Malcolm Muggeridge - 365 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

Malcolm Muggeridge


Similar to Dorthy Day, Malcolm Muggeridge initially experienced a life of lost cause. Born into a family where the socialist upbringing was utmost, Muggeridge found relief from the ‘chaos’ after he embraced Christianity and had a teaching career in India. The latter shaped his iconoclastic nature, in addition to witnessing the prevalent caste system.


Muggeridge’s writing career started as a journalist writing for newspapers like Calcutta Statesman, Evening Standard, Daily Telegraph etc. He also worked and lived in many countries like Egypt, Moscow and the experiences and observances were found in many of his articles. His career saw a wide array of work - in radio and television and editor of the British humour magazine Punch.


*Malcolm used the printed word, television and invitations to address attentive groups to oppose abortion and euthanasia, support the rights of the mentally and physically handicapped or boldly disagree with governments and society. Public reaction to the controversial Malcolm Muggeridge was strong, though not always favourable.

Malcolm's journey to faith encompassed much of his life. In spite of his concern about the drift of the Christian church via liberalism and permissive morality into moral chaos, he eventually joined the Catholic Church because of their strong stand against abortion and birth control. The dedication and compassion of Mother Teresa and Fr. Paul Bidone was instrumental in Malcolm joining the Church.


*source - Wheaton archives

Jesus Rediscovered

Jesus Rediscovered is a collection of some of Malcolm Muggeridge's answers to some deep questions regarding Christianity, religion, and life. Written in a "stream of thought" and conversational manner, the book is philosophical, reflective and contemplative.



An extract from the Foreword of the book - ‘They do not set out to present a coherent, or even consistent, statement of faith. I am well aware that they are often contradictory, repetitive and imprecise; I have deliberately refrained from trying to trim and prune them into conveying an impression of coherence and consistency which would falsify my own actual mental state. All they represent and it's little enough is the effort of one ageing twentieth-century mind to give expression to a deep dissatisfaction with prevailing twentieth-century values and assumptions.’

Dorothy Day - 363 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

Dorothy Day

Today the Catholic Church is considering Day's possible canonization. But in her youth around the early 1900s, Dorothy Day was by her own words ‘lost and in a Bohemian life’. She participated in protest movements without understanding the true motive, experienced failed love affairs, a marriage, a suicide attempt, and an abortion.

After she came to identify with the Catholic Church, its various activities, missionary initiatives, she was attracted to it. Alongwith Peter Maurin, a French immigrant, she co-founded the Catholic Worker newspaper. The mission of the newspaper was to have a society constructed of Gospel values. *The newspaper spawned a movement of houses of hospitality and farming communes that has been replicated throughout the United States and other countries.

*source - Dorothydayguild site

Initially working as a journalist on socialist newspapers, Dorothy Day’s spiritual conversion reflected in her later writings. She often wrote to promote the “arousal and examination of conscience”. She believed that one of the chief objectives of The Catholic Worker was to raise Christians’ consciences on many philosophical and practical matters.


Some of the topics she commonly wrote on were Christian hospitality, war and peace and encouraging a Christian pacifist stance on preventing future wars, rapid industrial expansion shortly after World War II, poverty and destitution, anti-nuclear issues and on the labour movement.


Loaves and Fishes


Loaves and Fishes: The Inspiring Story of the Catholic Worker Movement is the second major memoir by Dorothy Day released in 1963. The memoir is Day’s experiences after her conversion to the Catholic Church. She is happy and content with her decision, but has questions regarding the bureaucracy of the church. She also questions the secular movements around her in the world, devoted to Communism, Socialism, or Anarchism. She also talks about the co-founder of the newspaper, the movement - Peter Maurin. The book is narrated well with philosophy, smartly and compassionately explained beliefs, role models in a humorous and readable way.

Image - Originally published: New York: Harper & Row, 1963.

Flannery O'Connor - 362 / 365 of reading one short story every day.

Flannery O'Connor is considered one of the best short story authors of the 20th century. She wrote about religious themes and southern life, as well as religious scenes in the American South.

 




O'Connor’s work has been commented on as ‘stories about original sin’. Her writing can be described as being about the action of grace in the world, about those moments in which grace, usually in the form of violence, moves down on her comically content characters, sometimes opening their eyes to an atrocious comprehension and sometimes killing them. Many readers find O’Connor’s identification of the transcendent with an aggressive force repulsive and even more outrageous than the stories themselves. O’Connor on the other hand believed that a fierce shock was necessary to bring both her characters and her modern materialistic audience to knowledge of the potent reality of the realm of awe-inspiring mystery.

Source - FamousAuthors


Everything That Rises Must Converge

Everything That Rises Must Converge is a collection of short stories written by O'Connor and published posthumously in 1965.

The collection is classified as Southern Gothic literature. There are elements of mamacbre twists, eccentric characters and very absurd stories. But in O'Connor’s case the message is mostly spiritual. The background here is of slavery and after affects of the American Civil War.