These are a few of my favorite responses by Percy from his interview with Linda Whitney Hobson in 1985.
Q: Why especially [the peculiar predicament of the late twentieth-century man] in the South?
A: Well, in writing The Second Coming, I found the South, and particularly North Carolina, a valuable setting because of the peculiar confluence of two things that have happened in the South in the past ten or twenty years: number one, what's been called the power shift--the shift of power and money to the South. For the first time since the Civil War, the South is getting rich. And the other thing is the tremendous re-Christianization of the South--high-powered evangelical Christianity. Thus, it's of value to me to take a man like Will Barrett and set him down in the South: he finds himself in what the psychiatrists call a "double bind"--a no-win situation. From the beginning, and all through his life he has experienced a loss of sovereignty which has occurred in the lives of most of us as well, even though we appear to be freer, to have more, to be more individualistic, to have access to more than any people on earth. Despite this, a loss of sovereignty has occurred so that we are more subject to invisible authority--scientists and so forth. We now think of what one should do in a certain situation, not what I should do. Will Barrett is a man who, whatever his faults, has reclaimed sovereignty; he demands to know what it's all about--and he always has.
Q: As long as we're discussing dramatic conflict, let's discuss the conflict between you and classical psychiatry. The relationship between Will and Allie in The Second Coming seems to belie what psychologists and psychiatrists counsel people to do these days. They tell people to sit down and come to know and approve of themselves by themselves, and there's a fallacy in that kind of solitary pep talk.
A: Yes. You have to define that self through ordeal, which the psychologists don't tell people. And God knows, it takes an awful lot of ordeal--Will has to almost shoot himself and Allie has to go crazy--and what I'm saying is that it takes an awful lot these days to come to a sense of self. It doesn't do any good to be told how to live, and it doesn't do any good to tell yourself how to live. You have to learn it yourself, through ordeal. And the language fails, unless you do it by ordeal.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Return the Unutterable
Walker Percy uses imagery in describing Alli's greenhouse that seems to build a cathedral in its glory, not an overgrown, abandoned garden.
"The sun behind him was reflected from a bank of windows...
A steep copper hood, verdigrised green-brown, shaded the front door like a cathedral porch...
Iron spoikes and fleurs-de-lis sprouted from the roof peek..."
Inside the greenhouse, Percy is depicting a moment of holiness that breaks away from the game of golf and pretending to enjoy spending time with people Will Barrett really cannot stand. Hidden away from the clean-cut, manicured, controlled environment of Will's world, he stumbles upon Allie's home: a place of wildness, growth, and words that do not seem to make sense. The truest things said in The Second Coming are the words of the girl who has forgotten everything, does not understand much, and cannot speak well. In Allie's forgetfulness, Will finds remembrance...and so should we.
Percy's Christianity is hearkening back to the days of the Medieval; of cathedrals, wildness, mystery, and fewer words found in the awe of the Supernatural. Explanations are not given, for they are not always necessary. Crossing the bridge backwards from the Enlightenment to the Medieval, we discover something that we have lost.
Allie's eyes see things differently. "Her gaze was steady and unfocused. Either she was not seeing him...or else she was seeing all of him because all at once he became aware of himself..."
Allie speaks differently. "She spoke slowly and carefully as if she were reading the words on his face..."
Allie lives differently.
Allie is different. She is the opposite of the Enlightenment - of Modernity. When she speaks, her words are neither expected nor always completely understood; they are mysterious, but they are sincere. They are true. Near the end of the novel, Will discovers his deep love for her. He also discovers that she has a beautiful voice, and he asks her why she has not sung before. I didn't feel like it. I stopped...because I thought I had to sing. Will then asks her if she will sing in the future. Yes...because I don't have to.
Allie is not rational. She is wild, and she continues to confound Will every minute he is with her. He cannot comprehend her; but he understands what she says. He translates her to the world. She holds him tight and lifts him up.
In the cathedral of the greenhouse, Will encounters the mystery of Allie. He cannot explain her, but he does not need to. In his unanswered questions lies his love for her. In awe of who she is - without rational reasons of why she is so - Will is saved from the society that was suffocating him. He remembers...his modernity is succeeded by her simplicity and complexity. They are "concealed" - held safe by each other. Allie "hoists" Will as he continues to fall; Will interprets Allie when no one understands her. They are "revealed" - they find love as they bare their hearts to each other.
In the cathedral, we remember the days when we entered in, not with demands for explanations, but with a heart overwhelmed by a Power so much greater than us. In the inexplicable we found peace, comfort, and purpose. In the mysterious, we found Truth. We embraced Love. We surrendered. We believed that words would never be enough...we relied on the "groanings that cannot be uttered." We were dependent on a relationship that could not exist by our lives alone, but on the life of Another in communion with our own. When we fell, He lifted us. When we could not speak, He interceded for us. Why do we not return?
"The sun behind him was reflected from a bank of windows...
A steep copper hood, verdigrised green-brown, shaded the front door like a cathedral porch...
Iron spoikes and fleurs-de-lis sprouted from the roof peek..."
Inside the greenhouse, Percy is depicting a moment of holiness that breaks away from the game of golf and pretending to enjoy spending time with people Will Barrett really cannot stand. Hidden away from the clean-cut, manicured, controlled environment of Will's world, he stumbles upon Allie's home: a place of wildness, growth, and words that do not seem to make sense. The truest things said in The Second Coming are the words of the girl who has forgotten everything, does not understand much, and cannot speak well. In Allie's forgetfulness, Will finds remembrance...and so should we.
