Tag: T.S. Eliot

A Soft October Fog

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fog101914closeThe yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
~T.S. Eliot from “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

When I was young, fog felt oppressive, as mournful as the fog horns sounding continually in the nearby bay.
Now in late middle age, I appreciate fog for slowing me down when life compels me to rush too fast.
When forced to take time, I begin to notice what I missed before:
clouds descend to hug and kiss the ground to bejewel everything they touch.
Today the dead and dying became glorious in subtle beauty,
the farm became all gossamer garland and transparent pearls…

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Another Voice

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mcubin2
450 year old gravestone in Glencairn Parish Cemetery in Scotland which reads: Here Lyeth The Corps Of John Mcubin in Meruhirn (Marwhin) Who Departed This Life The Year 1663 Age 100
other side of the same stone
other side of the same stone

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.
– T.S. Eliot

I have been overwhelmed by the centuries of history that exist documented on this continent compared to home.  We see stone circles in the countryside constructed as a celestial calendar for worship over 5000 years ago, stroll through church grounds that were founded over 1000 years ago, descended underground in Edinburgh to walk streets and enter homes that existed over 600 years ago, discovered this gravestone in rural Scotland of an 100 year old man.

It is a miracle to have lived a full century so long ago.  It is a miracle to have lived at all.

It feels a miracle to be alive now, witnessing all that I have in my relatively short time on earth.

I make a beginning each day, to be more than just another voice, striving to transcend last year’s words.

St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh
St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh
Castlerigg Stone Circle in Cumbria
Castlerigg Stone Circle in Cumbria
a stone pinecone, environmental art by Andy Goldsworthy, rural Scotland
a stone pinecone, environmental art by Andy Goldsworthy, rural Scotland

The Cruelest Month

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photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

(Eliot’s Wasteland echoes the brokenness of this day in Boston)

Burial of the Dead
April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

What the Thunder Said
After the torchlight red on sweaty faces
After the frosty silence in the gardens
After the agony in stony places
The shouting and the crying
Prison and palace and reverberation
Of thunder of spring over distant mountains
He who was living is now dead
We who were living are now dying
With a little patience
~T.S. Eliot from “The Wasteland”

photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

Lenten Grace — Be Still and Wait

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photo by Nate Gibson
photo by Nate Gibson

I said to my mind, be still, and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; yet there is faith
But the faith and the hope and the love are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be light, and the stillness the dancing.
~T. S. Eliot, from “East Coker”  The Four Quartets

This in-between day
after all had gone so wrong
before all will go so right,
puts us between the rock
and the hard place:
all hope, love and faith is squeezed from us.

Today we are flattened,
dried like chaff,
ground to pulp,
our destiny with death sealed.

We lie still
like sprinkled spices
trying to delay
inevitable decay,
wrapped up tight
stone cold
and futile.
The rock is rolled into place
so we lie underneath,
crushed and broken.
We are inside,
our bodies like His.
We are outside,
cut off and left behind.
We cannot know about tomorrow,
we do not fathom what is soon to come:
the stone lifted and rolled away,
the separation bridged,
the darkness giving way to light,
the crushed and broken rising to dance,
and the waiting stillness stirring, inexplicably,
to celebrate new life.
photo by Nate Gibson
photo by Nate Gibson

Lenten Grace — The Dry Stone

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photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water.
~T.S. Eliot from “Burial of the Dead” in The Wasteland

We are created from perfection yet born broken, like a new toy flawed right out of the box already destined for the rubbish heap.  Out of our detritus there rises a thirst quenched only by hope and promise, coursing through roots that reach deep, surging into branches that rise higher despite a drought of faith.

This promise becomes glue for the brokenhearted, a sticky grace that can’t be shaken off, clinging to us though we are dry and undeserving as a stone.

Broken no more, silent no more, parched no more.  The living water now flows through us, a river of relief and shelter.

Lenten Grace — Peace Among the Rocks

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photo by Kathy Yates
photo by Kathy Yates

Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks…

…And let my cry come unto Thee.
~T.S. Eliot from the conclusion of “Ash Wednesday”

Too many daily distractions prevent me from being still and seeking peace in my earthly life.  I constantly want to build up, to tear down, to keep moving, I care too much, I care too little — anything to avoid being like an inanimate rock.  There is always the awareness that everlasting stillness will come soon enough, much too soon, in the grave, in the forever of my becoming dust.

Yet even among the rocks they fail to stay rooted in place;  they are washed away with the waves, moved at the mercy of the tide, landing somewhere new and unfamiliar only to be stilled, then shifted once again.

