DIS+4

DIS 4

Video for a Context:

1. Welcome to Andalusia, Home of Flannery O'Connor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ5Mo5Rbteo&feature=fvsr

2. This is a student film: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAy9kW0yUpU

The student writes: " This was a video made for my English class. One of the first I ever made. So, it's not great. But the music is nice...and you'll learn about Flannery. (she's a great author)." Quotes:

"All of 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." - Flannery O'Connor

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it." - Flannery O'Connor

Prompt:

Can grace and the theology of incarnation ever be ironic? Why?

DIS 4 EM: Whether or not we choose to recognize God's grace or His incarnation on our earth is a choice that we make. Once one has chosen this path, how she finds God's grace and supports the theology of His incarnation is also her own choice, catered to her own faith and how she chooses to find God in her life. I believe that God's grace and His presence on our earth is the purest thing in this world; it is untouched, it is rare and beautiful. What we choose to do with this gift is our own prerogative and rides on how we choose to live our lives in accordance with God. I do not relate irony to God's grace or the theology of His incarnation because of my belief that these things are wholly pure and are steadfast sources of truth in my life, and I do not ever find the truth to be ironic. In literary terms, an author, like Flannery O'Connor, can bring irony to a certain scenario in relation to God, but she cannot change God's grace and His incarnation into something that is ironic. I do not believe that O'Connor's mission was to do this, I believe her mission was to bring even more life and truth to God's grace and incarnation by creating ironic scenes and dynamic characters. At one point in the video the maker touches on the fact that people often questioned O'Connor's morbid stories that often dealt with death and wondered how they could possibly bring light to a reader, but O'Connor responded excellently by saying that her mission was to bring these stories to life, for readers to feel they were present in each of these stories, and mainly for readers to find hope and new life through the concepts of sin and death by recognizing the option for God's grace in all situations.

GG: This is thoughtful, EM. I must say that sometimes I do find irony in God's grace. Some of the times that I least expect to find Him, He appears. In some of the most "unsacred" moments in life, His face is radiant.

BK: Sometimes I find myself desiring God's or searching for his incarnation in those around me, but have trouble spotting it. It is easy to get frustrated with the idea of God, espeically when one is younger and feels the need to //see// someone/something to prove that it exists. As my faith has matured, I have come to terms with the fact that I will never actually be able to put one singular face to God, but rather that he is all around me in my family, friends, nature, strangers, and even my cute little dog! Andy Warhol once said that, “As soon as you stop wanting something, you get it.” I find this quote to ring true about the irony of God's grace and the theology of incarnation. Sometimes I want to see God so badly, either literally as when I was younger or just witness a good deed and connect it to God, that I don't even realize His prescence when it hits me in the face. I don't see or feel his grace in the way I was expecting, so I stop "wanting" it and begin to focus on something else. And sometimes that's when I witness Him, after I've, in blunt terms, given up. I find myself sometimes searching and serarching for God in O'Connor's stories because I know this is a religion class and He's got to be in there somewhere, right? But I realized while reading this most recent short story that God's grace, like in life, is in the most unusal of places in her stories. It seems to be that after I've skimmed the story, trying to highlight any "god-related" sentences, that I realize that there are themes throughout that I merely passed over because I was so focused on the literal. Ironic, huh? It just so happens that it sometimes takes me a few tries to find God, in O'Connor's short stories and in life.

GG: Warhol's words are wise. We are often caught off guard by God. So not search. Listen. Reflect. You will begin to see God in the oddest moments. It is not some magical, rabbit out of the hat, business. You are not so much finding God in O'Connor. Instead, you are finding opportunities for God's grace in the stories. "The action of grace..."

LD:

When I am reading Flannery O’Connor’s stories, like Breanna, I am always focused on finding the moment of “God’s grace”. I feel like my experience reading these stories can be summed up by me trying to pick apart characters and events to force God in its message. Its not until I actually go to our Christian Themes in Literature class, second period on Thursdays that I actually understand the fluidity in O’Connor’s writing and the ironic in how I approach our assignments. Flannery O’Connor’s stories held grace in its purest and simplest form, when I try to force it I am stropping the story of its grace. I definitely think grace and the theology of incarnation can be ironic because, like Flannery O’Connor shows in her stories, God’s grace can never be planned, it will always be unexpected and often occurs when you least expect it. GG: (L): Ah, please, do not force God into the message. If He is there, He will let you know. Just take it as it unfolds. God's grace is always with us, Lizzy, but we do not always see it!