Percy's Christianity is hearkening back to the days of the Medieval; of cathedrals, wildness, mystery, and fewer words found in the awe of the Supernatural. Explanations are not given, for they are not always necessary. Crossing the bridge backwards from the Enlightenment to the Medieval, we discover something that we have lost.
Allie's eyes see things differently. "Her gaze was steady and unfocused. Either she was not seeing him...or else she was seeing all of him because all at once he became aware of himself..."
Allie speaks differently. "She spoke slowly and carefully as if she were reading the words on his face..."
Allie lives differently.
Allie is different. She is the opposite of the Enlightenment - of Modernity. When she speaks, her words are neither expected nor always completely understood; they are mysterious, but they are sincere. They are true. Near the end of the novel, Will discovers his deep love for her. He also discovers that she has a beautiful voice, and he asks her why she has not sung before. I didn't feel like it. I stopped...because I thought I had to sing. Will then asks her if she will sing in the future. Yes...because I don't have to.
Allie is not rational. She is wild, and she continues to confound Will every minute he is with her. He cannot comprehend her; but he understands what she says. He translates her to the world. She holds him tight and lifts him up.
In the cathedral of the greenhouse, Will encounters the mystery of Allie. He cannot explain her, but he does not need to. In his unanswered questions lies his love for her. In awe of who she is - without rational reasons of why she is so - Will is saved from the society that was suffocating him. He remembers...his modernity is succeeded by her simplicity and complexity. They are "concealed" - held safe by each other. Allie "hoists" Will as he continues to fall; Will interprets Allie when no one understands her. They are "revealed" - they find love as they bare their hearts to each other.
In the cathedral, we remember the days when we entered in, not with demands for explanations, but with a heart overwhelmed by a Power so much greater than us. In the inexplicable we found peace, comfort, and purpose. In the mysterious, we found Truth. We embraced Love. We surrendered. We believed that words would never be enough...we relied on the "groanings that cannot be uttered." We were dependent on a relationship that could not exist by our lives alone, but on the life of Another in communion with our own. When we fell, He lifted us. When we could not speak, He interceded for us. Why do we not return?
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Green House Effect
Allie seeks refuge with a green house. The green house is constantly used to grow things and to cultivate life. The green house is defined by the color green, the word house, and the life that it gives.
The color green is the color that is traditionaly used to represent life. Allie seeks refuge in the place of life. This ruined house is now being used to cultivate new life in the place of the ruined life of Allie. Though she was once imprisoned in an assylum, she is now free, living in the remains of what once held life. The life of the plants destroyed the walls of the house. Now, in the abundant life of nature, the life of Allie is able to be cultivated and allowed to explode upon the world.
Without the word house, we would not be able to understand that the green house was actually a house. If we just called it green there would be no definition to it. It is a house of life. It is meant to hold and to cultivate life. Though the house is broken, it is still able to cause life. It does not actually cultivate and contain anymore, but it establishes. In the establishment of new life, one can grow. The fact that it is broken indicates that life has no bounds. One can do almost anything and there are no boundaries or rules to living.
This new life is extravagent. Life is now free and wild, left to do as it pleases. The laws and rules of society are virtualy inexistant within the confines of the broken green house. Now, within the shattered walls of the life house, Allie is allowed to live with no restriction and with joy. She is able to have fun and love what she does. She thinks as she wants and speaks in a way that she understands.
Let's all go live in the wildness of nature.
The color green is the color that is traditionaly used to represent life. Allie seeks refuge in the place of life. This ruined house is now being used to cultivate new life in the place of the ruined life of Allie. Though she was once imprisoned in an assylum, she is now free, living in the remains of what once held life. The life of the plants destroyed the walls of the house. Now, in the abundant life of nature, the life of Allie is able to be cultivated and allowed to explode upon the world.
Without the word house, we would not be able to understand that the green house was actually a house. If we just called it green there would be no definition to it. It is a house of life. It is meant to hold and to cultivate life. Though the house is broken, it is still able to cause life. It does not actually cultivate and contain anymore, but it establishes. In the establishment of new life, one can grow. The fact that it is broken indicates that life has no bounds. One can do almost anything and there are no boundaries or rules to living.
This new life is extravagent. Life is now free and wild, left to do as it pleases. The laws and rules of society are virtualy inexistant within the confines of the broken green house. Now, within the shattered walls of the life house, Allie is allowed to live with no restriction and with joy. She is able to have fun and love what she does. She thinks as she wants and speaks in a way that she understands.
Let's all go live in the wildness of nature.
Hazel Motes
Hazel Motes exibits the signs of one who has been tainted by religion, marked by sin, and saved by Christ.
His grandfather constantly berrated him and badgered him. He threatened him with the name of Jesus. Instead of being the Savior, Jesus was to Motes a monster in the closet, someone hunting him through the trees in the his imagination. Motes lives his life hiding and running from the scary Jesus which his mother used as a punishment, his grandfather used as a threat, and culture used as a restraining rod.
Sin marks Motes throughout his entire life. He was hurt in the war because of his cowardice. He was scorned by Mrs. Watts because of his desire to experience sexual pleasure. He was scorned by Onnie Jay Holie because of his unerring desire to run from Jesus. Even the sin of his car marked him. He believed that the car was his ultimate escape. In essence, he is a modern day Jonah. Though his whale was his car, it eventually spit him up.
He ended up losing his car and being saved by the Jesus he was running from. The patrolman shoved his car off the cliff and allowed him to see God coming toward him in the horizon. This sight caused him to blind himself; for, as he was face-to-face with the Almighty, all he saw was his sin. What can you see other than all your evil when you are in the presence of holiness? He blinds himself so that he doesn't have to look at what he has done and so that he can examine his internal desires to be with Jesus. He is also able to focus on the pain that his sin has caused as he does his penance.
