{"id":1065,"date":"2010-09-30T18:26:00","date_gmt":"2010-09-30T18:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2010\/09\/thanks-to-%e2%80%9cparker%e2%80%99s-back%e2%80%9d-i%e2%80%99m-back\/"},"modified":"2017-01-24T18:57:23","modified_gmt":"2017-01-24T23:57:23","slug":"thanks-to-parkers-back-im-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/yimcatholic\/2010\/09\/thanks-to-parkers-back-im-back.html","title":{"rendered":"Thanks to \u201cParker\u2019s Back\u201d (I\u2019m Back)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/a>Today I had to laugh. A reader e-mailed to ask if I was dead. No, I am not dead. That e-mail was the match that lit this post, but Flannery O\u2019Connor was the fuel. Her short story \u201cParker\u2019s Back,\u201d since I read it over the weekend, like an icon lit by freaky candles, has haunted me. It explains why \u201cWhy I Am Catholic\u201d can never be answered satisfactorily. And \u201cWhy I Can\u2019t Escape Being Catholic\u201d is an even more compelling question.
<\/a>
Short capsule bio:<\/i> Flannery O\u2019Connor (above), Southern Catholic woman writer, lived with her mother on a dairy farm, raised peahens, wrote two novels, a passel of short stories, a few essays, many lovely letters, died of lupus at 39.<\/p>\n

Synopsis: <\/i>O. E. Parker, a marginal, all-but-no-good cracker like many O\u2019Connor characters, has a body covered with tattoos, everywhere but his back; falls for a woman whose appeal is inexplicable, she being skinny, cantankerous, unlike the soft, round, pliant, numerous women he has known before. Funniest passage in the whole story illustrates her mysterious appeal:<\/p>\n

As he reached for her, she thrust him away with such force that the door of the truck came off and he found himself flat on his back on the ground. He made up his mind then and there to have nothing further to do with her. (Paragraph break) They were married in the County Ordinary\u2019s office because Sarah Ruth thought churches were idolatrous.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Have you ever fallen in love with someone this way? Is this not how all of us (at least us converts) fall in love with the Church? She is unlike any woman we\u2019ve known, and for all that, magnetic and forceful as the daylights.<\/i>
<\/i><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n

Synopsis resumed: <\/i>Once married, Parker becomes gloomy, Sarah Ruth becomes pregnant. One day, Parker crashes his tractor into a tree which goes up in flames like a great burning cross, he goes straight to the tattoo parlor, asks for \u201cthe book you got with all the pictures of God in it,\u201d won\u2019t settle for anything less than Jesus. As he flips through the book, this image seems to speak to him:<\/p>\n

. . . the haloed head of a flat stern Byzantine Christ with all-demanding eyes. He sat there trembling; his heart began slowly to beat again as if it were being brought to life by a subtle power.<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cYou found what you want?\u201d the artist asked.<\/i><\/p>\n

Parker\u2019s throat was too dry to speak. He got up and thrust the book at the artist, opened at the picture.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019ll cost you plenty,\u201d the artist said.<\/i><\/p>\n

It\u2019ll cost you nothing less than everything. Synopsis concluded: <\/i>Parker goes crawling back to Sarah Ruth (great Old Testament name, no?) and to gain entry to their home, he must whisper his real name through the keyhole: Obadiah Elihue. She takes one look at the Christ on his back and growls, \u201cAnother picture. I might have known you was off after putting some more trash on yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s God! Parker moans. God! \u201cNo,\u201d she says, \u201cGod don\u2019t look like that. He don\u2019t look. <\/i>He\u2019s a spirit. No man shall see his face.\u201d She drives him out of the house, screaming that he is an idolator and beating him over the back with her broom until \u201clarge welts had formed on the face of the tattooed Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our last glimpse of Parker, and Sarah Ruth\u2019s, finds him leaning against the one tree in their yard (another tree!). He is \u201ccrying like a baby.\u201d<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know why this story haunts me so. In the past four days, I have read it three times, started reading it aloud to Katie, told two good friends about it . . . Is it that, for the Catholic, Christ can become much more than a \u201cspirit,\u201d a wondrous figure from history who did nice things and taught us to be nice? Is it that, by the time faith begins whacking you with its broom and raising welts, Christ is real, not real like an idol, real like a person, present, here, now. One that follows you everywhere, standing behind you, adding His gaze to yours, a gaze so powerful it dries your throat and has the power to burn right through you? <\/p>\n

There\u2019s much left to ponder here\u2014while waiting for my death, rumors of which have been exaggerated.<\/p>\n

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Today I had to laugh. A reader e-mailed to ask if I was dead. No, I am not dead. That e-mail was the match that lit this post, but Flannery O\u2019Connor was the fuel. Her short story \u201cParker\u2019s Back,\u201d since I read it over the weekend, like an icon lit by freaky candles, has haunted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":143,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThanks to \u201cParker\u2019s Back\u201d (I\u2019m Back)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Today I had to laugh. A reader e-mailed to ask if I was dead. No, I am not dead. 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