From On Being-There’s a common emotional vocabulary in the writings of Catholic women, a fierce devotion strangely coupled with a startling humility. This is ever-so-present in Flannery O'Connor's A Prayer Journal, recently published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
It's a wonderful book: unflinchingly honest, unfailingly wise, and immensely funny:
"What I am asking for is really very ridiculous. Oh Lord, I am saying, at present I am a cheese, make me a mystic, immediately. But then God can do that — make mystics out of cheeses."
Ms. O'Connor wrote this collection of prayers — letters really — to God as a student attending the Iowa Writers' Workshop in her twenties, around the time that her first short story was published in Accent magazine. She struggles with doubt and uncertainty, afraid that she will not produce another work worthy of publication, and asks God: "Please help me dear God to be a good writer and to get something else accepted."
More here-
http://www.onbeing.org/blog/make-me-a-mystic-the-profound-honesty-of-flannery-oconnor/6143v
No comments:
Post a Comment