Goddy Goddy God God

So, here it is, another Sunday and I haven't gone to church. Again. Not the biggest deal ever, but still, I wish I had gotten my butt down to Georgetown, scrounged for a parking place, and gotten me some communion.

I could maybe count reading "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" as a semi-spiritual experience, but I think that's a bit of a stretch. Especially since Dorothy Day's getting on my nerves so far. At this point (about 100 pages in), I feel confident that Flannery O'Connor could easily kick her ass. I mean, I symphathize with her whole "O, I want to be a Catholic, and O, I want to help people" deal, but she still seems like she has a big, juicy crush on the underclass which frankly weirds me out. Poor people are certainly not any eviler than their rich counterparts, but it seems just as offensive to categorize them wholeheartedly as more pure. IMHO, the assessment that it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, etc. is more of a practical consideration than a comment on the inherent worthiness of the impovrished. Of course it's easier for rich people to sin more. They have all that money to sin with!

Anyway,I think this outburst is also related to seeing "Black Milk" at Studio on Wednesday. Basic plot summary: these two young modern capitalists from Moscow go into the countryside to trick the hapless peasants and sell them crap toasters. City people: evil, heartless, money-obsessed. Country people: uneducated, pure, love babies. Just before the climax of the play, our formely shallow heroine asks her hubby if they can stay in the countryside to raise their just-born kid. Because, you know, people in the city are such bitches, and people out here with their latrines and their bathtub vodka are so generous. Hubby says no, violence ensues, denouement.

Which is the same position that, in a way, Dorothy Day seems to be taking: "Well, I had this great life where I read Dostoyevsky and partied to dawn in the Village, but the people I really envy are those peasants over there." I know I'm no expert here, but all the peasants I ever met just wanted to go to New York City and go shopping. Which, frankly, is a lot of what I'd like to do, so I'm certainly not judging them or trying to be snarky, I'm just sick of romanticizing the indigent and using it as an excuse to feel sorry for yourself because you're so goshdarned privileged. And this is why I like Flannery O'Connor because she sees the grasping, desparate, charlatan in everyone regardless of social class, as well as the universal hunger for grace.

Goals for today were (when I went to bed last night, or to be fair, this morning): fill out the FAFSA and clean the apartment. The apartment's looking better, but I haven't touched the online forms . . Maybe I can just send in a picture of our gleaming bathtub.