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5 The Prophet and the Word in the Desert Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, "Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening." - I Samuel 3:9 Do not be always wanting everything to turn out as you think it should, but rather as God pleases, then you will be undisturbed and thankful in your prayer. -Nilus, The Sayings of the Desert Fathers FROM 1938 TO the summer of 1952, visitors to the backwoods of Tennessee would have seen a man devoting the last fourteen of his eighty-four years to raising his grandnephew from infancy to adolescence . Getting to the site would take some doing. To reach it, one turns at the junction of Highway 56 onto a dirt road running ten miles. The route then becomes a twisting, lovely passage. The wide, unpaved road goes through thick growths of trees before narrowing into a rutted wagon path that crosses a field rising to a crest. The view is healing to the eye. Through a forked birch at this promontory, the visitor can see onequarter mile down to a clearing with an unpainted, two-story shack settled between two chimneys. The homesite is Powderhead. Its inhabitants are Mason Tarwater, the great-uncle, and Francis Marion Tarwater, his grandnephew. These backcountry figures, comprising a male world of two, are the heroes of O'Connor's The Violent Bear It Away (1960). It would do well to pause at the journey's end to see how these woods144 Prophet and Word in the Desert 145 men live and to look closely at the locale in which they make their day. Patient, discerning eyes will find much to take in. Here is a snapshot of master and disciple epitomizing an ancient way of life that defines the ascetic sensibility shaping all the stories that O'Connor tells. The old man and the young boy are offspring of a family bloodline that George Rayber, the third male relative, describes as "flowing from some ancient source, some desert prophet or pole-sitter" (CW 402). For the Christian, that genealogy finds its fullest expression in fourth-century Egypt, in the life of a solitary, young peasant-landowner named Anthony. One day, he heard these words of Jesus read in church: "If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor.... then come, follow me" (Matthew 19:2I). Jesus' charge spoke directly to Anthony; he sold all his property and went to live with an old man who had devoted his life to solitary prayer. In time, Anthony withdrew from the feet of his teacher into the desert, where his struggle to follow Jesus transformed the lonely waste into a paradise. Alone, the hermit developed a practice of fighting demons and controlling his body to find peace with God. If Anthony sought anonymity, he found fame. His daily discipline appeared to others as spectacular physical and spiritual feats that attracted widespread attention and many recruits. The man's fame multiplied through Athanasius 's influential celebration entitled The Life of Anthony, which appeared about ten years after the renowned Egyptian's death in 356 A.D. The Life of Anthony combines in this one man the prestige of the pagan wise man and the honor of the Christian holy man with the biblical"man of God." The man of desert solitude became a spiritual exemplar for all ages. George Rayber cites the models of the unbridled Hebrew prophet and Simeon Stylites, the legendary mid-fifth-century Syrian saint who stood atop a sixty-foot pillar in the desert, to explain the religious call besetting his family as an "affliction" (CW 402). For Rayber, a man of reason, living out God's word before others is an invitation "he knew to be madness ;" for him, prophecy and chosen alienation from society are "irrational and abnormal" (GW 401) demands that he personally fights against through ridicule and even attempted murder. In scorning the desert call, Rayber is not alone. For some, Simeon's standing on a pillar was an extravagant instance of the morbid phenomenon of asceticism. Others, however, found the solitary figure seeking freedom up iIi the open air a holy man to be admired and emulated (Lives of Simeon Stylites I5-23). For Simeon's followers, his pillar (where he spent twenty-eight years) was not a place of punishment but an altar. From his lofty perch, the renouncer moved heavenward by means of taking into...

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