repugnant... O'Connor has already said many things which contradict my beliefs about the Writer and the writing process but she says it with such brilliancy I am finding it extremely difficult to argue with her. Almost immediately as soon as I read her chapter on "The Grotesque in Souther Fiction" I was beginning to like realism as a literary genre, but not just as a genre but as a writer's philosophy. Perhaps this all requires much more thought than I have given it but before I end this post I should at least say that the realism which the modern world praises is not the realism that O'Connor believes in. It is all a matter of seeing.

Another thing she does well is show how the writer of the grotesque and morbid can be the most Christian of artist; something which will be a very interesting subject matter in a future post.

Reasons why...

Fairest Lord Jesus,
Ruler of all nature,
O Thou of God and man the Son,
Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor,
Thou, my soul’s glory, joy and crown.

Fair are the meadows,
fairer still the woodlands,
Robed in the blooming garb of spring;
Jesus is fairer, Jesus is purer,
Who makes the woeful heart to sing.

Fair is the sunshine,
Fairer still the moonlight,
And all the twinkling starry host;
Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer
Than all the angels heaven can boast.

Beautiful Savior! Lord of all the nations!
Son of God and Son of Man!
Glory and honor, praise, adoration,
Now and forever more be Thine.

Of Seas and Shipwrecks

Lord, I am here. – But, child, I look for thee
Elsewhere and nearer Me. –
Lord, that way moans a wide and insatiate sea:
How can I come to Thee? –
Set foot upon the water, rest and see
If thou canst come to Me. –
Couldst Thou not send a boat to carry me,
Or dolphin swimming free? –

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There aren’t many experiences that I can recall as vividly as that first day out on the gulet boats sometime at 6 or 7 in the morning when the crew had already set us sailing across the Aegean Sea. I remember waking up and hearing the sound of the wind whipping wildly, only knowing that we had left Bodrum and we were going somewhere… I had no idea where. I got out of bed and went outside, finding several people already up taking in the experience. Going to the front of the boat, the experience is almost over powering for someone who has never been on a moving boat before. It is amazing. No matter how much the boat seems to rock you know you won’t fall out and you trust the crew to do their job. Imagine not having that confidence… the experience would be paralyzing. One can only imagine how terrifying it must be to be at sea in the middle of a storm.

Much of literature compares the ocean to the unpredictability of human existence. It is no wonder. The thing that is really striking about the nature of the sea is its formlessness; it is always changing. It is unpredictable if not entirely uncontrollable. You don’t know when the waves are going to strike, or how they are going to strike, you only know that they will. A full experience of the sea is not the same as experiencing water. It’s experiencing a combination of elements. It’s the water, the tide, the wind, the cold, the salt. And that means experiencing not just the wind in your hair and the thrill of sailing, but the bitterness of the salt and the terror of the storm.

Life is like the sea… I do not know that I will not sink. In fact, I am terrified that I will sink. Actually, I know that I will sink. And it’s knowing that that makes me wonder… why oh why does Peter attempt to walk upon the waves? He is only one man against the vast ocean. It is because his Lord tells him to come, and he comes knowing that the Divine Creator of the ocean will not allow the water to give way under his feet. Yet the miracle of walking on water was not enough. Irrational doubt crept into Peter’s mind. The power of the wind crippled him with fear. It is almost too easy to get overwhelmed with the terror of the storm, when things get too hard, too confusing, and far too unpredictable. Knowing our own strength against the waves, how weak we can be… we cannot control the wind. We cannot control the waves. They beat against us without rhythm or reason, and the wind throws us so far off course that it is more than a challenge to try to find our way again.

Mercifully we are not left to find our own way. In that very moment of crippling fear Jesus “immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’” (Matthew 14:31). Why oh why did Peter doubt when the God in Whom we live and move and have our being is before him? How did fear grip him when he could see with his own eyes that Jesus—not a ghost but in corporeal form—was walking upon the waves Himself and was calling for him?

It is the same reason we fear anything at all. But it is on these waves which we walk, amidst the wind which tugs and pulls at us from all sides, that our will to control our environment must be surrendered. We must surrender, lest we drown. It is in surrendering and entrusting our entire well-being to the Invisible that we are saved. It is here where the wind ceases and the storm is calmed.

Better to be like Paul headed toward Rome then Odysseus traveling the wide sea. While one man had an inner passion to return to the home he longs for, the other has an inner strength from an external Source—the Divine Fount—an eternal hope which defies all human rationality. Paul had the knowledge of the inevitable hardships of storm and shipwreck—but his journey was a divine mission. He had every reason to fear--that is, if he had only himself to trust—but he saw the Lord before him across the sea and believed.

Mankind may not control the waves or the wind, but they do have the choice to believe.

To despair is to sink below the waves; to hope is to walk on water.

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Nay, boat nor fish if thy will faileth thee:
For My Will to is free. –
O Lord, I am afraid. – Take
Hold on Me:
I am stronger than the sea. –
Save Lord, I perish. – I have
Hold of thee.
I made and rule the sea,
I bring thee to the haven where though wouldst be.

– Christina Rossetti

Some long sentences on the beginning of summer, for it has already been quite overwhelming....

Dear Lonely Blog,

How long has it been since I have spoken to thee? Quite a while it seems... and while I was really very tempted to give up on you (for I am afraid that I was losing some interest in attending to thee) I have instead taken up a new resolution to continue on in keeping thee updated, so long as time permits. But alas, it is summer... time permits! And so long as I choose to make thee a priority, you may yet have a longer life.