He is definitely tainted by religion but saved by Jesus
His grandfather constantly berrated him and badgered him. He threatened him with the name of Jesus. Instead of being the Savior, Jesus was to Motes a monster in the closet, someone hunting him through the trees in the his imagination. Motes lives his life hiding and running from the scary Jesus which his mother used as a punishment, his grandfather used as a threat, and culture used as a restraining rod.
Sin marks Motes throughout his entire life. He was hurt in the war because of his cowardice. He was scorned by Mrs. Watts because of his desire to experience sexual pleasure. He was scorned by Onnie Jay Holie because of his unerring desire to run from Jesus. Even the sin of his car marked him. He believed that the car was his ultimate escape. In essence, he is a modern day Jonah. Though his whale was his car, it eventually spit him up.
He ended up losing his car and being saved by the Jesus he was running from. The patrolman shoved his car off the cliff and allowed him to see God coming toward him in the horizon. This sight caused him to blind himself; for, as he was face-to-face with the Almighty, all he saw was his sin. What can you see other than all your evil when you are in the presence of holiness? He blinds himself so that he doesn't have to look at what he has done and so that he can examine his internal desires to be with Jesus. He is also able to focus on the pain that his sin has caused as he does his penance.
He is definitely tainted by religion but saved by Jesus
Scouring the Shire
The Lord of the Rings may be one of the most amazing works of fiction the Tolkien ever wrote. Or it may not be. Either way, it's up to you to decide; however, the makers of the movie left out one of the scenes that would have made the movie into the phenomenon that the book was. By leaving out the Scouring of the Shire, they caused the change in the hobbits to go by unnoticed, the extension of Sauron's evil is not fully understood, nor is the extent of Aragorn's power.
In the book, the hobbits swoop into the Shire and save the day. Frodo is seen as the leader. He returns to his home far older than his years. He restrains the hobbits from killing the men who had overrun the village. He also takes part in the fight, not to mention that he is the voice of the hobbits. He makes every demand and is the headman for the hobbits. The rest of the hobbits fight with courage and bravery. They each have a special task to perform and perform it with excellence.
By leaving out this chapter, the movie producers failed to show the extension of evil. Sin is an all encompassing and all corrupting entity. Tolkien wanted to show that even the precious Shire is sussptible to evil. Evil can overcome everyone, no matter how pure you may be. The wickedness of Sauron has tainted all of Middle Earth. The Hobbits of the Shire are no exclusion.
By leaving out this scene, the producers also avoided showing the purging power of the King. Aragorn's power has extended all throughout Middle Earth. The Hobbits are living and breathing representations of the changed lives that the King has enstilled. His arm will eventually begin to reclaim the area surrounding the Shire, and the Hobbits have been marked by him. Aragorn and his power are not going to be stopped, but he is going to purge the evil of Sauron from the world.
The movie people should have left the scene in the movie.
In the book, the hobbits swoop into the Shire and save the day. Frodo is seen as the leader. He returns to his home far older than his years. He restrains the hobbits from killing the men who had overrun the village. He also takes part in the fight, not to mention that he is the voice of the hobbits. He makes every demand and is the headman for the hobbits. The rest of the hobbits fight with courage and bravery. They each have a special task to perform and perform it with excellence.
By leaving out this chapter, the movie producers failed to show the extension of evil. Sin is an all encompassing and all corrupting entity. Tolkien wanted to show that even the precious Shire is sussptible to evil. Evil can overcome everyone, no matter how pure you may be. The wickedness of Sauron has tainted all of Middle Earth. The Hobbits of the Shire are no exclusion.
By leaving out this scene, the producers also avoided showing the purging power of the King. Aragorn's power has extended all throughout Middle Earth. The Hobbits are living and breathing representations of the changed lives that the King has enstilled. His arm will eventually begin to reclaim the area surrounding the Shire, and the Hobbits have been marked by him. Aragorn and his power are not going to be stopped, but he is going to purge the evil of Sauron from the world.
The movie people should have left the scene in the movie.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
From Chesterton to Percy: Christianity and Literature
Clearly, the main task of apologetics for the novelist is the defense of man and not the defense of God.
God is completely able to handle himself.
I have thoroughly enjoyed our class this semester. The books we have read have all (save for Perelandra) brought major issues and questions that modern man must wrestle with in order to be able to see clearly the Gospel and man's need for God. Whether its Chesterton's crazy anarchists, Greene's whiskey priest, Williams' Stanhope the poet, Tolkien's triumphant King, O'Connor's Haze Motes, or Percy's crazy greenhouse Allie, there has been a constant stream of good literature (interrupted by the ridiculous Perelandra) that has served to defend man and to defend him well.
So, in my final blog for the class; I wanted to go through each book (even Perelandra) and give some brief thoughts.
GK Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday
This book was perhaps one of most bizzare books/plots I have ever read up until Charles Williams' Descent into Hell (more on that later). What I gathered mostly from this book is that things are rarely as they seem and that sometimes we need a real rockin' party at the end of the novel to help us to be reconnected with God. Even though it is hard to draw alot from it, this book was a very decent story in its own right.
Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory
This was my second favorite novel and one that I think spoke powerfully and clearly. The whiskey priest is not a very admirable individual until the end of the book when he is brought to the light of salvation and he finally accepts the destiny he has of being the last priest and the last fireworks of God in an age of a triumphant secular humanism. Greene goes right for our complacency and our comfort by teaching us that if we really believe something to be true, then to be authentic we must be willing to pay the price, to step forward and die for it. He also shows us how God uses pathetic, broken human beings to make a statement about grace to the entire world. At the same time, Greene reveals the heart of corrupt; work-less religion that takes stipend for the government to save its own skin and no longer is a prophetic voice against madness and oppression. Magnificent book.
