a good man is hard to find...

recently i have been reading some of flannery o'conners short stories, on the suggestion of the markman. one in particular has stood out to me, her very short piece a good man is hard to find. this is the story of the inner intrigues of a family as they prepare for and then embark on a family trip florida, during which they run into a escaped murder and his crew.

i guess the reason i write about this short story is that it makes the point very clear that it is not so much the outward search for a good man that is hard, but the inner one. the father of the family is constantly harried and harassed and thus reacts harshly situations, when all along you get the feeling he doesn't want to act out like he does. the real revelation of this comes at the end with the conversation between the grandmother and the misfit, the killer, as his two cronies take the entire family out in the woods to kill them. she continues to tell him he is really a good man and that he doesn't have to do this. he acknowledges this but cannot find it within himself to turn away from evil. it is his inner struggle to find the good man that the story is really about. or maybe more accurately his resigned failure to not ever having found this man.

this is the same struggle you and i face. to fall prey to past decisions. to be defined by the world as a lawless person. but for us it is not an unaided search, or it need not be. the unaided search will end in failure, as this story shows. our sins reign in us only if they are not washed away. maybe you all don't sit and think yourself to death like i do, but regardless it is refreshing to know that we need not redeem ourselves. and that we are not just looking for a good man, we can be a righteous man, or woman.

i really liked reading this story. as you can tell. some fiction just really gets my mind turning and makes me appreciate the graces we have. without them we are lost to the struggle--which can only end in failure--never realizing the so called goodness within us. after all, it is the 'goodness' of man that corrupts the world with it's moral ambiguities. a good man is hard to find because it requires the process of deliverance and redemption. and this comes from only one place.