Friday, September 4, 2015

O’Reilly or O’Connor



‘Mobility and television and the sound of Yankee voices on the evening news all gnaw away at the foundations of the regime [i.e., the Southern way of life--W.G.] . . .’ (M. E. Bradford, ‘Where We Were Born and Raised: The Southern Conservative Tradition’, The Reactionary Imperative, Sherwood Sugden & Co., 1990, p. 131).

Two from among the Irish present themselves to the South today.  One tells her that she and others in the American Empire ought to rule all the world because of their divinely given ‘exceptional’ status, and along with this offers her stories and his on-air personal behavior to ignite the fallen passions into flames, making his followers twice-over the children of hell. 

The other, her heart breaking in prayer for the repentance of her people, the Souð, left a rich literary inheritance of letters, novels, and short stories written in her tears, that we as a theod (nation) would be more than simply ‘Christ-haunted’.

It should be no hard decision which of the two the South should follow - the prideful way of the Yankee Bill O’Reilly that leads to separation from God and ghostly (spiritual) death, or the humility of our kinswoman Miss Flannery O’Connor that leads life.  But these are not normal days.

Yet we unhesitatingly ask all to turn away from Mr O’Reilly in favor of Miss O’Connor.  One would understand the world better by reading her works than by watching the ‘analysis’ of the day-to-day news seen on Mr O’Reilly’s program.  He would also be strengthened in his Southernness by reading stories written in his own native tongue, about his own land, and so forth.

As a help, here is Miss O’Connor reading her short story ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’.  If nothing else, enjoy hearing the fair sounds of the landly Georgia speechway.  And pray that the Lord would grant rest to the departed soul of Miss O’Connor after a difficult life struggling with lupus.


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