Charles Williams' Descent into Hell
I like some of ideas Williams expresses in the novel, but the plot of the novel is so bizzare that I simply cannot connect with it. This was the second worst novel in the whole bunch. I did like the idea of sharing one another's burdens in the literal sense and what Williams did with that. I also like how Williams commentated on authenticity over facade; how withdrawing from the real will doom one to an increasingly hellish, idealistic existence, while embracing the real (and even somewhat strange and creepy) will be the way to life and true human existence. I liked those themes but the book was too hard to read.
CS Lewis' Perelandra
Horrible, simply wretched like every other attempt Lewis at fiction. This novel was not just bizzare, it was utterly ridiculous with space travel being achieved through Medieval thought rather than Eistenian physics; which is just plain stupid. The novel was obvious and the character rather incredible. It seems rather idiotic to me to devote so much of one's time to rebuking Milton for his satan and for literally having Ransom (I wonder what his name means...) fight the "Un-man." This book was so blatantly obvious and CS Lewis tries to describe God and just starts babbling incoherently to the point where one wants to hurl their book at the window to escape the abyss that has formed around one's mind.
Tolkien's The Return of the The King
Tolkien is the opposite of Lewis; which is probably why I like him. Tolkien, as Dr. Mitchell pointed out, shows God as a pinpoint of light in a very seemingly hopeless and often turmoiled world. Good and evil clash in an epic battle for the fate of Middle Earth. Hope while apparent always hangs by a thread; a constant reminder that were it not for divine help all hope would perish. Tolkien creates a truly fantastic, and immersive world; something that Lewis fails miserably at with Narnia.
Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood
O'Connor delivers with the grotesque and how grace is somehow dirty and not clean cut. Haze Motes is haunted by Jesus Christ the entire novel until he is forced into the recognition that despite his attempt at having a "Church without Christ," that he is unclean. O'Connor's grace is not sentimental and we are allowed to see evil as it really is and the way out. Good book.
Walker Percy The Second Coming
To be honest, I have not finished reading this, but I have been doing a paper on Walker Percy and Dr. Mitchell is right, I am alot like him. Time has robbed me of full enjoyment of his novel, but I like Percy the most because he speaks to our condition the best. O'Connor can truly bring out grotesque evil, but Percy brings out our lostness and our need to find our way home. He also has the amazing ability to point out the absurd and to point out that perhaps we, not the "crazies," are the insane ones.
God is completely able to handle himself.
I have thoroughly enjoyed our class this semester. The books we have read have all (save for Perelandra) brought major issues and questions that modern man must wrestle with in order to be able to see clearly the Gospel and man's need for God. Whether its Chesterton's crazy anarchists, Greene's whiskey priest, Williams' Stanhope the poet, Tolkien's triumphant King, O'Connor's Haze Motes, or Percy's crazy greenhouse Allie, there has been a constant stream of good literature (interrupted by the ridiculous Perelandra) that has served to defend man and to defend him well.
So, in my final blog for the class; I wanted to go through each book (even Perelandra) and give some brief thoughts.
GK Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday
This book was perhaps one of most bizzare books/plots I have ever read up until Charles Williams' Descent into Hell (more on that later). What I gathered mostly from this book is that things are rarely as they seem and that sometimes we need a real rockin' party at the end of the novel to help us to be reconnected with God. Even though it is hard to draw alot from it, this book was a very decent story in its own right.
Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory
This was my second favorite novel and one that I think spoke powerfully and clearly. The whiskey priest is not a very admirable individual until the end of the book when he is brought to the light of salvation and he finally accepts the destiny he has of being the last priest and the last fireworks of God in an age of a triumphant secular humanism. Greene goes right for our complacency and our comfort by teaching us that if we really believe something to be true, then to be authentic we must be willing to pay the price, to step forward and die for it. He also shows us how God uses pathetic, broken human beings to make a statement about grace to the entire world. At the same time, Greene reveals the heart of corrupt; work-less religion that takes stipend for the government to save its own skin and no longer is a prophetic voice against madness and oppression. Magnificent book.
Charles Williams' Descent into Hell
I like some of ideas Williams expresses in the novel, but the plot of the novel is so bizzare that I simply cannot connect with it. This was the second worst novel in the whole bunch. I did like the idea of sharing one another's burdens in the literal sense and what Williams did with that. I also like how Williams commentated on authenticity over facade; how withdrawing from the real will doom one to an increasingly hellish, idealistic existence, while embracing the real (and even somewhat strange and creepy) will be the way to life and true human existence. I liked those themes but the book was too hard to read.
CS Lewis' Perelandra
Horrible, simply wretched like every other attempt Lewis at fiction. This novel was not just bizzare, it was utterly ridiculous with space travel being achieved through Medieval thought rather than Eistenian physics; which is just plain stupid. The novel was obvious and the character rather incredible. It seems rather idiotic to me to devote so much of one's time to rebuking Milton for his satan and for literally having Ransom (I wonder what his name means...) fight the "Un-man." This book was so blatantly obvious and CS Lewis tries to describe God and just starts babbling incoherently to the point where one wants to hurl their book at the window to escape the abyss that has formed around one's mind.
Tolkien's The Return of the The King
Tolkien is the opposite of Lewis; which is probably why I like him. Tolkien, as Dr. Mitchell pointed out, shows God as a pinpoint of light in a very seemingly hopeless and often turmoiled world. Good and evil clash in an epic battle for the fate of Middle Earth. Hope while apparent always hangs by a thread; a constant reminder that were it not for divine help all hope would perish. Tolkien creates a truly fantastic, and immersive world; something that Lewis fails miserably at with Narnia.
Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood
O'Connor delivers with the grotesque and how grace is somehow dirty and not clean cut. Haze Motes is haunted by Jesus Christ the entire novel until he is forced into the recognition that despite his attempt at having a "Church without Christ," that he is unclean. O'Connor's grace is not sentimental and we are allowed to see evil as it really is and the way out. Good book.
Walker Percy The Second Coming
To be honest, I have not finished reading this, but I have been doing a paper on Walker Percy and Dr. Mitchell is right, I am alot like him. Time has robbed me of full enjoyment of his novel, but I like Percy the most because he speaks to our condition the best. O'Connor can truly bring out grotesque evil, but Percy brings out our lostness and our need to find our way home. He also has the amazing ability to point out the absurd and to point out that perhaps we, not the "crazies," are the insane ones.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
I couldn't think of anything fun to look for. I looked up luger and both of the cars, but I decided to to step away from what I usually do. I found these quotes on answers.com.
"Since grief only aggravates your loss, grieve not for what is past."
"You live in a deranged age, more deranged that usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing."
"The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair."
I think I like the third one best. We do tend to get stuck in our ways and want to search for something, but then we get complacent.
"Since grief only aggravates your loss, grieve not for what is past."
"You live in a deranged age, more deranged that usual, because in spite of great scientific and technological advances, man has not the faintest idea of who he is or what he is doing."
"The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair."
I think I like the third one best. We do tend to get stuck in our ways and want to search for something, but then we get complacent.
Perception
Perception is very skewed in The Second Coming. Allie’s parents are convinced that she is a mental case because she does not know how to interact “correctly” in the world, and Allie thinks that she has to be nice to everyone so as to not make them feel uncomfortable (Percy 85). She does not act like everyone else does, and because of this, her parents put her in a mental institution. She does say funny things like “a circle of knees is more interesting than a circle of faces,” but this could be true (Percy 27). Most of the time, people judge what they see based on people’s faces or appearance. Allie was tired of everyone judging her (which is kind of funny considering that she is in a mental institution), so she stares at their knees instead. Her parents have tried everything in their power to prove that she is crazy, so when she makes the discovery that she can act and think for herself, she escapes. The world is not what she thinks it will be, however, because people do not mean what they say. Allie’s inability to speak the same way that others do only hinders her more because she views words differently than others do. She observes that “people don’t mean what they say. Words often mean their opposites” (Percy 82). Her perception of phrases like “I hate to tell you this, but…” proves that she does see through people, but as she cannot figure out to express that, she is confined to her own thoughts. That changes, however, when she meets Will.
When Will was a boy, he and his father went hunting and an “accident” took place. Will’s father was supposed to be shooting at quail, but he tells Will that he’ll have to “trust him” and he hugs him; something he never does (Percy 53-54). Will is put off by this, but he does not go home. He is “accidentally” shot by his father, but it is later in life that Will discovers that his father tried to kill him. He asks himself whether or not it was possible that he had known all along and did not realize until he was an adult what had happened (Percy 147). Is it really possible to put your own reality into motion because of a traumatic event? I think that Will ignored all of the warning signs that happened before he got shot because he did not want to admit that something was wrong with his father. When he meets Allie, he is the only one who can understand what she is saying. They understand each other because they have their own perceptions of the world. Allie and Will are a good match, not just because she can hoist him when he falls down or because he can interpret her supposed crazy speech, but because they have a better perception of what the world looks like and they can live there together.
When Will was a boy, he and his father went hunting and an “accident” took place. Will’s father was supposed to be shooting at quail, but he tells Will that he’ll have to “trust him” and he hugs him; something he never does (Percy 53-54). Will is put off by this, but he does not go home. He is “accidentally” shot by his father, but it is later in life that Will discovers that his father tried to kill him. He asks himself whether or not it was possible that he had known all along and did not realize until he was an adult what had happened (Percy 147). Is it really possible to put your own reality into motion because of a traumatic event? I think that Will ignored all of the warning signs that happened before he got shot because he did not want to admit that something was wrong with his father. When he meets Allie, he is the only one who can understand what she is saying. They understand each other because they have their own perceptions of the world. Allie and Will are a good match, not just because she can hoist him when he falls down or because he can interpret her supposed crazy speech, but because they have a better perception of what the world looks like and they can live there together.
Peacocks and Portraits
Flannery O'Connor loved peacocks. I find this, for some reason, fascinating. She owned several of them, and she always sent peacock feathers to her friends and correspondents. When Robert Lowell had a was sick (had a "spell"), she sent him a five-feet-long feather. Unimpressed, he said, “That’s all I need, a peacock feather.”
O'Connor painted a little during her last years of life. She painted a self-portrait and included - of course - a peacock. This is incredible to me, because she was very ill when she painted the very truthful portrayal of herself. She said:
“I very much like the look of the pheasant cock. He has horns and a face like the Devil. The self-portrait was made . . . after a very acute siege. . . . I was taking cortisone which gives you what they call a moon face and my hair had fallen out to a large extent due to the high fever, so I looked pretty much like the portrait. When I painted it, I didn’t look either at myself in the mirror or at the bird. I knew what we both looked like.”
These may appear to be interesting, but random facts about the life of the strange, but profound O'Connor. But they have made a connection for me - a peacock and a self-portrait has helped me understand why the writing of Flannery O'Connor penetrates through the "neatness" of Christianity. She focuses on the grotesque: the terrible, aweful, disturbing images that I at first believed could not really point to God. But she does. In dwelling in the darkness of the gutters of the earth, O'Connor makes her readers look up to heaven in desperation for the Light that she knew - that she intended - they would find.
