Sometimes Mrs. Turpin occupied herself at night naming the classes of people. On the bottom of the heap were most colored people, not the kind she would have been if she had been one, but most of them; then next to them – not above, just away from – were the white-trash; then above them were the home-owners, and above them the home-and-land owners, to which she and Claud belonged...
Revelation
“I found out the crime don’t matter. You can do one thing or you can do another, kill a man or take a tire off his car, because sooner or later you’re going to forget what it was you done and just be punished for it.”
The Misfit
A Good Man Is Hard to Find
Laws, reproaches and even peaceful protests are doomed by the Pelagian assumption that people can control their own lusts and appetites if only they had enough self-discipline, or prayed hard enough, or acquired the right values and point of view. St Paul tells quite a different story:
“I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want..... I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. (Rom 7: 19, 23).
There is a place for self-mastery (and how!), but it cannot bear the whole burden. There is a place for a way of thinking that has been critically renewed in the light of truth, so that the mind is not bound and blinded by prejudice and passion, but our rational side alone cannot bear the whole burden, either.
Our whole country is inside of one of Flannery's short stories, but that means we have been given a way to begin to comprehend the situation without the intrusion of current social theories, projects, or slogans. With O'Connor, we find the roots of evil planted firmly within the human heart, “For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, unchastity, theft, false witness, blasphemy. These are what defile a person” and a society (Mt 15:19-20a).
O'Connor took original sin and the seven deadly sins for granted: The pursuit of power (pride—including a comfortable sense of racial or class superiority—and anger), pleasure (lust, gluttony), money or stuff (greed, envy) and that strange sin of acedia, which may be the deadly sin of our age: any one of these, and any combination of them, are simply worthless, destroy society, and make for an empty life. But to speak of deadly sins is to risk being obliged to acknowledge the sad fact that we are all under their influence, though each in a unique configuration. It is much safer to point to a crime of the mind, like racism or hate or misogyny.
I am beginning to think that the core problem right now may be connected to the mystery sin of acedia. I don't mean indolence, but rather a violent (rather than slothful) reaction to the perceived meaninglessness of life: acedia as the rejection of the greatness of self-giving to which each person is called, a greatness that requires self-mastery, effort, time, and that generations now have not, on the whole, been trained even to aim for.
Kathleen Norris writes: The “superficial me may show a confident face to the world but inwardly is plagued by fears and compulsions, and remains blind to its true condition. All too often, it harbors an acedia that rises from unacknowledged anger and manifests as passive-aggressive behavior” (Acedia and Me).
Orthodox Archpriest John Moses wrote, “The first temptation is disappointment—we feel with certainty that nothing has gone as we wanted. The second temptation is irritation and anger—we wonder why has God done this to me?Disappointment comes upon us and turns to a sorrow that deepens into despair. This entire process is fueled by an inner voice that says, 'I deserved better. If God really loved me, he would not have let this happen.'” At the same time, “Nothing drives us more deeply into egoism and the feeling that if we don't look out for ourselves, no one else will” (Robert Roberts, Spiritual Emotions).
I wonder if part of acedia is a willful despair that refuses to accept the situation of being weak and imperfect, of falling short of society's ideal and not knowing that we are called to “be perfect as the Heavenly Father”: something that cannot be achieved at all by human means, but only worked toward, patiently, and in the end, received. Maybe a deep part of the problem is that expressed so poignantly by Paul: “I do not do the good I want.... [I am] captive to the law of sin” (Rom 7: 19, 23). The person who does not know or have access to the supernatural strength of grace from the sacraments and the communion of life of a healthy Church family may very well lash out in anger and decide, “I will not serve!”
And yet the call is there, in the depths of the heart. “The world offers you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness” (Pope Benedict XVI).
Parker sat for a long time on the ground in the alley behind the pool hall, examining his soul. He saw it as a spider web of facts and lies that was not at all important to him but which appeared to be necessary in spite of his opinion. The eyes [of Christ] that were now forever [tattooed] on his back were eyes to be obeyed. He was as certain of it as he had ever been of anything.
Parker's Back
Read O'Connor's last two (and least violent!) short stories, written on her deathbed, are Revelation and Parker's Back. A Google search will bring up pdf versions of both of them that you can read online.
The documentary Flannery, shown this week on PBS, is excellent, too:
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