Attic Dwellers, Brad's Flannery, & Breeders

This summer I've read three articles that have "stuck with me": One on Bob Dylan (Paste Magazine -- music and culture), one on Flannery O'Connor (Credenda Agenda magazine), and one on a secular view of deciding to have a baby (Slate.com -- an NPR affiliate). I've taken great pains to get all three of these articles into Word documents -- if anyone is interested in reading them, I'd be more than happy to email them to you. The first article, Man in the Attic, is by writer William Gay following the influence of Dylan's music over the last 30+ years of his life. The writing is excellent -- a pleasure to read -- but what stayed with me the most was the challenge to explore Gay's analogy of the writers and musicians, word crafters, who have, who still live in our mind -- giving voice to our desires and questions and beliefs, thoughts. My life has been in the company of writers who have taught me, comforted me, challenged me, angered me, delighted me, changed me, collaborated with me. I love many of these men and women -- and the ones I don't love, I am grateful to -- even the one's I've vehemently disagreed with.
The second essay is by Douglas Jones defending the Christian-ness of Flannery O'Connor's writing -- a Roman Catholic woman, a Christian, who died in her 30's in 1964 having written many short stories and quite a few novels. Her stories are full of redemption but her characters and their situations, though never crude or graphic, are often dark and fully display all the complexities of "ordinary" (ubiquitous) human sinfulness. O'Connor is one of Brad's favorite writers -- and because of this, primarily, I have been frustrated with my own difficulty in enjoying her work. This article helped me appreciate her more and understand Brad better.
The last article is from a completely secular on-line news source, Slate.com -- introduced to me by Brad. A wide range of people write for them -- NPR will often "go into cohoots" with them for radio "essays" -- the topics are wide-ranging, the writing well done. This particular article is a case for having children from a women of my age living in an urbane culture similar to Minneapolis -- a generation and culture who/that freely use(s) the term "breeders" for those of us who decide to, even embrace having children. This choice is deemed to be, at best, detrimental to one's autonomy, success, enjoyment of life, and, at worst, irresponsible in light of the current world politics/economy/so-deemed over-population/ philosophically absurd reality of human existence/etc. This article deals with only the former objections -- arguing for the rewards and pleasures of raising a child -- to which I heartily agree, thus far. Atticus is a delight and joy to know and care for.
If you're interested in reading any of these articles, just email me and I'll be so happy to forward them to you.