O'Connor's said her favorite animal, a bird that is meant to symbolize the immortal soul, reminded her of the Devil. This reminds me of Wise Blood; it is a Christian novel lacks joy, peace, love, and hope, but contains despair, defeat, and death. Yet it is still Christian and portrays Truth. How?.....this is what makes her writing powerful, because it is confounding.
The peacock, a beautiful bird representing eternity, made O'Connor think of the opposite of heaven. And she liked it. She was tired of living in the society of simple, clean-cut, seemingly perfect Christianity. It is false, and she portrays it so. Real Christian faith must include the darkness, the Devil, the dirt, filth, and suffering that comes in living in opposition to the world. It's what we were promised; why do we pretend otherwise?
O'Connor graps this like no other author I have ever read before. Suffering was not just an idea to her; it was a reality; it was her life. Her lupus caused her immense pain and hardship throughout her short life, yet she did not run from it or even claim that it was unfair. The statement she made about her self-portrait is shockingly blunt and accepting. She knew she was sick; she knew what she looked like and why. She didn't have to use a mirror, and she didn't try to depict herself differently than she truly was. She did not mind being remembered for her pain, her sickness, her suffering. Neither did Hazel Motes...
Yet while she painted herself as sick, as literally dying, beside her she painted the symbol of the immortal, incorruptible soul. She shows us her uncertain, wavering life next to the certain promise of eternity. She puts ugliness by beauty, suffering by hope. She gives us a glimmer of light beyond the blind eyes, a desire for life behind the outline of the skull.
Flannery O'Connor, instead of being unimpressed, might sincerely say: "That's all I need, a peacock feather."
Friday, November 20, 2009
Percy and the Absurd
I love Walker Percy.
Some may get offended by his language, his flippancy, and maybe even his ranting arrogance to some extent; but Dr. Mitchell was right, I think a lot like Walker Percy.
One of the things I love about Percy is his use of absurd irony. When we read the description of Christians and non-believers I had to keep from laughing at loud, because (cleaning up the language a bit) I think the same way most of the time. Walker Percy loves to point out and poke fun at the absurd (I think if he did not, he would go nuts...like perhaps I going) and to really make us confront how farcical our lives really are. The suck of self is evident in all individuals trapped in our modernistic, materialistic, consumerist world; people who as Dr. Mitchell pointed out, are nothing but corpses walking around.
I made a comment to Evel and Jared on the way home from Satori that I wished we lived in the Middle Ages, because life was not boring back then. People were having to grow their own food, fight in brutal wars, and died of many illnesses...but they certainly were not purposeless and bored. We live in an absurd age, as Percy masterfully points out, and for all our science, technology, and success we live boring, pathetic, and meaningless lives. We have no one to blame but ourselves and of course Renee Descartes.
Who would write a deep, wrenching spiritual novel based on a golf course of all places? Why are all these rednecks driving around all these sophisticated automobiles and living in fancy houses? Why are pro golfers trying to be poets and reading Dante for structure? Why has our world devolved into madness that threatens to suck us into the oblivion of our self consciousness or as Evel has put it, "eats our souls?"
Pointimg out the absurd is a way of pointing out the solution: community. We need each other; we are just as pathetic, fallen, and in need as the barbarians who roamed and pillaged Europe during the early Middle Ages. As Percy show us, you take away the Jews (a sign of Judeo-Christian worldview), and we are left as Gentile savages. We have become so absurd we think we are normal and when someone like Allison comes a long, we call them crazy(when in fact, they might be more in touch with reality than we are).
How absurd is it for a young female mental patient to be the only sane one in the whole novel? Yet, we must think this is absurd to realize that it is actually the opposite: it is we who are absurd. Percy does this marvelously and his critique and powerful insight into modernity (Christian and non-Christian) is something I believe every consumerist, modern Christian should have to read.
Some may get offended by his language, his flippancy, and maybe even his ranting arrogance to some extent; but Dr. Mitchell was right, I think a lot like Walker Percy.
One of the things I love about Percy is his use of absurd irony. When we read the description of Christians and non-believers I had to keep from laughing at loud, because (cleaning up the language a bit) I think the same way most of the time. Walker Percy loves to point out and poke fun at the absurd (I think if he did not, he would go nuts...like perhaps I going) and to really make us confront how farcical our lives really are. The suck of self is evident in all individuals trapped in our modernistic, materialistic, consumerist world; people who as Dr. Mitchell pointed out, are nothing but corpses walking around.
I made a comment to Evel and Jared on the way home from Satori that I wished we lived in the Middle Ages, because life was not boring back then. People were having to grow their own food, fight in brutal wars, and died of many illnesses...but they certainly were not purposeless and bored. We live in an absurd age, as Percy masterfully points out, and for all our science, technology, and success we live boring, pathetic, and meaningless lives. We have no one to blame but ourselves and of course Renee Descartes.
Who would write a deep, wrenching spiritual novel based on a golf course of all places? Why are all these rednecks driving around all these sophisticated automobiles and living in fancy houses? Why are pro golfers trying to be poets and reading Dante for structure? Why has our world devolved into madness that threatens to suck us into the oblivion of our self consciousness or as Evel has put it, "eats our souls?"
Pointimg out the absurd is a way of pointing out the solution: community. We need each other; we are just as pathetic, fallen, and in need as the barbarians who roamed and pillaged Europe during the early Middle Ages. As Percy show us, you take away the Jews (a sign of Judeo-Christian worldview), and we are left as Gentile savages. We have become so absurd we think we are normal and when someone like Allison comes a long, we call them crazy(when in fact, they might be more in touch with reality than we are).
