"Love needs to find form, intimacy needs to be whispered." Bono on the grace of Advent

Bono’s thoughts on Advent from an extended interview he did in 2004:

I remember coming back from a very long tour.  I hadn’t been at home for months.  Got home for Christmas, very excited of being in Dublin.  Dublin at Christmas is cold, but it’s lit up, it’s like a Carnival in the cold. 

On Christmas Eve, I went to St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  I had done school there for a year.  It’s where Jonathan Swift was Dean.  Anyway, some of my Church of Ireland friends were going.  It’s kind of a tradition on Christmas Eve to go, but I’d never been.  I went to this place, sat.  I was given a really bad seat, behind one of the huge pillars.  I couldn’t see anything.  I was sitting there, having come back from Tokyo or somewhere like that.  I went for the singing, because I love choral singing.  Community arts, a specialty!  But I was falling asleep, being up for a few days, traveling, because it was a bit boring, the service, and I just started nodding off since I couldn’t see a thing. 

Then I started to try and keep myself awake studying what was on the page.  It dawned on me for the first time, really.  It had dawned on me before, but it really sank in: the Christmas story.  The idea that God, if there is a force of Love and Logic in the universe, that it would seek to explain itself is amazing enough.  That it would seek to explain itself and describe itself by becoming a child born in poverty, in shit and straw…a child…I just thought: “Wow!” Just the poetry…unknowable love, unknowable power, describes itself as the most vulnerable.  There it was. 

I was sitting there, and it’s not that it hadn’t struck me before, but tears came down my face, and I saw the genius of this, the utter genius of picking a particular point in time and deciding to turn on this. You see, love needs to find form, intimacy needs to be whispered.  To me, it makes sense.  It’s actually logical.  It’s pure logic.  Essence has to manifest itself.  It’s inevitable.  Love has to become an action or something concrete.  It would have to happen.  There must be an incarnation.  Love must be made flesh.

My understanding of the Scriptures has been made simple by the person of Christ.  Christ taught that God is love.  What does that mean?  What it means for me: a study of the life of Christ.  Love here describes itself as a child born in raw poverty, the most vulnerable situation of all, without honor.  I don’t let my religious world get too complicated.  I just kind of go: Well, I think I know what God is.  God is love, and as much as I respond in allowing myself to be transformed by that love and acting in that love, that’s my religion.  Where things get complicated for me, is when I try to live this love.  Now, that’s not easy.

There’s nothing hippie about my picture of Christ.  The Gospels paint a picture of a very demanding, sometimes divisive love, but love it is.  I accept the Old Testament as more of an action movie: blood, car chases, evacuations, a lot of special effects, seas dividing, mass murder, adultery.  The children of God are running amok, wayward.  Maybe that’s why they’re so relatable. 

But the way we would see it, those of us who are trying to figure out our Christian conundrum, is that the God of the Old Testament is like the journey from stern father to friend.  When you’re a child, you need clear directions and some strict rules.  But with Christ, we have access in a one-to-one relationship, for, as in the Old Testament, it was more one of worship and awe, a vertical relationship.  The New Testament, on the other hand, we look across at Jesus who looks familiar, horizontal. The combination is what makes the Cross.

It’s a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the Universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma. I really believe we have moved out of the realm of Karma into one of Grace.

You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma.  You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or opposite one.  It’s clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the Universe.  I’m absolutely sure of it. 

And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that “As you reap, so will you sow” stuff.  Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff.  I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge.  I’d be in deep shit.  It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace.  I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity.

(From Bono in Conversation with Michka Assayas, copyright 2006, Riverhead Books)

I Miss Rich Mullins

Being St. Patrick's Day,  I've been thinking of some of my favorite Irishmen.  Though Rich was not born there, his name and lifestyle certainly reflected much of the Irish flare.

I miss Rich’s beaming smile and furrowed brow.

I miss Rich’s pop sensibilities blended with eclectic instrumentation.

I miss Rich’s quick laugh and his barking anger.

I miss Rich drinking eight glasses of water a day to “counteract” his smoking habit.

I miss that Rich read the Bible not to understand God but to encounter Him.

