Hay, Joy, and Hope

Here is something I wrote for school. Thanks to all the people who helped with this and whose content I referenced.

I have recently journeyed through week 7, Southern Literature, in my ENGL 203 literature class.* I thought about hay in the context of O’Connor’s Work. As someone who called herself Roman Catholic, it is possible O’Connor was deeply familiar with the Nativity narrative in Scripture, and she clearly did have an awareness that people professed Christianity in the South – living consistently, however, is something that a faithful heart pursues and yet may grieve that it is not yet what it will be in forever. Hay, relevant to O’Connor’s narrative, plays a unique role in the Nativity account and it is interesting to see a comparison to Joy / Hulga, Mary / Eve, and the nativity story (Puritan Board, Nunez). The conartist in the story – does he represent the opposite of the Angel Gabriel in any way? He was wearing blue, which has been associated with Mary the mother of Jesus, but he is not one of the faithful – in fact, his disappearance is a sort of anti-ascension one could argue. One can see Hulga/Joy alone in the hayloft as going back to the beginning in some sense – both to the beginning of O’Connor’s story, and to the beginning of the world. Is she like Eve alone in the garden after saying no to the fruit, yet having conflict in her own heart? The devil fell without eating fruit evidently, but the issue was more than this – obedience to God or obedience to sin?

A redemptive ending, whether dystopian or not, could find the main character finding God in the hayloft. After all, Christ identified with the Church, so “asleep in the hay” with the Word is a good place to be (Luther). Hulga/Joy spent time at home ‘reading books in a chair’ – and books are a reflection of there being a creative God who has given us gifts and abilities – but here, lying down, left apparently all alone, and without her books or glasses, perhaps she could begin to see (O’Connor). Not because glasses are bad or because the events that caused her to lose them were good, but because God can work through our blindness to bring us his light, and only when we see that we do not see as we should, or certainly not as we will, do we see as the Creator makes us to see; even this sight is his gift. In Eden, Eve was told “your eyes will be opened” but really blindness came into the world through her choice and Adam’s (esv, kjv). Sight apart from God? It never has nor can be. Listening to a recording of a John Denver concert, I thought about the 20th century and the move toward using drugs to achieve a “high” (although Denver could have also used this term to refer to a more general sense of being or feeling upbeat, such as “sunshine on my shoulder almost always makes me high”)(Denver) .

In the context of a new interest in using drugs, including ones from other places that had not Apparently a significant number of people during the 1900’s misused drugs and may not have realized the effect that repeatedly injecting over time could have ( NLM ). I thought about the call of Christ that one must “become like a little child to enter the kingdom” and about reports of God moving amongst people from “hippie” backgrounds, such as described in WORLD magazine (WORLD). The events that may have led people to be disillusioned with non-Christian beliefs were not necessary good in themselves, but God could use them for his purpose and for the people called according to his purpose (esv, kjv). O’Connor’s story ends with an abandoned girl in a hayloft who had lifted herself up on God’s level while calling out other people for doing the same (she did not appear to think herself bad for planning to “seduce” and “teach a lesson” to, ostensibly, a teenage boy selling Bibles; But she did think this person bad when he acted consistently with her beliefs of right and wrong. He is actually a pretty effective conartist who is just as interested as she is in doing wrong, despite their different ideas of what a “good” bad thing would be (whether he is a teenager or not we are not told for sure). O’Connor’s story ends with a hayloft stranding. Meanwhile, Denver’s plane went down from its flight and his life ended on a dive, rather than a high. Michael W. Smith, another musician, who reflected back to his days in the American South abusing drugs, prior to what he described as his conversion to Christ, later sang, “I am up, like the Lord is up” (Smith). For those in Christ, we are seated in the heavenly places with him. Any seat in the Father’s house is “the best seat in the house,” and to be there is to be in a place of rest; we have ceased from our striving and landed in grace (Heller). “At your right hand will be only pleasures forevermore, life that never ends (esv, kjv)”. If “we humble ourselves, we will be exalted” (esv, kjv).

He who is low need fear no fall

The poor in heart no pride

Those who are humble forever will

Have God to be their guide (EWC, John Bunyan).