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Elaine Neil Orr tells the truth about the way modern westerners think. Perhaps because she was raised in Nigeria, she has some critical distance from the American mind. Though the language of psychology allows us to sanitize and dissect our pride, fear, hunger, and self-absorption, the ancient demons have not been eradicated. They live with us even in our quietest moments, among the gentlest and most cerebral of people. In her fiction, Orr paints this phenomenon unsparingly, with a wry, light touch. Her prose is a pleasure: energetic, surprising, and perfectly matched to the mind of her characters. The result is at once comic and devastating. In her story “Day Lilies,” we can laugh at the main character’s narcissism, but her mind is drawn so carefully, her foibles presented with such honesty, that we can’t really distance ourselves from her. Like Chekhov, Orr isolates small, emotional movements so as to illuminate their cataclysmic significance. Her subject is the ethics of love, not just as an emotion but as a choice that transforms us, a force that can break the spell of contemporary self-obsession.

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Supremely sensible, no-nonsense, and dismissive of those who want to extract “meaning” from short stories as if they were opening a sack of chicken feed, Flannery O’Connor doesn’t seem to have had much patience with bad literary criticism. Hers is an intimidating intellect. In her letters and essays, the humor is dry and unsparing, and her contempt for fools (and in particular for those with foolish opinions about fiction) is withering. Going into the field of O’Connor studies as a professional literary critic would seem to take a certain amount of nerve. For one thing, if one makes it to heaven, one may meet her there and have to answer to her. A new anthology, Inside the Church of Flannery O’Connor: Sacrament, Sacramental, and the Sacred in Her Fiction, collects essays by ten intrepid souls. O’Connor studies is now a varied and changing field, observes Jon Parrish Peede in his introduction. Four decades after her death, dominance is shifting from those critics who knew her as a woman to those who know her as a body of work. In her essays and letters, O’Connor wrote with wit and clarity about what she intended to do in her stories, which she saw as direct expressions of her orthodox Catholic faith. The essays in the first section read her fiction in what has been the usual way: on her own terms, as dramatizations of church doctrine about the reality of evil, humankind’s need for salvation, and the presence of grace in the sacraments--played out against the backdrop of the rural, Protestant South, with its roving preachers, misfits, and “good country people.” Since she was so articulate and opinionated, and her nonfiction accounts for her fiction so tidily, it’s supremely satisfying to watch a brilliant critic like Williams Sessions synthesize a careful reading of her fiction with church and literary history, her letters and essays, and conversations with the flesh-and-blood woman he knew. It all fits together like a Swiss clock. But perhaps, other critics suggest, there was more to her fiction than she herself saw. In the second section of the book, several writers examine O’Connor’s fiction with a bit more distance from the woman and her own interpretations. A fascinating essay by Jill Peláez Baumgaertner measures the influence of the cartoon version of the Baltimore Catechism O’Connor would have known as a child, tracing images that appear in her late stories. Another essay, by Timothy P. Caron, examines her African American characters, taking O’Connor somewhat to task for the way these characters seem always to serve the spiritual reckonings of white characters but never to experience revelations of their own. The third section includes three contrasting readings of one story, “The River,” with varying opinions about the doctrinal orthodoxy of the baptism undergone by the child. One comes away from this collection with a renewed appreciation for O’Connor’s work: rich enough to sustain multiple readings, its theology is also firm enough to give all kinds of readers something to push back against. Critical essays like these do nothing to diminish the pleasure, shock, and devastation of the stories, and this reviewer knows because she tried it afterwards. Perhaps the highest compliment that can be paid to a book like this is that it makes one want to reread O’Connor immediately.

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J.A.C. Redford, a contributor to the pages of Image, is an accomplished composer of concert, chamber and choral music, film and television scores, and music for theater. His works have been performed or recorded by Joshua Bell, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Singers and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. So we’re delighted to announce that he has a new CD out, The Alphabet of Revelation. The three works on this disc cover a range of subjects in a variety of styles--a rich, rewarding mix--as well as covering over twenty years of Redford’s composing career. The first piece is October Overtures, an early work, described by the Los Angeles Times as “Slick and handsome. In melodic thrust, orchestral timbres and transparency of textures, it owes most to Copland’s ballet music, admirable models, to be sure.” Next up is The Ancient of Days, an orchestral realization of the visionary chapter 7 of the book of Daniel, with its depiction of powerful worldly rulers succeeded by the mysterious figure who ushers in an era of peace. The music swirls around the dramatic recitation of the text. Finally comes a somewhat edgier and more demanding piano quintet, The Alphabet of Revelation. The work grew out of a meditation on four paintings that had haunted Redford’s memory. The four paintings are: The Treachery of Images (1929) by René Magritte, The Persistence of Memory (1931) by Salvador Dalí, Gare Montparnasse (The Melancholy of Departure) (1914) by Giorgio de Chirico, and Dance, Issy-les-Moulineaux (1909-10) by Henri Matisse. The composer’s notes indicate that this work is about the “process of questioning one’s cherished certainties.” The first three works, covering a range of styles from Surrealism to Dada, are followed by the more mellow vision of Matisse’s Dance, hinting at a hopeful resolution to the journey. Intriguingly, this disc was made possible by the Reformed “Ligonier Ministries,” whose leader, R.C. Sproul, is the narrator for The Ancient of Days.

For more information and to order the CD, visit J.A.C. Redford’s website.

Visit J.A.C. Redford’s Artist of the Month page here.

