At present, before the day of judgment comes, even though the Spirit cannot dwell within those who are unworthy, He nevertheless is present in a limited way with those who have been baptized, hoping that their conversion will result in salvation.
– St Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit
In Flannery O’Connor’s short story, The Peeler, the main character, Hazel Motes, is on a journey. It’s a spiritual journey which he has confused as a carnal tour. Along the way, he encounters a blind evangelist who sees into his darkened soul.
In the story, Haze happens upon a man hawking potato peelers in downtown Taulkinham. The brown potatoes go into the peeler and come out on the other side, white. (This is key to understanding the story.) In addition to acquiring a shadow, Enoch Emery, at this event, he also witnesses the blind man and a young girl who are handing out “Jesus tracts.” He makes eye contact with the young girl; overhears her offering to buy a peeler for less money; and ends up buying one with change to spare and running after the blind evangelist and girl with peeler in hand and Enoch in tow.
When questioned by Enoch, Haze denies he is following the Jesus freaks. His attraction to them – especially since he wasn’t interested in the tract he was given – is puzzling. When the blind man repeatedly accuses Haze of following him, Haze denies it saying he was following the girl. He gives her the potato peeler. The girl acts ungrateful, the blind man tells her to take the gift. Haze accuses the girl of being a flirt – giving him the “fast eye.” She denies it and complains that Haze tore up his Jesus tract.
While this argument continues, the blind man remains convinced that Haze followed them because he was seeking Jesus. “Listen,” the blind man said, “you can’t run away from Jesus. Jesus if a fact. If you’re looking for Jesus, the sound of it will be in your voice.” Ignoring Haze’s protests, the blind man feels his face and says, “You got a secret need,” the blind man said. “Them that know Jesus once can’t escape him in the end.”
Haze denies it, saying: “I ain’t never known Him.” “You got a least knowledge,” the blind man said. “That’s enough. You know His name and you’re marked. If Jesus has marked you there ain’t nothing you can do about it. Them that have knowledge can’t swap it for ignorance.”
“You’re marked with knowledge,” the blind man said. ‘You know what sin is and only them that know what it is can commit it. I knew all the time we were walking here somebody was following me,” he said. “You couldn’t have followed her. Wouldn’t anybody follow her. I could feel there was somebody near with an urge for Jesus.”
The blind man and the girl continue to try to get Haze to admit his sins, repent, and turn to Jesus. Haze finally jerks his arm away claiming that he is as clean as they are.
“Fornication,” the blind man said. Haze tries to wiggle out of the accusation by claiming that he doesn’t believe in sin.
“You do,” the blind man said, “you’re marked.”
“I ain’t marked,” Haze said, “I’m free.”
“You’re marked free,” the blind man said. “Jesus loves you and you can’t escape his mark.” He then encourages Haze to help them distribute their Jesus tracts at a theater. Instead, Haze ends up ridiculing them to those exiting the show. He eventually says to himself, “I don’t need no Jesus. I got Lenora Watts.” He leaves the evangelists and heads toward his woman with his shadow, Enoch Emory, fast on his heels.
On the way, Emory tries to get Haze to visit some prostitutes. Haze declines claiming he’s already got a woman. Emory then shows Haze the peeler that the girl had ended up giving him, the one Haze had bought for her. Needless to say, the two young men end on bad terms.
As Haze enters the woman’s house, he reflects on his first time with a woman, just last night, wherein he was not very successful. As he undresses, he thinks back to when he was twelve years old and wanted to follow his dad and other men into a carnival tent that was forbidden him. He finally convinced the barker to allow his entrance only to find a mixture of sex and death on display: a nude white woman writhing around in a black covered casket.
After escaping the carny scene, the next woman he sees is his mother. It is evident to her that her boy has seen something scary, vile. She repeatedly questions him, “What have you seen?” He gives no answer. After hitting him with a stick fails to draw a response, she says, “Jesus died to redeem you.”
“I never ast him to,” he muttered.
The next day he took his shoes in secret out into the woods. He never wore them except for revivals and in winter. He took them out f the box and filled the bottoms of them with stones and small rocks and then put them back on. He laced them up tight and walked in them through the woods what he knew to be a mile, until he came to a creek, and then he sat down and took them off and eased his feet in the wet sand. He thought, that ought to satisfy Him. Nothing happened. If a stone had fallen he would have taken it for a sign. After a while he drew his feet out of the sand and let them dry, and then he put the shoes on again with the rocks still in them and he walked a half mile back before he took them off.
Unlike the potato peeler, which rendered brown potatoes white, Haze is learning that life outside of paradise is often complicated by murkiness, grey areas. He cannot help but associate women with sin and death. And, at the same time, he seeks redemption … all the while participating in sin. Such a vision and activity reads like insanity, but reflects life in practice: reality. Who hasn’t known similar dilimas? We often run from repentance, accountability, God …
Even before we come to accept accountability for our actions, we are often troubled by what one writer has termed, the “hound of heaven.”
The Hound of Heaven
by Francis Thompson
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
I remember the first time I met with a priest to express my intrest in persuing the priesthood. Breaking the ice, I asked: “So, how did you wind up in those clothes?” “I got tired of running from it,” he replied. I ‘bout fell out of my chair! That was exactly the place I was coming from.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat – and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet –
“All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.”
All things that are against us – that harm us spiritually – do battle against this “hound” that loves us, persues us. His pursuit is steady, patient, relentless. Why do we run from Him?
(For, though I knew His love Who followèd,
Yet I was sore adread
Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside.)
This is the reason: We believe that all that we hold dear will be taken away from us if we succumb to Him. Like Jonah who complained of the Lord’s mercy even as it was saving his life in the bottom of the sea, we are ungrateful – wishing to stay in our sickened state rather than sacrifice our worldly “gains.” And it will ever be so, this flight from Love, until we heed the voice saying:
“Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.”
As St Augustine wrote: “Thou hast created my soul, O God, after Thee, and it is restless until it rests in Thee.” We long to fill the emptiness inside with worldly cares and pursuits. Yet, our soul longs for the Lord. That which is lacking is precisely That which pursues us. We resist submission erroneously believing that in so doing we’ll be bereft of all when, in reality, it is the All that we need. Our souls thirst for God.
I’ve been working with addicts in recovery. One of the joys of the job is attending Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meetings. At these gatherings, one hears how personal emptiness was saturated with the vices of addiction: alcohol, drugs. Over and over again one also hears of those in recovery talking about how it was really a spiritual crisis. They needed fulfillment, but it was God that was lacking.
Recovery is a life style and relapse is often part the reality of recovery. Relapse happens. Many a recovering addict has suffered the disappointment of “falling off the wagon” after beginning the recovery process. At the NA meetings they always say, “Keep coming back.” Part of the reason that those who relapse are encouraged to keep returning is that the community gatherings are cathartic and healing rooms. Another big reason is this: recovery messes up your using. Or, to use their vernacular: “NA screws up your using.” Sin is no longer as encouraging once you know the Truth.
Isn’t that what happened with Hazel Motes (whose name, by the way, indicates a blocked or imperfect vision)? He keeps bumping into Jesus, the Peeler, and it messes up his sinning. Isn’t that what keeps the subject of Francis Thomas’s poem running? Isn’t that what keeps each of us struggling toward the Kingdom? We’re all partial to some sin(s). But once we know Christ we can honestly say, “God done messed up my using.”
Keep coming back.