I miss Rich singing the “Star Spangled Banner” acapella to open a show but being outraged at U.S. foreign policy.

I miss Rich’s contrite heart and his assertions to, like Martin Luther, “sin boldly.”

I miss our extended chats about the rebel Jesus and our arguments over theology.

I miss Rich’s focus on the needs of others and his recurring challenges with absentmindedness.

I miss Rich’s wrestling with fame and his willingness to confess openly his darkest problems.

I miss Rich’s love for the Church and his aversion towards westernized churchianity.

I miss Rich’s servant heart and his uncompromising stance with record label suits.

I miss Rich quoting lengthy passages of scripture and swearing like a longshoreman.

I miss Rich’s longing for purity and his struggles with celibacy.

I miss Rich’s attraction to “high church” and performing his concerts bare foot and in tattered clothes.

I miss Rich’s love for Amy Grant and his disdain for the majority of her fans.

I miss Rich’s zeal for what moved him (like seeing Dances with Wolves twenty-seven times while it was in theaters) and his equal frustration with pop culture trends (like obsessive dieting).

I miss Rich’s desire for meaningful friendships and his frustrations with loneliness.

I miss Rich’s clarity that realized taking pride in poverty was equally as wicked as taking pride in wealth.

I miss Rich’s blunt rebukes and gentle grace.

I miss Rich’s intense self-judgment and his recognition of Christ’s deep fondness for him.

Yep…Rich was a complicated character, and a friend. When I read Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointing To Heaven by James Bryan Smith I guess my emotions about Rich’s untimely death in 1997 were still a bit raw. But many memories started flowing…

Like when I met Rich the first time at Blanton and Harrell Management while I was a consultant on Amy Grant’s Straight Ahead Tour.  Mike and Dan had recently signed Rich to their new Reunion Records label.  He was just as scruffy as you would expect wandering the hallways, and had some definite opinions about the $15,000 Turkish carpets on the floors.

Or the time a few years later when I was helping manage the artist department at Compassion, and had worked hard with Rich on a printed piece to go into his second album, Pictures in the Sky.  He was excited to use his platform to help needy children in the developing world.  Unfortunately, I had just come from the parent record company, and the president of the label had decided not to allow the flier to be inserted after all. We were sitting in the old Shoney’s restaurant on Demonbreum here in Nashville when I gave him the news.  In an instant, his eyes flashed, he pounded his fist so loudly on the table that it lifted all the silverware and tipped a glass of ice water. “That bastard!” he screamed.  The bustling joint grew eerily quiet as Rich fumed further while I tried to calm him down. With our mutual passion for the insert, we eventually got those in charge to change their minds, and hundreds of precious little ones ended up with better lives as a result.

Then there was the time I was on the road for Compassion with the modern rock band The Choir.  One show was in Wichita at a second floor night club.  A terrible load-in for the band and crew.  Rich had become a fan of their music, and showed up early to assist with all the equipment and stayed late do the same.  The Choir and their crew had no idea Rich was with them, and since he was just wearing a dirty baseball cap with his hair pulled back, they never recognized him.  Later, on the bus as we were headed to the next town I asked if they had enjoyed meeting Rich at all. “He was there?!” they exclaimed. They were pissed that they never got to actually meet him, even though he’d been helping all night. Rich never went out of his way to introduce himself, even though it was his home town, and he helped fund the club where they were playing.   He was just thrilled that they came to play and were making an impact on some kids he knew.

Another time I wanted to introduce Rich to some of my cohorts at Compassion.  I had warned my boss and the others that Rich could be a tad unpredictable, and that he was never shy about expressing whatever thought process his mind was churning.  “Be prepared….and take whatever he may spout-on about with a huge grain of salt,” I cautioned with a wink and a smile.

We drove up to Boulder, Colorado to see him open for Amy Grant on the Unguarded Tour. Rich was not in a particularly good mood after his sound check in the cavernous Univ. of Colorado Fieldhouse was completed.  Once he got permission from the road manager to go off site with us to eat, he was grousing in the van about the idiocy of Amy’s fandom that were waiting like cattle in long lines outside the hall.  Rich claimed that he would enjoy going up to those pre-teen wanna-be’s who were all wearing their leopard skin jackets and black spandex tights and “slap some sense into each and every one of them.”  My fellow Compassionates laughed nervously.