John Knox Presbyterian Church is hosting a new exhibit through Christians in the Visual Arts, Seeing the Savior, through the end of July. From the Annunciation to his Second Coming, 34 insightful and colorful interpretations of the birth, ministry, Passion, ascension, and return of the Lord are masterfully portrayed by 13 artists from a variety of artistic and ethnic backgrounds. Among those represented in this show are: Laura James, New York artist of Antiguan heritage; Vuera Hloznikova from Slovakia; Rudolph Bostic, an African American Outsider Artist from Savannah, GA; Sadao Watanabe from Japan; Anne Brink, a Minnesota fabric artist; Jim Janknegt from Texas, and several well known CIVA artists such as Edward Knippers, Bruce Herman, Tanja Butler, Wayne Forte, John August Swanson and Joan Bohlig. The exhibit is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on all weekdays except for Wednesday. On Wednesday the exhibit is open from Noon to 5 p.m.

For more information contact Brian Moss at (206) 241-1606 or visit the church's website.

If you have information other ImageUpdate readers might find interesting, share it here! Do you have a question that you hope a member of the ImageUpdate community might have the answer to? Ask it here. Have your messages posted by sending an e-mail to gwolfe@spu.edu.

Poet Scott Cairns will give a reading (with Marilyn McEntyre) in Vancouver, B.C. as part of Regent College’s Summer School 2008. The reading will be held Tuesday, July 29, from 8:00 – 9:30 p.m. in the Regent College Chapel. The event is open to the public and free of charge. Regent College is located at 5800 University Blvd., Vancouver, B.C. V6T 2E4. For further details, click here or call 604.221.3378.

The Other Journal (TOJ) publishes creative writing, visual art, and scholarly essays that encounter life through the lens of theology and culture. Issue #13 of TOJ focuses on the US presidential election, but we are only tangentially interested in the debates that separate the candidates. Instead, we are seeking work that addresses change--where is change necessary in this nation? How is change relevant to our faith? And how does change play out in our lives? We welcome poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Fiction submissions may include short stories or self-contained novel excerpts, and creative nonfiction submissions may include personal essays or memoirs. We also welcome films, paintings, prints, photography, music, and academic essays. Please send submissions to submissions@theotherjournal.com by September 1, 2008. For more information about our submission guidelines, please click here.

The Chicago based Tim Lowly Ensemble heads out on the Chasing Brother Angel tour across the Northeast USA, June 27 - July 7. "Chasing Brother Angel", also the title of Tim's new CD, alludes to his career-long pursuit of the 15th century painter Fra Angelico. The music of this ensemble was recently described as "nuevo contemplativo". It is ethereal, soulful song-based acoustic music that draws from folk, rock and classical. You can hear samples of the music and find the complete schedule of the tour here.

Tierra Nevada is pleased to announce the unveiling of a mural by Seattle area artist Troy Terpstra. The making of the mural has been a labor of love and is a visual theological showcase of Tierra Nueva's ministry and history among the marginalized. The mural unveiling will be held on Thursday, July 10 at 6:30 p.m. in the building of Tierra Nueva, 102 North Pine Street (on corner of Fairhaven) in Burlington, WA. In addition to some great art and fine folk, we hope to have some fiddling, wine, and cheese to celebrate the occasion. For more info contact Kristin Martin: barngurl@gmail.com.

A new feature on the Image website, Image Readings brings you a new audio recording every month. For the month of July, hear poet Jeanne Murray Walker read five poems aloud. Recorded at the Glen Workshop in Santa Fe in August of 2007, Jeanne reads “Bergman,” “Delilah Calls to Say Miss Leona Gifford is Dead,” “Leaving the Planetarium,” “Staying Power,” and “Studying Physics with my Daughter.”

Click here to listen.

On September 14 -21, 2008, Image will gather a small group of inquirers in Florence, Italy, to explore what has been called "the first Renaissance," a remarkable moment in the cultural history of the West. Together we will investigate the ways in which three great late-medieval figures--Dante Alighieri, Giotto, and Saint Francis of Assisi--renewed the culture of Europe and left a legacy of Christian Humanism that continues to nourish and inspire. And we will ask how their vision of art and faith can speak to the work of cultural transformation in our time. The seminar includes visits to the great churches and museums of Florence, lectures by some of the world's leading authorities on the Renaissance, a field trip to Assisi where we will encounter the living spirit of St. Francis, wonderful meals, and time to enjoy each others' company. If you're interested, visit the Florence Seminar page, download the Florence Brochure PDF for more info, or contact Julie Mullins here.

If you like reading about great new art and writing inspired by faith in ImageUpdate, and you're ready to get down to reading and seeing the stuff itself, it's time to subscribe to Image. Each quarter our editors comb the world of art and letters to bring you our favorite new work--work that respects transcendent mystery as well as the gritty truth of the material world that bears the divine imprint. A one-year subscription gets you four beautifully produced issues delivered right to your door. Ninety percent of the journal's content is not available on our website, but only through what we call "the sacrament of print." Click here to get the magazine Terry Tempest Williams calls "evocative and inspiring" and Bret Lott calls "the most meaningful literary journal being produced today."

Publisher: Gregory Wolfe
Managing Editor: Beth Bevis
Layout: David Rither
Contributors: Mary Kenagy, Matt Malyon, and Greg Wolfe

ImageUpdate is the biweekly e-mail newsletter from Image, a quarterly print journal that explores the relationship between Judeo-Christian faith and art through contemporary fiction, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, film, music, and dance. Each issue also features interviews, memoirs, essays, and reviews.

ImageUpdate brings you news about books, CDs, organizations, websites, conferences, exhibitions, and tours--all of which inhabit the intersection between faith and imagination. ImageUpdate will also notify you whenever a new issue of Image is printed, an Image event is upcoming, or new content is posted to our website.

Copyright © 2008 Center for Religious Humanism. All rights reserved.