Deus Misereatur

A Political Companion to Flannery O’Connor Ed. Henry T. Edmondson III University Press of Kentucky ISBN: 978-0-8131-6940-8; $60.00; June 2017 While one of my daughters was sitting in her college literature class in Mississippi, the professor assigned a short story by Flannery O’Connor. She plaintively raised her hand and asked him if she had to read it. Her instructor stated pointedly, “yes,” and then inquired as to why she asked. “My dad made me read Flannery O’Connor during High School, and she gives me a headache!”  Her response impressed him, to say the least. Beyond giving High School students headaches, there is a deep value to reading the novellas and short stories of Flannery O’Connor, which is thoughtfully played out in a new work, “A Political Companion to Flannery O’Connor” edited by Henry T. Edmondson III, the Carl Vinson Endowed Chair of Political Science and Public Administration at Georgia College. This 398 page clothbound edition is a gold...

You who are the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy, who has said: “ I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite ” (Isaiah 57.15): we rejoice and give you our great thanks that, as we heard this morning, in Jesus Christ your only Son our Lord, heaven and earth have come together; the high and lifted One has come to dwell among us! Now hear our grateful prayers offered in concert with Psalm 70: Make haste, O God, to deliver me! O LORD, make haste to help me! Hear the groans and grief of those hurting through sickness, weakening bodies, sad hearts and desperate conditions…speedily deliver them and swiftly help them. Hear the cries and despair of those who are down and out, done in and destitute in our congregation, in our city, under our bridges, and around our neighborhoods, and make haste to help them. Let them be ...