We drove to several area restaurants, but they were all over-run with said fan base, and the waits were over thirty minutes to be seated, so we kept moving.  This did not assist in changing Rich’s demeanor whatsoever.  Since we had limited time before Rich had to return backstage, we had to settle for a McDonald’s that was, once again, full of Amy-ites.  My chums were doing their best to make small talk with Rich, but he was sullen and somewhat withdrawn.  My boss, Dave, looked at me as if to say, “What is this guy’s deal?” 

As Rich was munching on his fillet-o-fish and slurping some orange drink, he suddenly plopped the cup on the table top and declared with intentionality that would make Idi Amin flinch, “Ya know, I could pull out a sub machine gun and mow down every single person in this restaurant, and not feel one moment of remorse.” 

Trying to lighten the mood I interjected, “Aw Rich, you’re so full of it sometimes…just relax and let the kids have their naïve fun.”  

He then took another bite and mumbled, “I am so very, very serious. Get me a gun and I’ll prove it.”  More uncomfortable acknowledgement and tittering ensued from our group.  Thankfully, his mood began to lighten, and he apologized for being such a jerk just as we dropped him off at the arena.  To this day, I’m amazed that my teammates at Compassion were willing to keep moving forward with Rich.  But it was a tremendous partnership that grew deep and more precious over the next eleven years.

The time that Phil Madeira and I put together the Mark Heard Memorial Tribute Concert at Belmont University also sticks out in my mind.  Rich had only recently come to be familiar with Mark’s artistry, and was moved by his sudden death the previous summer.  The concert was a rousing success as an artistic endeavor, the auditorium was packed, and we saw over $10,000 raised for Mark’s widow and daughter.  But we knew that another revenue stream that could not only help their financial straits, but also expand Heard’s heritage would be for artists to commit to covering Mark’s wonderful songs.  Rich was the first to pop up that night and promise to do just that.  His next album featured a powerful rendition of Mark’s “How To Grow Up Big and Strong,” and thousands more publishing dollars went to the foundation to assist the Heard family as a result.

I think my favorite story revolves around taking Rich on his very first overseas trek.  It was 1991, and I put together a Compassion Artist Vision Trip to Guatemala with Rich, Rick Elias, Geoff Moore, promoter Chuck Tilley, and my manager, Devlin Donaldson. None had ever really met each other before, and there was a great bond that formed during that week in Central America.  In fact, that is where the seeds of the Ragamuffin Band concept were sewn, with Rich and Rick became fast friends and collaborators from that introduction forward.

Whether we were trudging through Guatemala City’s massive dump, or clambering up Mayan pyramids at Iximche…whether we were sitting through an earthquake late one evening in our rattling little motel in Panajachel or skimming across the glass surface of the gorgeous Lake Atitlan… whether we were blowing bubbles with kindergartners in San Pedro La Laguna or Rich getting popped with a swinging stick from an overenthusiastic little piñata basher in Tecpan…whether we were watching naked kids splashing in a stream or he was leading a group of native teens in singing “Awesome God,”  Rich was radiant.  You could just see how this was impacting him from that point forward.

Before we had departed for the trip southward, Rich asked me if it would be OK to bring an instrument.  I assumed he meant an acoustic guitar, but he wanted to bring his large hammer dulcimer.  “Rich, that thing is worth a couple of grand and is pretty delicate,” I reasoned. “It may not survive the transport, and the kids at the projects are gonna want to bang on that thing relentlessly.”

“I won’t mind…I really want to bring it, and I certainly want the kids to try and play it,” he replied.  And sure enough, when we got there, once they saw the magic sounds Rich could bring out of it, they all wanted to try.  Most were none too dignified in their attempts to get notes out of it, but Rich was just beaming ear-to-ear with their efforts. I’ll never forget the images of kids crawling all over Rich trying to take turns pounding on one of his most prized possessions, and him being absolutely thrilled with joy. Before the end of the trip, a few strings were broken, and several chips were taken out of the fine wood finish.  But Rich simply didn’t care.  You could see his heart for wanting to teach children via music come to the fore during those moments…and that’s exactly what he committed himself to five years later when he moved to the Navaho reservation in New Mexico.

