Henley_Backstory - The Monday Morning Memo

“DAVIDSON: Are you as skeptical about religion as you are about politics?

DIDION: I am quite religious in a certain way. I was brought up Episcopalian, and I stopped going to church because I hated the stories. You know the story about the prodigal son? I have never understood that story. I have never understood why the prodigal son should be treated any better than the other son. I have missed the point of a lot of parables. I have much too literal and practical a mind, they just don’t appeal to me, they irritate me. But I like the words of the Episcopal service, and I say them over and over in my mind. ‘As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.’ It’s a very comforting phrase to a child. And to an adult. I have a very rigid sense of right and wrong. What I mean is, I use the words all the time. Even the smallest things. A table can be right or wrong.”

- Sara Davidson, A Visit With Joan Didion, The New York Times Book Review, April 3, 1977

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