Ash Wednesday
I thought the blog needed this poem by TS Eliot, who has not featured here for some years.
Lent appears to be a subject of contention among friends, with some supposing it deludes folks into thinking that through deprivations they might find favour with God. I have not grown up in an environment where Lent was practiced myself, and I once thought I was doing a work colleague a favour by telling him he had black stuff on his forehead (I don't recall that it looked anything like a cross!), but I have no serious objection (and God knows I could use any prompts towards remembering repentance), and I like particularly the last five paragraphs of this essay by Dan Anderson.
Picture from here.
Ash-Wednesday
T.S. Eliot
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?
Because I do not hope to know again
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again
Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice
And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.