Most of us come to the church by a means the church does not allow.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that many people find spiritual connections through unconventional or forbidden methods.
Flannery O'Connor's quote reflects on the idea that individuals often approach spirituality or religion in ways that may not align with traditional doctrines or practices. It implies that personal experiences and journeys towards faith can be complex and multifaceted, often involving paths that institutions might deem inappropriate or outside their accepted norms. O'Connor's insight highlights the tension between personal belief and institutional religion, suggesting that the true essence of faith may transcend organized practices.
In practice
During a sermon on personal journeys, the pastor quoted O'Connor to illustrate how diverse experiences shape our faith.
Let me make no bones about it: I write from the standpoint of Christian orthodoxy. Nothing is more repulsive to me than the idea of myself setting up a little universe of my own choosing and propounding a little immoralistic message. I write with a solid belief in all the Christian dogmas.
What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. They think faith is a big electric blanket, when of course it is the cross.
If you live today, you breath in nihilism ... it's the gas you breathe. If I hadn't had the Church to fight it with or to tell me the necessity of fighting it, I would be the stinkingest logical positivist you ever saw right now.
There won't be any biographies of me because, for only one reason, lives spent between the house and the chicken yard do not make exciting copy.
Knowing who you are is good for one generation only. You haven't the foggiest idea where you stand now or who you are
He loved her because it was his nature to do so, but there were times when he could not endure her love for him. There were times when it became nothing but pure idiot mystery.
It is goodness that gives to a neighborhood its beauty. One who is free to choose, yet does not prefer to dwell among the good - how can he be accorded the name of wise?
Renunciation - non-resistance - non-destructiveness - are the ideals to be attained through less and less worldliness, less and less resistance, less and less destructiveness. Keep the ideal in view and work towards it. None can live in the world without resistance, without destruction, without desire. The world has not come to that state yet when the ideal can be realised in society.
In fact, if law were restricted to protecting all persons, all liberties, and all properties; if law were nothing more than the organized combination of the individual's right to self-defense; if law were the obstacle, the check, the punisher of all oppression and plunder - is it likely that we citizens would then argue much about the extent of the franchise?
The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.
We can no more justify using nonhumans as human resources than we can justify human slavery. Animal use and slavery have at least one important point in common: both institutions treat sentient beings exclusively as resources of others. That cannot be justified with respect to humans; it cannot be justified with respect to nonhumans—however “humanely” we treat them.
Given the accelerating velocity of history, we should begin charting deliberately the next phase in its trajectory.
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