PhD in English. Coming in 2028: My Year of War and Peace. Columnist @RNS. Contributing Writer @TheDispatch. The Priory https://xitter.cf/t.co/cbaTNohjRS
Joined January 2010
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But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
“There are many books that have been written on calling and vocation, but none more delightful and personally edifying than this little book.” — Common Ground on You Have a Calling
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Karen Swallow Prior (Notorious KSP) retweeted
The weirdest part of those AI scam emails to authors is the premise. You don't need an author's permission (or money, obviously) to feature his book in your book club or reading group or whatever. He doesn't even need to know you're doing it. Just go ahead and do it.
Karen Swallow Prior (Notorious KSP) retweeted
I've often wondered why some pastors are so determined to extend grace to child sex offenders — especially when it puts children in their congregation at risk. In the case of South Carolina minister Tracy Black, one possible answer is becoming clearer.
Black defended his decision to allow a registered sex offender to attend outdoor church services and dismissed concerns about child safety. Now Black is facing charges for alleged child sex abuse and possession of child sex abuse material.
Could it be his empathy for child sex abusers was actually empathy for himself?
roysreport.com/south-carolin…
This past Sunday was the second All Saints’ Day service I’ve attended in church. It might be the most meaningful part of the church calendar for me.
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Karen Swallow Prior (Notorious KSP) retweeted
Dear Ms. Oates:
As someone who admires both your writing, and Flannery O'Connor's, a great deal, I thought I might respond to your recent comments about Flannery O'Connor and her Catholic faith.
As I see it, Flannery was definitely a foe of hypocrisy. (Her great and trenchant story "Revelation," in which the self-satisfied Mrs. Turpin is shown in a vision how those she considers "beneath her" are entering heaven ahead of her, is a case in point.) Flannery's frequent critiques of religion are not so much a critique of faith (she herself enjoyed a very strong faith, as you can see in her recently published collection, "A Prayer Journal") but a critique of falsely religious people. Hypocrites, to use Jesus's own language.
Flannery was herself was very pious (in her own way of course) and tried to paint her fictional characters in what you might call a loud way, in order to make them stand out. "To the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures," she wrote. This, again, is not the result of her lack of faith (or her desire to make fun of faith) but her desire, as I see it, to have people understand true faith.
As for the Eucharist, her oft-quoted line came in response to a comment from Mary McCarthy at a dinner party of literary types. (Flannery was brought by Robert Lowell and his wife.) At one point, McCarthy, who considered herself a lapsed Catholic, opined that the Eucharist was a symbol ("and a pretty good one at that"). Flannery responded, "Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it."
In other words, for Flannery, the Eucharist is much more than a symbol and a person wouldn't give their life or stake their faith on "just" a symbol. (Symbols are important of course, but the reality they point to is even more important.) Flannery believed in what we Catholics call the "Real Presence," where Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. So, "to hell with" anything that lessened the truth of that.
In any event, I hope this clarifies things a bit.
Thanks for all the wonderful work of yours that I've so enjoyed over the years.
Peace,
Fr. James Martin, SJ
actually I've begun to wonder whether Flannery O'Connor believed the pious utterances she'd made in interviews & essays, that identify her as a "good Catholic."
I am no expert in her work--though I am sure that I've read all of her fiction-- but in stories as savagely corrosive & brilliantly hilarious as "A Late Encounter with the Enemy" it is piety & old-timey southern hypocrisy that are the objects of her satire. truly wondering whether, like some other writers, O'Connor did not reveal her deeper, more idiosyncratic self in her best fiction & not in more public performances.
"trust the tale, not the teller; the teller is a liar"--D. H. Lawrence
I have a short reflection in the Nov/Dec issue of @CTmagazine.
“The tension among evangelicals who are reacting so strongly against Gerwig’s Narnia appears to be related to the contradiction between their love for fantasy and their fear of imagination.” — @rickpidcock
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Karen Swallow Prior (Notorious KSP) retweeted
Patrick Stewart in lockdown reading my favorite sonnet, Sonnet 73, “That Time of Year Thou May’st in Me Behold.” RIP.
I attended a performance of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale tonight and the director dedicated the show to the late, great Shakespearean actor Patrick Stewart.
Karen Swallow Prior (Notorious KSP) retweeted
Sure, some links!
Here’s @KSPrior for some Aristotelian Austen:
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Today is the 300th anniversary of the publication of Gulliver’s Travels! HBD, Gulliver! 🎉
Read more about this inimitable work in my series at The Priory:
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Karen Swallow Prior (Notorious KSP) retweeted
Honored by these kind words from @KSPrior regarding The Crystal Hand, which will publish in December from the wonderful @WisebloodBooks.
Today's a great day to order a copy or two in time for holiday gifts!
Once the reception was shown to be favorable, the notoriously shy and awkward Burney gave up trying to keep the authorship of Evelina revealed (who can blame her?). Not surprisingly, many of the first readers and critics assumed the author was a man.
karenswallowprior.substack.c…
