Praying with Flannery

I dove into Flannery O'Connor's prayer journal last night. It's a plain, intimate and fascinating affair, even if it feels at times intrusive to read. I don't anticipate it being a source of model theology, yet it is certainly a worthy model of frank and vulnerable praying. For me there is added interest as it was written just a few years before being diagnosed with Lupus. A distant and sterile introduction by a scholar and friend does not ascribe much to the reality of the recipient of her prayers, yet he tends to affirm that prayer does in fact change things, that many of her prayers were, in one way or another, and even with a bit of irony, answered. I could quickly turn this blog into a record of appreciated quotes, lines I might be led to pray with her, and in that way the book is therapeutic, cathartic, perhaps not unlike some of David's intensely personal prayers becoming the corporate songbook of the church.

So, this was last night's...

All boils down to grace, I suppose. I am afraid of pain and I suppose that is what we have to have to get grace. Give me the courage to stand the pain to get the grace, Oh Lord. Help me with this life that seems so treacherous, so disappointing.