Optimism with Flannery

There will always be a special place in my heart for Flannery O’Connor. Having never met her in person, she has, nonetheless, irreversibly touched my life through her writings and stories. A master of wit, fiction, and character construction, Flannery helped introduce me to my Faith in stories where her theology permeates the engrossed reader. Not only did she bring me closer to God, but through her art (which she unreservedly calls “grotesque”) she managed to make me an optimist.

Optimism, it would seem, is an unfashionable attitude these days. Most people you’re likely to meet will unabashedly pronounce their pessimism or their agnosticism (which is nothing more than pessimism in denial). Too, people (like one of my good friends) qualify the eras into which their positivity extends--like Tolkien, they are "historic pessimists, but eschatological optimists." I, however, am not willing to say my optimism begins anywhere but now and forever. Call me a fool, but I believe in my heart that we can do better, and that, indeed, we shall—even on this side of eternity.

This ability to hope and believe was taught to me by Flannery who showed her readers how to see. Optimism, not surprisingly, depends on optics, on sight. Optimists are capable of believing that good will prevail in the world, in time, in the lives of men because they are able to see the best even amidst the worst. Using our optics to see the good is what gives us the word, optimal. The root of optic (sight) and optimus (the best) is derivative of two Latin roots: ob- (in front of) and ops- (power). And that is what truly well-trained eyes are able to do—to not only see what is in front of them, but to have the power to pierce this encounter and see beyond, as well—all the way to the good, to the best.

The God and Faith that Flannery was willing to share with me and bring me to is one that allows me to encounter mystery daily. She is always willing to note her critics who claim that her Faith limits her art. Flannery, however, resists this view: “I have found nothing further from the truth. Actually, [Christian dogma] frees the storyteller to observe. It is not a set of rules which fixes what he sees in the world. It affects his writing primarily by guaranteeing his respect for mystery.” And it is not only true for writers, but all artists, and, in fact, all humans.

We are only able to see best when our world is so broad and deep that we couldn’t possibly see everything—when mystery is always glaring us in the face. This mystery must be the pivotal encounter, the focus which draws us and attracts us—whether it be the profound truth of the foolish situation or the alluring beauty of the simple sight—we must long for this immensity in each tiny object. It was the Ancient Hebrews, Flannery correctly notes, who were “genius for making the absolute concrete.” These folks revealed that even in the immanent we can touch the transcendent. The more grounded and probingly microscopic our vision becomes the more awesome visions we behold—suddenly we see the person and world in front of us, in their entirety, in their dignity.

If the world is to be a better place, an optimal place, then we must all stop thinking carrots are the answer to poor eyesight. Actually, it is humility that helps us to see. We must first discover our own eyes by discovering the mystery inlying our very selves. "To know oneself,” Flannery suggests, “is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against the Truth, and not the other way around.” When we discover Truth and its effect on us, we see for the first time the Fallen world and our place in it, and are compelled to be fulfilled by engaging the depths for heights, humility for ecstasy, and suffering for satisfaction. We go out to meet the world with our capacity for incapacity and become prophets in our everyday activities where our “prophecy is a matter of seeing near things with their extensions of meaning and thus of seeing far things close up.”

“The roots of the eye are in the heart,” Msgr. Guardini reminds us. And our hearts’ beatings are the pulse of our visions and the rhythm of our dreaming. If we fail to see and achieve a future worthy of our faith and befitting He who died for us, then it was because we refused to let Him cure our blindness (which is because we hardened our hearts). Pessimism (whether it be historical and/or eschatological) is a heart disease brought about by blockage which can be near or far.

Too many dismiss idealism as a simpleton’s wayward notion proven by history to be untenable. Plato believed we had to leave this fallen world to escape (clearly a historical pessimist) to the heavenly bliss (clearly an eschatological optimist). Yet, it was a silly Jewish carpenter who proved historically that idealism was possible by rejecting the Platonic divorce for an Incarnational wedding. It was He who demonstrated that henceforth there is no room for pessimism; but first we must see, and we must see why (which in His sight are quite literally the same thing).

Pessimism says that because we’ve tried so long with no avail, that we never shall. Yet, it is another good literary friend, Gilbert Keith (Chesterton) who said, “the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” You see, the other way the aforementioned Jewish fellow changed our view on idealism is because He also changed the misconception about 'the' ideal. He said that optimal future is not one free of suffering, but only free of illegitimate suffering; it is not free of hardship, but full of support. He did not promise solid gold toilet seats to everyone, nor seal-skin bed sheets. But He did suggest we could live good lives, and that we could do so for eternity. In fact, we can begin as soon as today, as we first open our eyes, as we take up the task of heralding in an optimistic future. One may see us as backwards and odd as we usher in the era, and they will be somewhat right, since we must appear confusing, suggesting we are eye-doctors primarily concerned with cardiology.