I like this summary of Rich from An Arrow Pointing Toward Heaven:

Growing into the person God created us to be, Rich thought, was the goal of the Christian life—not trying to sin less, but to be God’s more.  Mitch McVicker comments, “He would often say that the most holy thing he could do was to be completely human.  He was more interested in being genuine and real than being crisp and clean on the outside.  He said, ‘God created us human, and that means struggling, falling, admitting it, and being healed.’  A part of being holy means knowing that you are a struggling human and that you can be forgiven and healed by God.  He always focused on the hope on the other side of sin.”

Many of us are preparing to live rather than actually living.  Meditating on this may awaken us to the fact that we have one life to live, and the day—the moment—we are in will never be repeated.  In a sense, a well-lived life is the best way to cheat death.

“So go out and live real good,” Rich wrote late in his life, “and I promise you you’ll be beat up real bad.  But a little while after you’re dead, you’ll be rotted away anyway…it’s not gonna matter if you had a few scars.  It will matter if you didn’t live.”

Yeah, I still miss Rich Mullins and that thirst to drink in all God had to offer.  I still see Christ reflected in his sometimes awkward attempts to live fully.  With Jesus as my hope, may I humbly do likewise.   

Israel's actions should make U.S. question support

My friend, Lynn Basler Grassmeyer, just published this editorial in the Sat. Dec. 15 edition of Nashville's daily newspaper, The Tennessean:

“Help! Pray for us. We won’t make it this time!” Fifteen-year-old Raneen, an International School student in Gaza, said as Israeli “Operation Pillar of Defense” began.

The students’ pleas intensified throughout the eight-day assault, with shelling from air and sea. While Israel claimed retaliation for “an unacceptable security threat,” The New York Times called the attack a “lopsided battle between this impoverished, intensely crowded and hemmed-in enclave and its militarily mighty neighbor to the north.”

Gaza war news, like other news, played out on Facebook as Raneen’s classmates held their thread of communication with the world. Their mentor and former teacher Linda Todd Gharib forwarded the messages to us in Nashville. And as we prayed, miraculous updates came: “Bombs dropped around us, but we are not hit!”

Gaza’s other children weren’t so fortunate. The Gaza Health Minister reports 183 Palestinians killed — 50 percent civilians, including 33 children, and 1,400 were injured — 55 elderly, 220 women and 450 children. Six Israelis died; 219 were injured.

Writer Graham Peebles reports that 1,477 Palestinian children have been killed since 2000, a level of carnage that contradicts Israel’s claims of “millimetric accuracy.”

During “Pillar of Defense,” 30 schools were damaged, including Raneen’s. Homes, mosques and a church were demolished. Raneen’s school was bombed back in 2008 as well. Chemical weapons, including white phosphorus, brought death and destruction to Gaza during “Operation Cast Lead.”

Retired Col. Ann Wright and Kathy Kelly, part of an emergency delegation of peace activists visiting Gaza days after the recent invasion, met the parents of 8-year-old Fares, decapitated by shrapnel as he slept. His father told Kelly, “He was the life of the house.”

Col. Wright notes, “We’ve seen the devastating destructiveness of Israel’s high-tech weaponry, most of it supplied by the U.S. at American taxpayers’ expense.”

The U.N. notes that the Israeli Defense Force sends warnings to civilians ahead of bombings, but “civilian losses are massive.” Most Gazans never receive such “courtesy calls.” If they did, where would they run?

Completely isolated, Gazans have no freedom of movement, even in the West Bank, where they have family. Hanna Massad, pastor of the Gaza Baptist Church, had to choose between his congregation in Gaza and his wife in the West Bank. He gave up his church and cannot return. Once bustling with coastal hotels and cafes, this forlorn strip now hosts bombed-out silhouettes.

