Flannery O’Connor’s 1961 short story, Everything That Rises Must Converge, takes its name from a quotation by the French Jesuit philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in his most influential work, The Phenomenon of Man.

“Remain true to yourself, but move ever upward toward greater consciousness and greater love! At the summit you will find yourselves united with all those who, from every direction, have made the same ascent. For everything that rises must converge.”

The story, first published in the 1961 issue of New World Writing, earned O’Connor her second O. Henry Award in 1963.

Julian, an aspiring writer-cum-typewriter salesman, is resigned to living with his mother in an unnamed Southern town after graduating from college with few prospects for employment. Escorting his mother on her Wednesday night trip to the exercise class at the YMCA requires subjecting himself to her prejudices as the newly integrated bus travels through the city.

“He groaned to see that she was off on that topic. She rolled into it every few days like a train on an open track. He knew every stop, every junction, every swamp along the way, and knew the exact point at which her conclusion would roll majestically into the station”

The story draws upon the platitudes perpetuated by an older culture and the misery of disenfranchised youth. The collision of generations and races on a bus ride mines an existential truth: “If you know who you are, you can go anywhere.”

Emory University recently featured the story as part an exhibit centered on the intersecting lives and experiences of middle Georgia natives Flannery O’Connor, Alice Walker, and artist Benny Andrews. Walker responded to O’Connor’s original work in an unpublished story titled “Convergence,” while Andrews illustrated the story and wrote about his decision to engage with this difficult work.