Only a few weeks into the summer and I have found myself in many beautiful places. So many places in fact that I can hardly keep track of them all. Near the end of May I had the privilege to go to Turkey and Greece with a group of amazing people... 50 to be exact. Most of them were students, a few were faculty. It was an amazing experience, one I have yet to wrap my head around... one that I doubt I will ever wrap my head around. There is so much history I can hardly keep it in my head. It would be absurd to try to remember it ALL (There might be something to be said for trying). Gratefully, I have the benefit of having kept a journal about the trip and as I re-read my entries, and continue to study in order to fill in where my understanding of human antiquity is deficient, I may gain a better comprehension of the experience as a whole. And while I may wish that I had been better prepared for the trip, as my friend Anja told me on the last day in Corinth, this experience will be a resource for us that we can draw from as we return home to "make tents." I am so glad that I was given the opportunity to not only go on such a lovely journey with so many fantastic people to so many fantastic places, but also to have gone on a pilgrimage to the places of Paul's ministry and the conquering of Delphi... even to the end of the world. I am glad to be reminded of the strength and of the endurance given to us by the Spirit, of the example set for us by God's servant Paul, not only in proclaiming the Gospel of Christ, but as we study and work and make tents. I am very glad though, for those times when you can take a break from making tents and for once in your whole life pray in one voice at the theater in Ephesus and worship our Savior together in the Body.

We are One in the Spirit. We are One in the Lord.
And we pray that our unity will one day be restored.
And they will know we are Christians by our love.

When one member suffers...

the whole body suffers.

“O Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” - Luke 23:34

Thy lovely saints do bring Thee love...

....Incense and joy and gold;
Fair star with star, fair dove with dove,
Have brought Thee sins and tears;
Yet I too bring a little love
Amid my flaws and fears.
A trembling love that faints and fails
Yet still is love of Thee,
A wondering love that hopes and hails
Thy boundless Love of me;
Love kindling faith and pure desire,
Love following on to bliss,
A spark, O Jesu, from Thy fire,
A drop from Thine abyss. - C.R.

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What does one do with the things in life which God gives you? As human beings, when someone gives us a gift it often seems to be the tendency to take it, own it, and do with it as we please. But when it comes to gifts from God, that is a different matter. He gives them to us not to possess but to nurture and make abundant... so that we may give it back to Him for His glory and honor. Just like in the parable of the talents where the man entrusts his servants with his property, when God blesses us (and these blessings come in many forms, but they are always things we do not deserve. They are the things which God gives to us to show His overflowing love for us. Even though He could have stopped giving us things we didn't deserve at the resurrection, we see Him still thinking of us, in His sending the Holy Spirit, and in His involvement in our lives in ways we could never have hoped or expected). He gives to us so that we may be like Him in His desire to make abundant what is good and beautiful, so that we may imitate Him in His fecundity by cultivating and caring for these things. Yet if we try to possess it, which is not ours in the first place to possess, and if we do not do what we have been commissioned by Him to do, we become like the servant who did not invest the talents given to him, and will be left to admit to our Master: "I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground" (Matthew 25:24-25). This fear to invest in the masters money is self-focused. It is a fear of losing that thing which He has given to us without realizing that it is not about us at all. Yet we do not want to lose it; we do not want to give it up. There is a risk involved, to be sure, but do we not have faith that God in His wisdom chose us to care for it and that He knows what He is doing? If we do not take the risk it will not even be given the chance to grow.
We have to take the risk, even if we doubt that we are capable of managing it well. After all, if God chose to give it to us then we do not need to fear at our own limitations and inabilities. Perhaps the responsibility is overwhelming, but it does not have to be. And if we can learn to trust and love God; if we can recognize that He is the Master who reaps where He has not sowed and gathered where He scattered no seed, then what He has set before us will be given the chance to flourish and abound, and become all that He intended it to be, and indeed, all that we hoped it would be.

It is then that we will have gained all that we did not want to lose, and it is then that our Master will turn to us and say "Well done, good and faithful servant" (Matthew 25:21).

Of ... so many things

For the past few hours I have been sitting in my dorm room trying to edit my term paper before I send it off to be graded by the writing director. But my mind keeps wandering. For the past few weeks many things have been disturbing my otherwise calm spirit. Community has an amazing way of drawing vices out of hiding. Not that I regret that my flaws and imperfections and vices have been revealed: for those people in my life--my mentor and my closest friends--who are most aware of the things on my mind, are then able to help me, guide me, in finding the answers. Nevertheless, I feel an ache at the very thought of my flaws and faults, and would much sooner force my issues back into hiding than bring them into the light so that they may be scrutinized by my peers. It hurts to acknowledge and accept that I am not the person I wish I was. I have a lot of growing to do. Even though the pursuit of goodness never really ends in this life (Who can say they have acquired all the goodness that can be acquired?) I do feel this never ending self-imposed pressure to be better than I am, and I think that its enough pressure to actually prevent me from doing so. Why do I do this to myself? Is it pride? It's so easy to say, yep, its pride... the greatest human vice. And while, in one sense, I would like to say "No, my psyche is much more complex than that" I am afraid that if I were to be the honest person that I want to be then I must admit, this pressure is only the result of my not wanting to wait for God to sanctify and perfect me according to His will. Could I even say... gee I hate saying this... Have I been trying to sanctify myself? Is it all a matter of what other people think? Of what I think of myself? Ugh... how could I be so far off the mark... even this realization makes me sick.

O Lord, forgive me!