While weapons smuggling occupies media attention, the notorious tunnels are Gaza’s lifeline to essential goods that Israel prohibits by normal routes. Two-thirds of consumer goods reach Gaza via tunnels, which also provide scarce jobs. Many workers meet injury or death in collapses, bombings and gassings.

Raneen’s story has meaning for us here in Nashville. When Christian leaders, musicians and politicians claim blind loyalty to Israel despite documented human rights abuses and international law violations, they spread ignorance and do great harm. Recently, 15 outstanding church leaders asked Congress to investigate Israel’s abuses and halt military aid.

As we near Christmas, Bethlehem’s beloved Rev. Alex Awad urges Western churches to cultivate peace and pursue justice, recalling that God’s kingdom is neither racial nor territorial: “When the angels in the sky over Bethlehem declared ‘peace on Earth,’ they were not far from Jerusalem or Gaza City. ... When we draw near to these places with compassion and understanding, there will be peace.”

Lynn Grassmeyer is a local realty agent and humanitarian with Semitic roots.

Sweet Wine

My old friend Will McFarlane told me this one recently…

When I was on staff at a large church in North Carolina a few years back, the hyper-fundamentalist streak ran deep with some of the parishioners.  On a Sunday after our quarterly communion service, one particularly staunch and highly opinionated little ol’ “church lady” was complaining to me about the flavor of the grape juice being a bit too sweet.

As she continued her intense assessment about how this was hardly acceptable, and a real affront to a God-honoring worship service, with a chuckle I interjected something to lighten the mood. “You know, ma’am, Christ himself conducted the very first Eucharist using and drinking wine as the holy substitute.”

“Yes, I know,” she lamented.  “And I think less of Him for it!”

Honolulu, Whores, and a Hollowed Moment

Sociologist, author, speaker, and Christian activist Tony Campolo shares this from his book, Let Me Tell You a Story:

If you live on the East Coast and travel to Hawaii, you know that there is a time difference that makes three o’clock in the morning feel like 9:00 AM. With that in mind, you will understand that whenever I go out to our fiftieth state I find myself wide awake long before dawn. Not only do I find myself up and ready to go while everybody else is still asleep, but I find that I want breakfast when almost everything on the island is still closed—which is why I was wandering up and down the streets of Honolulu at 3:30 in the morning, looking for a place to get something to eat.

Up a side street I found a little place that was still open. I went in, took a seat on one of those stools at the counter, and waited to be served. This was one of those sleazy places that deserves the name “greasy spoon.” I mean, I did not even touch the menu. I was afraid that if I opened the thing something gruesome would crawl out. But it was the only place I could find.

The fat guy behind the counter came over and asked me, What d’ya want?”

I told him, “A cup of coffee and a donut.”

He poured a cup of joe, wiped his grimy hand on his smudged apron, then grabbed a pastry off the shelf behind him. Now, I’m a realist… I know that in the back room of that restaurant, donuts are probably dropped on the floor and kicked around. But when everything is out front where I can see it, I really would have appreciated it if he had used a pair of tongs and placed the donut on some wax paper.

As I sat there munching on my dry sinker and sipping my lukewarm brew about three hours before sunrise, the door of the diner swung open, and to my discomfort, in marched eight or nine provocative and boisterous prostitutes.

It was a small place and they sat on either side of me. Their talk was loud and crude. I felt completely out of place and was just about to make my getaway when I overheard the woman sitting beside me say, “Tomorrow’s my birthday. I’m going to be thirty-nine.”

One of her friends responded in a nasty tone, “So what do you want from me? A birthday party? What do you want? Ya want me to get a cake and sing ‘Happy Birthday’?”

“Come on!” said the woman next to me. “Why do you have to be so mean? I was just telling you, that’s all. Why do you have to put me down? I was just telling you it’s my birthday. I don’t want anything from you. I mean, why should you give me a birthday party? I’ve never had a birthday party in my whole life. I should I have one now?”

When I heard that, I made a decision. I sat and waited until the women left. Then I called the fat guy behind the counter and I asked him, “Do they come in here every night?”

“Yeah,” he answered.

“The one who was right next to me, does she come here every night?”

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s Agnes. Yeah, she comes in here every night. Why d’ya wanna know?”

