Flannery O’Connor – A Writer’s Prayer Journal

Last updated on: September 20, 2015 at 6:29 pm by Tom Zampino

Flannery O’Connor – A Writer’s Prayer Journal 2015-09-20T18:29:35-05:00 Tom Zampino

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

In September 2013, The New Yorker magazine published excerpts on-line from Flannery O’Connor’s prayer journal, entitled My Dear God, A Young Writer’s Prayers.

Here is how The New Yorker described these journal entries at that time:

In January, 1946, while studying at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Flannery O’Connor began keeping a journal in a ruled Sterling notebook. O’Connor, who had left her home in Milledgeville, Georgia, for Iowa, turned twenty-one in March and had her first short story, “The Geranium,” accepted for publication that month. She was a devout Catholic, and over a year and a half she filled the notebook with a series of entries addressed to God. The following excerpts from her journal chart her thoughts on the subject of faith and prayer, and her hopes for her fiction.

I am only now beginning to discover the majesty of O’Connor’s works. I have a lot of catching up to do. But these short prayer excerpts really spoke to me this evening, particularly the one I share below.

While these prayers are directed at her writing, it seems to me that they have a much broader application.

We can observe an on-going, internal struggle as O’Connor tries to understand how she can best use her God-given talents without getting in her own way, or altogether self-absorbed. At the very least, they provide just a small glimpse into the mind of one of the 20th century’s greatest writers.

Now, few of us have even a small measure of O’Connor’s talent.

But as for me, I fully understand, and share in, her most ardent desire: to write, to sweat even, in furtherance His service – even if in just a small way. I, like O’Connor, am no less a presumptuous fool in that regard.

I hope that you’ll take the time to read them all.

Dear God,

About hope, I am somewhat at a loss.

It is so easy to say I hope to—the tongue slides over it. I think perhaps hope can only be realized by contrasting it with despair.

And I am too lazy to despair.

Please don’t visit me with it, dear Lord, I would be so miserable.

Hope, however, must be something distinct from faith. I unconsciously put it in the faith department. It must be something positive that I have never felt. It must be a positive force, else why the distinction between it and faith?

I would like to order things so that I can feel all of a piece spiritually. I don’t suppose I order things. But all my requests seem to melt down to one for grace—that supernatural grace that does what ever it does.

My mind is in a little box, dear God, down inside other boxes inside other boxes and on and on. There is very little air in my box.

Dear God, please give me as much air as it is not presumptuous to ask for. Please let some light shine out of all the things around me so that I can.

What it amounts to I suppose is be selfish. Is there no getting around that, dear God? No escape from ourselves? Into something bigger?

Oh dear God I want to write a novel, a good novel. I want to do this for a good feeling & for a bad one. The bad one is uppermost. The psychologists say it is the natural one. Let me get away dear God from all things thus “natural.”

Help me to get what is more than natural into my work—help me to love & bear with my work on that account.

If I have to sweat for it, dear God, let it be as in Your service. I would like to be intelligently holy.

I am a presumptuous fool, but maybe the vague thing in me that keeps me in is hope.

Peace

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Uncategorized

Previous Post

September 19, 2015

Peter Kreeft On Thomas Aquinas: A Dumb Ox Who Probably Had ADD

Next Post

September 22, 2015 Follow Pope Francis' Visit To The United States - Some Excellent Resources

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Belief Changes Evil Faith Guest Post Jenner Laudato si Lawyers Life Prayer Priesthood Reviews Uncategorized

Select a Month April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What year was the Council of Nicea?

Select your answer to see how you score.

1054 AD 1517 AD 500 AD 325 AD