How absurd is it for a young female mental patient to be the only sane one in the whole novel? Yet, we must think this is absurd to realize that it is actually the opposite: it is we who are absurd. Percy does this marvelously and his critique and powerful insight into modernity (Christian and non-Christian) is something I believe every consumerist, modern Christian should have to read.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
O'Connor: Revelation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxq6S_xjCOE
Here is a six minute video on O'Connor's life and a discussion on her short story Revelation that Dr. Mitchell mentioned in class. Enjoy!
Here is a six minute video on O'Connor's life and a discussion on her short story Revelation that Dr. Mitchell mentioned in class. Enjoy!
Filth is the Path to Clean
I am a sucker for people who are willing to get down and be dirty in their writing. The world is not clean no matter how much we and Haze Motes wishes to deny it. It does not matter how we try to be clean, whether that is in our "good" deeds of atonement or whether we try to eliminate the concepts of "good" and "evil" altogether (Nietzsche); the fact remains that we are not clean.
The Puritans knew this. The Puritans believed that one had to go through the muck of one's soul (thus their heavy preaching on sin and damnation) in order to be able to appreciate the grace of God that Christ was to clothe you with. This process was known as "justification" (not in the sense that is used today) and was a personal Odyssey to discover one's sinfulness in order to embrace God's forgiveness.
Only the filthy can be made clean. Haze Motes believed that he could be clean and never deal with his filth. Not surprisingly, O'Connor uses the images of mud and pigs (Prodigal Son in the pig trough anyone?) to emphasize just how messy the situation really is. Haze Motes knows he is not clean but dealing with his filth is too much for him; he would rather A) deny it or B) attempt to atone for it. What is sad is that Haze Motes will never be clean following either method; he will forever be in denial or seek to atone for his sin. He does not ever accept grace.
Grace cannot be accepted without the acknowledgment of sin, of filth. Otherwise, the human heart never bows to reality of what it has fallen from: the imago dei, the image of God. In the image of God is the contemplation, adoration, and communion with God. Haze Motes, like so many of us, do not want to have anything to do with God relationally; we want what he offers and his benefits...but we do not want him. Haze wants to be clean, but aside from restore communion with I AM, he will never be clean. His statement; "I AM clean!" is not just an adamant declaration but indirect revelation of truth: I AM clean; or I AM is clean.
Since Haze refuses to bow and seek grace from I AM clean, he will never be clean. God's grace through restored communion with the Trinity is the only way to be clean; the imputed and undisputed righteousness of the God-man Jesus Christ, Son of Man, Son of David, Son of God. Haze's attempt to have "The Church without Christ" is fundamentally flawed: there is not reason for the Church to exist without Christ. The failure of modernist, liberal Christianity is that it removed Jesus Christ from the Church and attempted to pronounce everyone clean by denying that anyone was dirty. Haze incapsulizes modernist, liberal Christianity except that unlike most "soft-hearted" liberals, Haze is in your face and not allowing you to escape the absurdity of what he is saying. It is almost as if in his pronouncements of cleanliness that he is daring someone to stand up and say, "No, you are wrong! There is good, there is evil; we are all unclean!" If he could find this one prophet left who had the same amount of passion for Christ as he had against Christ; he might believe.
But he would have to be convinced he was unclean.
Then, when he comes to grips with the fact that he is unclean; he does not seek out grace and restoration with God. Instead he goes about the task of atoning for his sin and basically keeping God off of his back. Throughout the novel, God is seeking Haze even in the midst of Haze's denials: first of sin and then of grace. Once he recognizes that he is unclean, he does what Judas did when he betrayed Christ...the straight-laced, upstanding man who "believed" in Christ goes and hangs himself. Haze Motes would never just kill himself, but instead he goes about acts of horrific mortification in order to become clean...Judas thought that he would be clean by hanging himself with remorse, Haze thinks he will be clean by blinding himself, filling his shoes with rocks, and wrapping barbed wire around his body.
You can't just acknowledge you are dirty, you also have to acknowledge that you can't make yourself clean.
Only Christ can make us clean. Our filth is a reminder of our need for God; to make the world a place governed by fake goodness and morality, robs us of the reminders that we are fallen, broken, and that what we most desperately need is the grace of God. We must beware of making the Gospel a strictly moral affair about becoming a better person; instead we must emphasize the grace of in spite of our brokeness and our uncleanness.
So, bring on the pig sty; bring on the mud; bring on the filth.
Christ will make us all clean who trust and love him.
The Puritans knew this. The Puritans believed that one had to go through the muck of one's soul (thus their heavy preaching on sin and damnation) in order to be able to appreciate the grace of God that Christ was to clothe you with. This process was known as "justification" (not in the sense that is used today) and was a personal Odyssey to discover one's sinfulness in order to embrace God's forgiveness.
Only the filthy can be made clean. Haze Motes believed that he could be clean and never deal with his filth. Not surprisingly, O'Connor uses the images of mud and pigs (Prodigal Son in the pig trough anyone?) to emphasize just how messy the situation really is. Haze Motes knows he is not clean but dealing with his filth is too much for him; he would rather A) deny it or B) attempt to atone for it. What is sad is that Haze Motes will never be clean following either method; he will forever be in denial or seek to atone for his sin. He does not ever accept grace.
Grace cannot be accepted without the acknowledgment of sin, of filth. Otherwise, the human heart never bows to reality of what it has fallen from: the imago dei, the image of God. In the image of God is the contemplation, adoration, and communion with God. Haze Motes, like so many of us, do not want to have anything to do with God relationally; we want what he offers and his benefits...but we do not want him. Haze wants to be clean, but aside from restore communion with I AM, he will never be clean. His statement; "I AM clean!" is not just an adamant declaration but indirect revelation of truth: I AM clean; or I AM is clean.
