{"id":6621,"date":"2006-08-03T00:04:12","date_gmt":"2006-08-03T00:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/why-flannery.html"},"modified":"2006-08-03T00:04:12","modified_gmt":"2006-08-03T00:04:12","slug":"why-flannery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2006\/08\/why-flannery.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Flannery?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why is Flannery over there on the left, where there’s usually a saint o’ the day? Because today is the 42nd anniversary of her death from Lupus.<\/p>\n

I’ll be on the fabulous KVSS from Omaha 8:15-9 (Central) this morning talking about her, and the show will be archived. Ignore the part where I say she was born in Milledgeville, please.<\/a> I attempt a save later by correcting myself – of course she was born in Savannah – I’ve been to the house, for pete’s sake. But my brain just flopped at that moment, for some reason.<\/p>\n

Here’s the article I wrote on Flannery that I like the best, and the <\/a>one that put the best letter I ever received in my mailbox (my real <\/em>mailbox) – from Sally Fitzgerald herself, saying that I "got" Flannery.<\/p>\n

Have you ever walked on air?<\/p>\n

A couple of Flannery sites:<\/p>\n

The Comforts of Home – a respository of writings about O’Connor<\/a><\/p>\n

The Flannery O’Connor Collection at George College in Milledgeville. <\/a><\/p>\n

If Flannery Had a Blog…by one of our own.<\/a><\/p>\n

Where ever you start reading O’Connor, you should have her collected letters, The Habit of Being<\/em> alongside you as you read. Or frankly, even if you have no interest in reading her fiction, take a look at the letters. What you will find there is helpful, insightful spiritual reading, written in unfailingly good cheer by a woman who was suffering – at least physically – a great deal.<\/p>\n

Here’s a post I wrote about my last visit to Milledgeville, 2 years ago, including my first look inside the farm house at Andalusia.<\/a><\/p>\n

There are many profound quotes one could offer from Flannery, but I’ll just throw out these two, which, while not spiritual, have given me great comfort and steadiness over the years:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.<\/em><\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

and<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Total non-retention has kept my education from being a burden to me<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Cheers…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why is Flannery over there on the left, where there’s usually a saint o’ the day? Because today is the 42nd anniversary of her death from Lupus. I’ll be on the fabulous KVSS from Omaha 8:15-9 (Central) this morning talking about her, and the show will be archived. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6621\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}