Tag Archives: Puritan

L is for the way you look at me…

In concert with my post from last week, Black-Out Conversion, I want to tackle another topic from Smith & Watson’s Chapter on Autobiographical Acts in their book Reading Autobiography. This time, what I referred to as the “who” interests me … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on L is for the way you look at me…

Ann Hutchinson’s Agency

While reading the trial scripts of Ann Hutchinson, I was amazed at how obviously gendered Puritan ideologies and cultural scripts were and how the authority seems to manipulate them in order to punish a woman for being a so called … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Ann Hutchinson’s Agency

Wigglesworth and Ethics

Throughout Michael Wigglesworth’s diary entries, his unfaltering devotion to Puritanism becomes apparent, primarily through his  feelings of overwhelming guilt. The opening line of “Ah Lord, I am vile. I desire to abhor myself” truly sets the tone and reveals the … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Wigglesworth and Ethics

Thomas Shepard’s God’s Plot and the Topoi of Interiority

In Reading Autobiography, Sidonie and Smith say, “The spiritual autobiographer often retreats from a hostile external world and creates a verbal landscape as the site for expressing devotion to an otherworldly being or idea” (48). This spatial context is helpful … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Thomas Shepard’s God’s Plot and the Topoi of Interiority

A Quasi-Puritan, Divine Remembrance During My Ten Minute Work Break

On the early evening of Sunday February 6, I call my eighty-five year old grandfather, “Pop”, from the back room of the coffee shop on my “ten.” On the third attempt (when he finally hears the ringer), I hear a … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on A Quasi-Puritan, Divine Remembrance During My Ten Minute Work Break

Black-Out Conversion

In Smith and Watson’s Reading Autobiography, in their chapter about autobiographical acts, I see them frame autobiography by looking at the who, what, where, when, how and why of their creation. The who is the person to which the story … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Black-Out Conversion

Of the gracious mercy that I hath been shown

In the year of the Lord 1992, in the Spring of that year, when I was but a young child, my parents did begin, through the goodness of the Lord, the building of a home for themselves and for their … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Of the gracious mercy that I hath been shown

My Eternal Soul Resteth Among the Non-“Elect”

I have to start by saying that I do believe that some extraordinary events have taken place during my life, some of which will probably have broader implications on the rest of my life, and possibly even my afterlife. However, … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on My Eternal Soul Resteth Among the Non-“Elect”