T. S. Eliot – a poet who rocks!

Hey friends,

I have a new author to tell you about….You know I love reading, so I thought I’d share a new discovery!

“Thomas Stearns Eliot” lived from 26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965. He was a poet, receiving the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Eliot did the opposite of me – he was born in the United States, and moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 (at age 25). He said: “[My poetry] wouldn’t be what it is if I’d been born in England, and it wouldn’t be what it is if I’d stayed in America. It’s a combination of things. But in its sources, in its emotional springs, it comes from America.”

I like that he lived in both the countries that I’ve lived in, and that he found inspiration in both, as I have done. I think he and I would have had a lot to chat about over a cup of Earl Grey tea!

Anyways… All credit for me discovering this new writer goes to Daley Hake, who shared some thoughts about Eliot’s poetry when he came to visit a few days ago. If you haven’t read Daley’s blog or seen his photography, click on his photo below and it will take you to his website…

Here are a few of the T.S.Eliot quotes I’ve found and am loving:

“All dash to and fro in motor cars,
Familiar with roads and settled nowhere” (Hmmm..I know that feeling!)

“O perpetual revolution of configured stars,
O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word”

“Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

Pretty deep stuff!!

So I encourage you to check out his works… I’m just scraping the surface as I’ve only read a couple of quotes on Wikipedia! But I’m about to dive into one of his poems called “The Rock” and really think about how his writings apply to the church of today. Here’s my favorite Eliot quote so far:

“The Church must be forever building,
For it is forever decaying within and attacked from without”

When I hear him say that the church must “be forever building” I think he means that we can never sit down and get into a rut as the Body of Christ. We must keep asking “are we truly living out the Gospel? And do we as ‘the Church’ look anything like Jesus intended and dreamed we would?”

How can we as a generation impact and build the Church increasingly into something that reflects Jesus and His heart? What would that look like?

How do we keep the Gospel true and pure, and yet make our expression and presentation of ‘church’ accessible and relevant to the culture of today?

Is our expression of church today something that pleases God’s heart, and something that embodies the Gospel? Or have we missed the boat?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Love,

Vicky

Tags: america, Daley Hake, england, Female Worship Leader, poetry, t s eliot, Vicki Beaching, Vicki Beeching, vicky beaching, vicky beeching

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 at 23:52 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Bernd Breuer

Great to hear how t.s.eliot finds your apreciation. His mega poem The Waste Land has just been newly translated into german and I look forward to read it when it has been published. It is indeed a sort of prophetic poem.
He really saw many future things like in a forecast.
Another thing: When will You ever come to Germany? Would be so encouraging for many young people over here.

Bethany

I think we need to do two things- show profound kindness to people we don't know, and genuinely love and care about people we do know. We have to throw out seeds, and then nurture the ones that take root!

Here's what I mean... I grew up in a church that valued money, conformity, and comfort over the radical love of God. Anyone who didn't have enough money to dress like them was rejected... so I was miserable at every youth group service. In high school, the Young Life kids delighted in calling me fat. By the time I was 15, I hated Christians and I hated God for electing jerks to represent him.

THEN while Christmas shopping at the mall, this other type of Christian appeared... one man handed me a bag and said, "God loves you, no strings attached!" I told him he was a cult member and walked away. An hour later, a guy around my age CHASED ME through the mall to give me a candy cane, and said "God loves you so much!" I called that one a stalker. When I went to leave, it was pouring cold December rain. A third crazy type of Christian came up and offered to walk my mom and I to our car with his umbrella. He walked with his umbrella over us and our bags, and he got soaked. When we got to the car he said, again, "God loves you!" I was dumbfounded.

This radical kindness made me wonder if God was a big cosmic jerk, or not... so I found out what church those ^^ Christians were from, and started going. When I got there, I was immediately taken in by several women who had loved Jesus for a long time, and they led me to Christ!

So... that's what I think the church needs to do... I think that's how we make an impact... and it requires getting outside of our comfort zones quite often! I'm no expert or scholar, I just know what worked for me, and I've seen it happen over and over at my church!

Peter Harris

Eliot is probably the most important poet of the early twentieth century. His masterpiece, 'The Waste Land', speaks of the decline of civilisation's vitality after the First World War and draws on influences from Shakespeare and Donne. For those who want a taste of his Anglican Christianity, 'The Four Quartets' are recommended. On a lighter note, his 'Old Possum's Book of Cats', wich inspired the musical 'Cats', is gentle fun. 'Preludes' is my favourite short poem by Eliot; it captures the mood of the corrupting city. In that sense he is Blakean.

martinjanssen

I love T.S Eliot, glad you discovered him! Must have been 12 years ago for me and I fell in love with "The Journey of the Magi" and also "What the Thunder said". The last part of Journey of the Magi is my favourite quote I think:

"All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death,
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death."

The Rock you mention is very good as well. It was a reflection of that time but could be prophetic as well. The decay of the church, the abolishment of God, whilst being replaced by... nothing. Yes maybe power, wealth, money. All substitutes for the void that can only be filled by God himself. It was for the first time in history men replaced God by nothing.

If you talk about constantly building, hear what the workers in The Rock chant:

"There is work together
A Church for all
And a job for each
Every man to his work"

I think more and more christians are beginning to realize the importance of working together, and their own place in the body of Christ. I was moved the other day by a documentary entitled: "Lord Save Us From Your Followers"
where the maker was asking the same question as you do now in this blog. The outcome of the documentary broke my heart. I witnessed Christ through the things being shown. That is what relevance is all about. Forgiveness, openness, compassion, LOVE.

I'll check out Daley's site! And I'm curious about that book you mention Paul. Gotta check it out as well :)

Paul Vasilko

I have been struggling with this idea for months now, after reading Tim Stevens' book "Pop Goes the Church," in which he asks the question..."If your church disappeared tomorrow, would the community surrounding it even notice?" Which is basically asking, "What difference is your church making in the community surrounding it?"

I firmly believe that it is Christ-like to minister in a relevant way (after all, He used parables that spoke to the culture of the day, shepherds, etc.), but I am not sure what that looks like.

There has been a lot of conversation about this recently over at my friend, Jeff Goins' blog: http://jeffgoins.myadventures.org/. You should check it out.

Jonathan Paul

Oh, I love poetry! Thanks for sharing about T.S. Elliot! I'm also a fan of Daley's work. I love messing around with photography in a little free time here and there, but Daley does some truly great things with light. Wow, what an artist!

As to your question, it's easy (ok, it seems easier at least) to keep things neat and tidy (though this isn't exactly holy), if we stay holed up in our comfortable Christian community. However, when things really start to get messy and challenging is when we get outside those four walls and start making real friendships with people who aren't like us. I think that's one way to expose blind spots too – ours and theirs!

Over the past several months, I've been asking God this same question. Musically, even though I think that direct adoration of God is the greatest and highest function of music, I'd really love to also write some great music that's just plain fun – that anybody could connect with. We'll see. :o)