Letter #11

Dear Flannery,

You wrote that your audience were “the kind of people who think God is dead.” Well, I am deciding that it’s different now. Public sentiment has shifted yet more. I think now you would have had to write for people who think God never existed, and perhaps that’s quite a different thing, or at least a brash and bold escalation.

Of course in a world where God never existed, there is no source or standard for goodness. The world we have today is one that not only denies the presence of God and goodness, but is so angry that the idea of God and goodness persists (if only in the conscience) that it flips good into evil and evil into good as easily as flipping a pancake. It’s Christianity, morality, God, family, freedom, hard work, and country that are the great evils now. And it’s atheism, social justice, "entitlements" (handouts), conformity, lawlessness, force, and humanism that are the great good. Most of those who still personally hold to the former are intimidated into a life of contradiction, silence, and smiling acquiescence. And I’m talking mainstream here, in our homes, schools, churches, administrations, and government. Rarely does anyone speak in any uncertain terms against the evils turned good.

You also wrote, “ I want to make sure that the Devil gets identified as the Devil and not simply taken for this or that psychological tendency.” In our culture today there is no devil as well as no God. And beyond that, evil is past being mistaken for this or that abnormal psychological tendency. Like I said, it is now mistaken for goodness. It doesn’t lurk anymore, it parades. And so we are treated to countless justifications for any evil. There are no mysteries, no miracles, no sins, no punishments, no redemption, just human explanations and human solutions that don't hold water and don't work well or permanently.

Some good people are doing their utmost. But I guess I am a realist. I don’t see things getting any better.

These thoughts seem to be the result of rereading, or rather poring over and over with a furrowed brow, a book that is a collection of your words called Flannery O’Connor, Spiritual Writings. It has a long introduction by a man named Richard Giannone which is helpful for the most part. But one thing I take strong exception to is his take on your story “Revelation.” I think he got it wrong with a capital W. He says “We haven’t lived until we’ve joined the parade,” which is true in the sense that we cannot begin to progress spiritually until we confess our sinful human nature and rely on Christ, but this is not what he meant. He says the story makes the political point that “no group is passed over, no life style excluded” when it comes to “converging on God” and being “held in the church’s arms.” I say, huh? That’s not what you meant. It was Ruby’s personal vision made possible purely through divine grace, not the author of the story on a temporal, multi-culti, sexual-diversity soapbox. What Mrs. Turpin saw with such shock and pain and surprise as she gazed beyond the pig pen on that parade to heaven, and what had the potential to change her into someone new and humble and full of joy, was that she and her ilk were not at the front but bringing up the rear, marching way behind those she considered much lower than herself. Yes, I have just read the last two pages of the story again, and I believe I have it right. “Powerful political point?” Hogwash. Those who believe themselves first shall be last, and those who believe themselves last shall be first.

Shouting hallelujah,

Janice

Spiritual Writings 49, 29, 42, 123-4