“Because I heard her say that tomorrow is her birthday,” I told him. “What do you think about us throwing a birthday party for her—right here—tomorrow night?”

A smile slowly crossed his chubby face and he answered with measured delight. “That’s great….I like it….that’s a great idea!” Calling to his wife, who did the cooking in the back room, he shouted, “Hey, come out here! This guy’s got a great idea. Tomorrow is Agnes’s birthday. This guy wants to go in with him and throw a birthday party for her—right here—tomorrow night!”

His wife comes out of the kitchen all bright and smiley. She said, “That’s wonderful! You know Agnes is one of those people who is really nice and kind, and nobody ever does anything nice and kind for her.”

“Look,” I told them, “if it’s OK with you, I’ll get back here tomorrow morning about 2:30 and decorate the place. I’ll even get a birthday cake!”

“No way,” said Harry (that was his name). “The birthday cake’s my thing. I’ll make the cake.”

At 2:30 the next morning I was back at the diner. I had picked up some crepe paper and other decorations at a store, got some balloons, and had made a sign out of big pieces of cardboard that read “Happy Birthday Agnes!” I decorated that diner from one end to the other. I had that joint looking good.

The woman who did the cooking, Jan, must have gotten the word out on the street, because by 3:15 every prostitute in Honolulu was in the place. It was wall-to-wall call girls…and me!

At 3:30 on the dot, the door of the diner swung open and in came Agnes and her friend. I had everyone ready (after all, I was kind of MC of the affair) and when they came in we all screamed “Happy Birthday!!”

Never have I seen a person so flabbergasted…so stunned…so shaken. Her mouth fell open. Her legs seemed to buckle a bit. Her friend grabbed her arm to steady her. As she was led to one of the stools along the counter we sang “Happy Birthday” to her. When we came to the end of our singing, “happy birthday, dear Agnes, happy birthday to you,” her eyes moistened. Then, when the birthday cake with all the candles on it was carried out, she lost it and just openly cried.

Harry gruffly mumbled, “Blow out the candles, Agnes! Come one! Blow out the candles!” She just kept staring at the cake. “If you don’t blow out the candles, I’m gonna have to blow them out.” And, after another long delay, he finally grew impatient and did blow them out. Then he handed her the knife and told her, “Cut the cake, Agnes. Yo, Agnes….we all want some cake.”

Agnes stared down at the cake. There was another pregnant pause. Then, without taking her eyes off it, she slowly and softly said, “Look, Harry, is it alright with you if I…I mean is it OK if I kind of…what I want to ask you is…is it OK if I keep the cake a little while? I mean is it alright if we don’t eat it right away?”

Harry shrugged and answered, “Sure…it’s OK. If ya want to keep the cake, then keep the cake. Take it home if ya want to.”

“Can I?” she responded. Then looking at me she said, “I live just down the street a couple of doors. I want to take the cake home and show it to my mother, okay? I’ll be right back…honest!”

She got off the stool, picked up the cake, and carrying it like it was the Holy Grail, walked slowly out the door. As we all stood there motionless, she left.

When the door closed there was a stunned silence in the packed diner. Not knowing what else to do, I broke the awkward quiet by saying “What do you say we pray for Agnes?”

Looking back on it now it seems more than strange for a sociologist to be leading a prayer meeting with a bunch of prostitutes in a greasy spoon in Honolulu at 3:30 in the morning. But it just felt like the right thing to do. I prayed for Agnes. I prayed for her salvation. I prayed that her life would be changed and that God would be good to her.

When I finished, Harry leaned over the counter and said “Hey…you never told me you were a preacher. What kind of church do you belong to?”

In one of those moments when just the right words came, I answered, “I belong to a church that throws birthday parties for whores at 3:30 in the morning.”

Harry waited a moment, then he answered, “No you don’t…there’s no church like that. If there was, I’d join it. I would sure as Hell join a church like that!”