Since Haze refuses to bow and seek grace from I AM clean, he will never be clean. God's grace through restored communion with the Trinity is the only way to be clean; the imputed and undisputed righteousness of the God-man Jesus Christ, Son of Man, Son of David, Son of God. Haze's attempt to have "The Church without Christ" is fundamentally flawed: there is not reason for the Church to exist without Christ. The failure of modernist, liberal Christianity is that it removed Jesus Christ from the Church and attempted to pronounce everyone clean by denying that anyone was dirty. Haze incapsulizes modernist, liberal Christianity except that unlike most "soft-hearted" liberals, Haze is in your face and not allowing you to escape the absurdity of what he is saying. It is almost as if in his pronouncements of cleanliness that he is daring someone to stand up and say, "No, you are wrong! There is good, there is evil; we are all unclean!" If he could find this one prophet left who had the same amount of passion for Christ as he had against Christ; he might believe.
But he would have to be convinced he was unclean.
Then, when he comes to grips with the fact that he is unclean; he does not seek out grace and restoration with God. Instead he goes about the task of atoning for his sin and basically keeping God off of his back. Throughout the novel, God is seeking Haze even in the midst of Haze's denials: first of sin and then of grace. Once he recognizes that he is unclean, he does what Judas did when he betrayed Christ...the straight-laced, upstanding man who "believed" in Christ goes and hangs himself. Haze Motes would never just kill himself, but instead he goes about acts of horrific mortification in order to become clean...Judas thought that he would be clean by hanging himself with remorse, Haze thinks he will be clean by blinding himself, filling his shoes with rocks, and wrapping barbed wire around his body.
You can't just acknowledge you are dirty, you also have to acknowledge that you can't make yourself clean.
Only Christ can make us clean. Our filth is a reminder of our need for God; to make the world a place governed by fake goodness and morality, robs us of the reminders that we are fallen, broken, and that what we most desperately need is the grace of God. We must beware of making the Gospel a strictly moral affair about becoming a better person; instead we must emphasize the grace of in spite of our brokeness and our uncleanness.
So, bring on the pig sty; bring on the mud; bring on the filth.
Christ will make us all clean who trust and love him.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Why do people think they can hide in Wise Blood? Asa has a secret. Sabbath has a secret. Even Enoch has a secret (though he doesn’t really try to hide it). For that matter, no one really tries to hide their secret. I don’t want to take the easy approach and say that O’Connor made her characters have secrets that could not be hidden to show our inability to keep secrets from God. I think that they have secrets because they want to hold onto something that will impress someone who does not know them.
Asa keeps his fake blindness to himself until he realizes that no one cares about the sad blind preacher. What does that say about people? Does it say that we care about people and are interested in what they have to say until we decide that they can’t do anything for us? Asa had some sort of magical power over Haze until Haze found out that he was not blind. After that, Asa gave up on his preaching and turned to a life of begging on the street sans Sabbath. By the way, why does he give her up so easily? I have a sneaking suspicion that she’s not really his daughter, but that’s another story.
Sabbath’s “secret” that she is a “bastard” has a pretty major impact on Haze. He wanted to believe that Asa was a good preacher, but that attitude changed when he found out that Asa could not live up to his expectations of perfection. I don’t think that Sabbath tells her secret to too many people, but she probably told Haze to impress him. It didn’t really work because he was still pretty disgusted by her need to be a sex-crazed girl, and I can’t really say as I blame him. But, back to the secret thing, her secret is not one that remains hidden.
Enoch has a few secrets that are pretty ridiculous. He “hides” from the woman who bathes and he “hides” the shrunken man, but he doesn’t care if he gets caught. The woman knew that he was spying on her, and I think that she liked it because she wanted to be looked at. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have gone to the pool every day. I want to know why he was so impressed by the shrunken man. Maybe it was because it looked like something from another world. Foreign things impress most people, but Haze proves that everything can be destroyed. Maybe that is the purpose of the story. No matter how sturdy something seems (faith, shrunken men, relationships, and even people) everything can go away with the decision of one person. Nothing, not even a secret, can remain forever.
Asa keeps his fake blindness to himself until he realizes that no one cares about the sad blind preacher. What does that say about people? Does it say that we care about people and are interested in what they have to say until we decide that they can’t do anything for us? Asa had some sort of magical power over Haze until Haze found out that he was not blind. After that, Asa gave up on his preaching and turned to a life of begging on the street sans Sabbath. By the way, why does he give her up so easily? I have a sneaking suspicion that she’s not really his daughter, but that’s another story.
Sabbath’s “secret” that she is a “bastard” has a pretty major impact on Haze. He wanted to believe that Asa was a good preacher, but that attitude changed when he found out that Asa could not live up to his expectations of perfection. I don’t think that Sabbath tells her secret to too many people, but she probably told Haze to impress him. It didn’t really work because he was still pretty disgusted by her need to be a sex-crazed girl, and I can’t really say as I blame him. But, back to the secret thing, her secret is not one that remains hidden.
Enoch has a few secrets that are pretty ridiculous. He “hides” from the woman who bathes and he “hides” the shrunken man, but he doesn’t care if he gets caught. The woman knew that he was spying on her, and I think that she liked it because she wanted to be looked at. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have gone to the pool every day. I want to know why he was so impressed by the shrunken man. Maybe it was because it looked like something from another world. Foreign things impress most people, but Haze proves that everything can be destroyed. Maybe that is the purpose of the story. No matter how sturdy something seems (faith, shrunken men, relationships, and even people) everything can go away with the decision of one person. Nothing, not even a secret, can remain forever.
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