(Originally written 20 Nov 2022)
The poem takes a lot of concentration for me in order to try and ascertain its meaning. I think I got most of it without your commentary, but was ultimately frustrated by the phrase temporal reversion. Your commentary helped clear up or confirm my understanding of that phrase as well as the rest of it.
I think my favorite portion is this:
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.
Here the impossible union
Of spheres of existence is actual,
Here the past and future
Are conquered, and reconciled
But it is only my favorite when understood primarily, or at least necessarily, as you said “By leaving off the article, Eliot perhaps broadens the idea: anything spiritual might become something physical due to supernatural intervention.”
Though I think it would flip it and strengthen it and say that I don’t know if everything spiritual is something physical, but I do choose to believe that everything physical is something spiritual. A sort of “In him we live and move and have our being” concept. This is such a core world view component that it would be enjoyable to talk about farther – there is so much that could be said and explored. I think perhaps my favorite writing on some of these concepts is Rohr’s book “Everything Belongs”. Even the title invokes a deep, soulful response from me. Given what you said about the longing you have always held I wonder how it might resonate with you.
As for the whole concept of “trying”, I agree that the key thing is “trying at what?” I have this deep feeling/sense/intuition at a very personal level, and I realize that it may have much more to do with my personality type than anything else, especially in how it is expressed, that the following is true: Trying, in general, has to do with insecurity – whether that be trying to figure life out and find the answers, or trying to improve one’s lot physically, or…. ?
Trying can (does?) indicate that the present isn’t sufficient, that it is lacking somehow. I am not suggesting that we don’t try, at a minimum for myself I am suggesting that I have a good sense of why I am trying, whether the goal of my trying is realistic, worthy, desirable, attainable, etc. and whether it is counterproductive to being grounded in the present, content, at peace, joyful, living in love, etc. In some ways that poem by Thomas Merton “In the soul of the serene disciple” captures the antithesis to what “trying” typically looks like for me. And again, this is another concept that deserves much consideration and thoughtfulness.
While I agree with Eliot’s thoughts, love his sentiments and find how he expresses them compelling (though difficult), I am left feeling like the poem is more descriptive than prescriptive. It may be the antidote well described, but how is the prescription filled if people don’t want to take the medicine? If their drug of choice is what they have always known, what their whole peer group takes and what they have invested their whole identity in as good medicine then what can be offered as an incentive to try a different drug? Or to put it another, more metaphysical way, is Eliot’s prescription anything more than the age old invitation to die to oneself that the divine may be made manifest or incarnate? Not necessarily a very attractive antidote to offer the world.
Sorry if that seems depressing, it kind of is on the surface. Probably because it reflects black and white thinking that there is an actual antidote (give it to me now!) instead of a slow, gradual process that hopefully leads the human race towards greater health. Maybe that is best sense of trying and one that we can attribute to Eliot: keeping the faith that it all does matter in the present moment – that our feeble, fickle, imperfect incarnations are indeed God made manifest and thus beautiful and worthy of continuing to do when all around us is “distress of nations and perplexity”.
Now I am just rambling. Again, thanks for sharing the poem and your thoughts with me. How rare it is to actually get to interact with someone pondering such things.
Diane has been reading this Rohr’s Everything Belongs, which she says you say had a big impact on you. And you mentioned it in your reply to me about the little blog post on Eliot. So, I figured I’d check it out at some point. It’s funny how I get a thought about something I want to do, but just stash it back in my head somewhere until I get around to it.
I picked up Everything Belongs today, because I just posted your reply about Eliot to my new website. As I read what you said again, I said to myself, “Oh, yeah! I need to check out that Rohr book.”
I see on page 15 he does say his quote is from Eliot’s Four Quartets. He doesn’t say (maybe because it is such an unfamiliar place) that the quote is from Dry Salvages, the third quartet of the four. Did you realize his quote is straight out of the snippet I dealt with? Also, he omits something, without the three dot ellipsis. He leaves off prayer, from “prayer, observance, discipline, thought, and action.” I bet he does that because prayer is such a loaded word for many people. Then he also cuts the quote short, without ellipsis, dropping “is incarnation.” I don’t begrudge him for that. He’s trying to keep the attention of his reader.
But that section, and what follows after the quote, is just what you said was your favorite part.
Yet, the reason I comment here is to that I skimmed the book and read pieces here and there. I asked myself: “Why don’t I want to read every word?” I can probably agree with most of what he says, and get inspired in ways. But I choose to drop it. Why am I that way?
Maybe it’s the same reason I can’t bear to go to church. The more prescriptive something is, the less I can tolerate it. The “contemplative way” is a way that somebody or a group figured out. They are “contemplatives” and they say, “here’s how to do it.” But I’m not cutting down church or books that offer spiritual advice. It’s just they aren’t my favorite things.
Maybe I need to be inspired more indirectly, like through poetry or fiction. I’m old enough to have some pretty well thought out ideas of things, but would never say I can teach someone how to be. I’d be more into discussion, like Mind in Heart, where we play with ideas and see what different people think, or how the ideas seem to impact them.
One thing I think Rohr and I sense the same is that the way of the Spirit must be walked by each person, every step, and you cannot let yourself be carried by a guru or Sunday School teacher, preacher, or how-to book writer. They can point and give evidence of the right direction, but each of us must take responsibility for our chosen path.
I get much more out of your thoughts than I do from books!