Wouldn’t we all? Wouldn’t we all love to join a church that throws birthday parties for whores at 3:30 in the morning? Well, that’s the kind of church Jesus came to create. I don’t know where we got the other one that’s so prim and proper. But anybody who reads the New Testament will discover a Jesus who loved to party with whores and with all kinds of left-out people…the publicans and the “sinners” loved Him because he partied with them. The lepers of society found in Him someone who would eat and drink with them. And while the solemnly pious could not relate to what He was about, those lonely people who usually didn’t get invited to parties took to Him with excitement.

Our Jesus was and is the Lord of the party. That’s what we as His followers should make blatantly clear. We should highlight an often-forgotten dimension of what Christianity is all about: The Kingdom of God is a party!

My next installment will tell the rest of the story—about what happened with Agnes.

"I write to discover what I know," and more Flannery O'Connor quotes (Part 2)

This is the second in a two part series on quotes from American novelist, short-story writer, and essayist Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964). An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. She was a Southern writer who often wrote in a Southern Gothic style and relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters. O'Connor's writing also reflected her Catholic faith, and frequently examined questions of morality and ethics.

Here are some more of my favorite quotes from her (there were others in my previous post). Let me know which ones resonate with you.

Your beliefs will be the light by which you see, but they will not be what you see and they will not be a substitute for seeing.

Free will does not mean one will, but many wills conflicting in one man. Freedom cannot be conceived simply.

I don't think literature would be possible in a determined world. We might go through the motions but the heart would be out of it. Nobody could then 'smile darkly and ignore the howls.' Even if there were no Church to teach me this, writing two novels would do it. I think the more you write, the less inclined you will be to rely on theories like determinism. Mystery isn't something that is gradually evaporating. It grows along with knowledge.

It's easier to bleed than sweat, Mr. Motes.

Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.

I have got, over the years, a sense of the immense sweep of creation, of the evolutionary process in everything, of how incomprehensible God must necessarily be to be the God of heaven and earth. You can’t fit the Almighty into your intellectual categories…. What kept me a skeptic [of secularism] in college was precisely my Christian faith. It always said: wait, don’t bite on this, get a wider picture, continue to read. If you want your faith, you have to work for it…. Even in the life of a Christian, faith rises and falls like the tides of an invisible sea. It’s there, even when he can’t see it or feel it, if he wants it to be there. You realize, I think, that it is more valuable, more mysterious, altogether more immense than anything you can learn or decide in college. Learn what you can, but cultivate Christian skepticism.

I write because I don't know what I think until I read what I say.

The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience.

What people don't realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross. It is much harder to believe than not to believe. If you fell you can't believe, you must at least do this: keep an open mind. Keep it open toward faith, keep wanting it, keep asking for it, and leave the rest to God.

Grace changes us and change is painful.

A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way, and it takes every word in the story to say what the meaning is.

No art is sunk in the self, but rather, in art the self becomes self-forgetful in order to meet the demands of the thing seen and the thing being made.

The black sky was underpinned with long silver streaks that looked like scaffolding and depth on depth behind it were thousands of stars that all seemed to be moving very slowly as if they were about some vast construction work that involved the whole universe and would take all time to complete. No one was paying attention to the sky.

I don't deserve any credit for turning the other cheek as my tongue is always in it.

We are now living in an age which doubts both fact and value. It is the life of this age that we wish to see and judge.

The Catholic novelist in the South will see many distorted images of Christ, but he will certainly feel that a distorted image of Christ is better than no image at all. I think he will feel a good deal more kinship with backwoods prophets and shouting fundamentalists than he will with those politer elements for whom the supernatural is an embarrassment and for whom religion has become a department of sociology or culture or personality development.

Accepting oneself does not preclude an attempt to become better.

Sickness is more instructive than a long trip to Europe.

The writer operates at a peculiar crossroads where time and place and eternity somehow meet. His problem is to find that location.

Those who have no absolute values cannot let the relative remain merely relative; they are always raising it to the level of the absolute.

The only thing that makes the Church endurable is that it is somehow the body of Christ and that on this we are fed. It seems to be a fact that you have to suffer as much from the Church as for it but if you believe in the divinity of Christ, you have to cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it.

It is better to be young in your failures than old in your successes.

I am tired of reading reviews that call A Good Man brutal and sarcastic. The stories are hard but they are hard because there is nothing harder or less sentimental than Christian realism.