Let my peace be among the rocks, to be picked up and moved where He wills, to settle where I am placed until the time comes to move again.   Let my peace be in the knowledge He has control, not I.

And so I cry out.
Even among the rocks
Even among the rocks

photo by Kathy Yates
photo by Kathy Yates

Lenten Grace — Fearful Dust

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photo from the top of Mt. Baker by Josh Scholten
photo from the top of Mt. Baker by Josh Scholten

I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
~T.S. Eliot in “Burial of the Dead” from “The Wasteland”

We do not want to think of ourselves as the dust we were and the dust we will become.  There is too much of us living right now; we cast shadows before and behind us depending on the time of day and time of life.  We are substance with our shadows only ephemeral reflections of our presence on earth.

Yet the dust we were and the dust we become is a fearful thing.
Nothing but dust…
until the Creator lifts us up in the palm of His hand, and blows on us.  Now we breathe and pulse and weep and bleed.

We become something different than mere shadow.

We become His, awed,  to the last grain of fearful dust with which we are made.  We become so much more.  So much more.

photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

Lenten Grace — The Unstilled World

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photo of lenticular clouds near Mt. Rainier by Kathy Yates
photo of lenticular clouds near Mt. Rainier by Kathy Yates

If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.
~T.S. Eliot from “Ash Wednesday”

We spin uncontrolled in our individual orbits, impervious to the silent stillness of God.
He is there, steadfast and faithful, whether we acknowledge Him or not, whether we listen to his word.

The Word is within, the Word is for the world
yet we, the unstilled, our world still whirls.

May the light shine on our darkness.
May we be stilled,
stunned to silence.

Advent Sings: A Light Reveals All

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Song of Simeon by Aert De Gelder, a student of Rembrandt
Song of Simeon by Aert De Gelder, a student of Rembrandt

…my eyes have seen your salvation
that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and for glory to your people Israel.

And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him. 
And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother,
“Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed
(and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”
Luke 2: 30-35 from the Song of Simeon

Simeon had waited and waited for this promised moment of meeting the Son of God face to face, not knowing when or how, not knowing he would be able to hold him fast in his arms, not knowing he would be able to personally bless the parents of this holy child.  He certainly could not know this child would be the cause of so much joy and sorrow for all those who love Him deeply.

That sword of painful truth pierces into our soul, opening us with the precision of a surgeon under high beam lights in the operating room where nothing is left unilluminated.  We are, by the birth of Jesus, bared completely, our darkness thrust into dawn, our hearts revealed as never before, no matter who we are, our place of origin, our faith or lack thereof.  This is an equal opportunity surgery.

It is terrifying.   And it should be, given what we are, every one of us.

Yet this is what we too wait for, longing and hungry for peace.  We are tired, as in Eliot’s poem below, too tired to continue to hide within the darkness and conflict of our sin.  We, like Simeon, are desperate for the peace of His appearance among us, dwelling with us, when we can gather Him into our arms, when all becomes known and understood and forgiven.

His birth is the end of our death, the beginning of the outward radiance of His peace, open to all who are open to Him.

…Grant us thy peace.
Before the stations of the mountain of desolation,
Before the certain hour of maternal sorrow,
Now at this birth season of decease,
Let the Infant, the still unspeaking and unspoken Word,
Grant Israel’s consolation
To one who has eighty years and no to-morrow. According to thy word.
They shall praise Thee and suffer in every generation
With glory and derision,
Light upon light, mounting the saints’ stair.
Not for me the martyrdom, the ecstasy of thought and prayer,
Not for me the ultimate vision.
Grant me thy peace.
(And a sword shall pierce thy heart,
Thine also).
From T.S. Eliot’s “A Song for Simeon”

Perfected Stare

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Of all the beasts that God allows
In England’s green and pleasant land,
I most of all dislike the Cows:
Their ways I do not understand.
It puzzles me why they should stare
At me, who am so innocent;
Their stupid gaze is hard to bear —

To country people
Cows are mild,
And flee from any stick they throw;
But I’m a timid town bred child,
And all the cattle seem to know.
~from “Cows” by T.S. Eliot, published long after his death

Raised with cows
outside my back door,
I sat dreamily
on their bony backs
while dad milked,
the rhythmic
swoosh swoosh
filling the metal pail
as barn cats circled and purred.

The perfected stare of the cow;
I love
their unblinking interest
in the absurdity
of people and
what we do.

I fall
into the deep pool
of their brown eyes
and drown
there willingly,
anchored
by their curious gaze
and why they should care
about me
at all.