{"id":2540,"date":"2008-07-23T15:29:00","date_gmt":"2008-07-23T15:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/07\/tough-little-girl\/"},"modified":"2008-07-23T15:29:00","modified_gmt":"2008-07-23T15:29:00","slug":"tough-little-girl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/07\/tough-little-girl.html","title":{"rendered":"Tough Little Girl"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_5BV_YADVD7o\/SIeL57Ilc1I\/AAAAAAAABt0\/bzXMmO_Cpac\/s1600-h\/tough+little+girl.bmp\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right;margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer;cursor:hand\" src=\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_5BV_YADVD7o\/SIeL57Ilc1I\/AAAAAAAABt0\/bzXMmO_Cpac\/s320\/tough+little+girl.bmp\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\"><\/a><br>Why is Flannery such a Catholic writer and not just a writer, or not just a writer who\u2019s Catholic? I think it\u2019s the tough little girls in her stories.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The tough little girls are the wise ones. They\u2019re survivors. They see the two contradictory elements of truth that sum up the Catholic vision: on the one hands the supernatural present everywhere, and on the other hand, the gritty no nonsense hardness of the real world.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>So O\u2019Connor endorses the miraculous, seeing God\u2019s glory crammed into every living thing, and spilling over into miracles of providence and curious twists of enlightenment. On the other hand, she is totally, utterly no nonsense. She takes no c**p from nobody.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I delight in the way she exposes the conceited, unrealistic, shallow and immature intellectuals with the violent, bizarre and wildly ordinary folk. She rips social conventions, hypocrisy and shallow self righteousness at the same time exalting genuine innocence, goodness and naivety. She also exposes the individualistic, anarchical, insanity that is the logical result of sectarian Protestantism, and she does so by showing that the uptight, self righteous, \u2018sane\u2019 social Protestants are just as looped as the fanatical kooks. Mrs Greenleaf the \u2018prayer healer\u2019 and self righteous Mrs May are equally grotesque. \u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Often the sane person in the story is a tough little girl. The wisdom of God is revealed to the little children remember\u2026This recent\u00a0read through of her fiction is full of treasures. In <span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-style: italic\">A Temple of the Holy Ghost <\/span>you almost yell with joy as the tough little wise wild child cries out, \u201cLord, Lord, thank you that I am not in the Church of God!\u201d<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Why is Flannery such a Catholic writer and not just a writer, or not just a writer who\u2019s Catholic? I think it\u2019s the tough little girls in her stories. The tough little girls are the wise ones. They\u2019re survivors. They see the two contradictory elements of truth that sum up the Catholic vision: on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Tough Little Girl<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Why is Flannery such a Catholic writer and not just a writer, or not just a writer who&#039;s Catholic? I think it&#039;s the tough little girls in her stories.The\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/07\/tough-little-girl.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tough Little Girl\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Why is Flannery such a Catholic writer and not just a writer, or not just a writer who&#039;s Catholic? I think it&#039;s the tough little girls in her stories.The\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/07\/tough-little-girl.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-07-23T15:29:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_5BV_YADVD7o\/SIeL57Ilc1I\/AAAAAAAABt0\/bzXMmO_Cpac\/s320\/tough+little+girl.bmp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/07\/tough-little-girl.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/07\/tough-little-girl.html\",\"name\":\"Tough Little Girl\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2008-07-23T15:29:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2008-07-23T15:29:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/9a47bc6ba9c0a8c532dc90230d7ad3ad\"},\"description\":\"Why is Flannery such a Catholic writer and not just a writer, or not just a writer who's Catholic? I think it's the tough little girls in her stories.The\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/07\/tough-little-girl.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/07\/tough-little-girl.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/07\/tough-little-girl.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Tough Little Girl\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/\",\"name\":\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/9a47bc6ba9c0a8c532dc90230d7ad3ad\",\"name\":\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8dbbfbf5b6d096630322e90bce3f0cec?s=96&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8dbbfbf5b6d096630322e90bce3f0cec?s=96&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Fr. Dwight Longenecker\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/dwightlongenecker.com\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/author\/frdwight\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Tough Little Girl","description":"Why is Flannery such a Catholic writer and not just a writer, or not just a writer who's Catholic? I think it's the tough little girls in her stories.The","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/07\/tough-little-girl.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Tough Little Girl","og_description":"Why is Flannery such a Catholic writer and not just a writer, or not just a writer who's Catholic? I think it's the tough little girls in her stories.The","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/07\/tough-little-girl.html","og_site_name":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","article_published_time":"2008-07-23T15:29:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_5BV_YADVD7o\/SIeL57Ilc1I\/AAAAAAAABt0\/bzXMmO_Cpac\/s320\/tough+little+girl.bmp"}],"author":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/07\/tough-little-girl.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/07\/tough-little-girl.html","name":"Tough Little Girl","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-07-23T15:29:00+00:00","dateModified":"2008-07-23T15:29:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/9a47bc6ba9c0a8c532dc90230d7ad3ad"},"description":"Why is Flannery such a Catholic writer and not just a writer, or not just a writer who's Catholic? I think it's the tough little girls in her stories.The","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/07\/tough-little-girl.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/07\/tough-little-girl.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2008\/07\/tough-little-girl.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Tough Little Girl"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/","name":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/9a47bc6ba9c0a8c532dc90230d7ad3ad","name":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8dbbfbf5b6d096630322e90bce3f0cec?s=96&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8dbbfbf5b6d096630322e90bce3f0cec?s=96&r=g","caption":"Fr. Dwight Longenecker"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/dwightlongenecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/author\/frdwight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/557"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}