The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.

When a book leaves your hands, it belongs to God. He may use it to save a few souls or to try a few others, but I think that for the writer to worry is to take over God's business.

My subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory largely held by the devil.

Satisfy your demand for reason but always remember that charity is beyond reason, and God can be known through charity.

I love a lot of people, understand none of them.

The fiction of Ayn Rand is as low as you can get re fiction. I hope you picked it up off the floor of the subway and threw it in the nearest garbage pail. She makes Mickey Spillane look like Dostoevsky.

There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored. The reader of today looks for this motion, and rightly so, but what he has forgotten is the cost of it. His sense of evil is diluted or lacking altogether, and so he has forgotten the price of restoration. When he reads a novel, he wants either his sense tormented or his spirits raised. He wants to be transported, instantly, either to mock damnation or a mock innocence.

I see from the standpoint of Christian orthodoxy. This means that for me the meaning of life is centered in our Redemption by Christ and that what I see in the world I see in relation to that.

Not sentimental love but true Charity is what is hard and endures.

As was usual with him, he began with the least important thing and worked around and in toward the center where the meaning was.

I write to discover what I know.

Thoughts?

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it," and other quotes from Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964) was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. She was a Southern writer who often wrote in a Southern Gothic style and relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters. O'Connor's writing also reflected her Catholic faith, and frequently examined questions of morality and ethics.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from her. Let me know which ones resonate with you.

I am not afraid that the book will be controversial, I'm afraid it will not be controversial.

Anyone who survives childhood has enough material to write for the rest of his or her life.

Our age not only does not have a very sharp eye for the almost imperceptible intrusions of grace, it no longer has much feeling for the nature of the violences which precede and follow them.

I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted.

We lost our innocence in the Fall, and our turn to it is through the Redemption which was brought about by Christ's death and by our slow participation in it. Sentimentality is a skipping of this process in its concrete reality and an early arrival at a mock state of innocence, which strongly suggests its opposite.

The basis of art is truth, both in matter and in mode.

Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to never was there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it.

There was already a deep black wordless conviction in him that the way to avoid Jesus was to avoid sin.

If you live today, you breath in nihilism ... it's the gas you breathe. If I hadn't had the Church to fight it with or to tell me the necessity of fighting it, I would be the stinkingest logical positivist you ever saw right now.

You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.

All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal.

I come from a family where the only emotion respectable to show is irritation. In some this tendency produces hives, in others literature, in me both.

Only if we are secure in our beliefs can we see the comical side of the universe.

Most of us have learned to be dispassionate about evil, to look it in the face and find, as often as not, our own grinning reflections with which we do not argue, but good is another matter. Few have stared at that long enough to accept that its face too is grotesque, that in us the good is something under construction. The modes of evil usually receive worthy expression. The modes of good have to be satisfied with a cliche or a smoothing down that will soften their real look.

To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness.

Where is there a place for you to be? No place... Nothing outside you can give you any place... In yourself right now is all the place you've got.

The operation of the Church is entirely set up for the sinner; which creates much misunderstanding among the smug.

At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily.

Conviction without experience makes for harshness.

People without hope not only don't write novels, but what is more to the point, they don't read them.

When there is a tendency to compartmentalize the spiritual and make it resident in a certain type of life only, the spiritual is apt gradually to be lost.

Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not.

I use the grotesque the way I do because people are deaf and dumb and need help to see and hear.

Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it.

I have found, in short, from reading my own writing, that my subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory largely held by the devil.

I have also found that what I write is read by an audience which puts little stock either in grace or the devil. You discover your audience at the same time and in the same way that you discover your subject, but it is an added blow.

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.

All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful.

Most of us come to the church by a means the church does not allow.

I think there is no suffering greater than what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe. I know what torment this is, but I can only see it, in myself anyway, as the process by which faith is deepened. A faith that just accepts is a child's faith and all right for children, but eventually you have to grow religiously as every other way, though some never do.

The greatest dramas naturally involve the salvation or loss of the soul. Where there is no belief in the soul, there is very little drama.

I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.

More next week. Any thoughts on these now?