Mystery and Manners

So Mark left me with a book, "Mystery and Manners" by Flannery O'Connor and not only do i love it for filling up some of my free time, i LOVE what it says! (reminds me that you dont gotta go very far to learn somethin) Anyways, i'v been encouraged (by mark and my dad, but also by others) to write what i see as im here in mississippi (for those that dont know, i have started writing a book). So i have been trying to do just that! As i sat and read from O'Connors book today, i felt she was encouraging me to do the same. First i read a passage where she is actually writing about another author. He said, "if i write about a hill that is rotting, it is because i despise rot'. the general accusation passed against writers now is that they write about rot because they love it. Some do, and their works may betray them, but it is impossible not to believe that some write about rot because they see it and recognize it for what it is." Later in the chapter she writes "My own feeling is that writers who see by the light of their christain faith will have, in these times,the sharpest eyes for the grotesque, for the perverse and for the unacceptable..."
I guess thats what im working on right now...writing and labeling things for what they are! A lot of times i may not necessarily have the 'right' to speak those ideas, but im allowed to write them down and process them in that way! I asked a friend what he thought that last quote meant...he described it literally but then said...its like when you love something so much you hate it! and i think thats exactly what has happened here. I have fallen in love with the culture, the land, the tradition, the people etc...but often the things i observe are perverse and unacceptable! And perhaps that is why i fell in love with it in the first place. but i love it so much that i hate it...i hate the cycle of poverty, i hate the reality of resources (or a lack there of), i hate that they have people like me comin in to observe but who dont really do any good!
What i have learned that i can do however, is continue to write! To write things how i see them, or for what they truely are! another quote: "when you can assume your audience holds the same beliefs you do, you can relax a little and use more normal means of talking to it; when you have to assume that it does not then you have to make your vision apparent by shock-to the hard of hearing you shsout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures"
as i continue to write my book (if i can call it that, haha) i pray that i find balance in sensoring my words but in speaking truth and saying what i want to say in order to illustrate the things that some people dont get to witness.