the gift half understood
As I'm frantically perusing "critical" sources to add to my T.S. Eliot paper, it's hard not to get tangled and lost in this rather metaphysical labyrinth...my mind feels like it did in Writing Theory, but worse (or better...I like this feeling)--because it's hard to discuss what I'm thinking about with anyone else--no one else I know is immersing themselves into the black hole of the natures of time and eternity...sigh.
But I am being blown away by these ideas...by their relevance to things I'm processing and wondering in my life and faith. I've written a lot about questions and not having answers, and I've wondered how to continue in a faith that, as it metamorphizes my heart, only seems to multiply the questions because the answers are becoming less and less simple and easy. Then five minutes ago I read this from Eliot's "Dry Salvages":
"These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation."
Ahh! I think I understand! Or at least I have a movement toward understanding. Sometimes (most times) the best we can manage is the "hints followed by guesses," and that's frustrating to me because above all I long to know. But this is comforting somehow, to see that this is how we continue in a faith that becomes ever more complex and deep and multifaceted...we learn to see the hint half guessed and the gift half understood, and we go on what we know at this moment, for "the rest / Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action." And then the thought I always come to is that I would never be satisfied anyway, with a faith that I could completely understand.
But I am being blown away by these ideas...by their relevance to things I'm processing and wondering in my life and faith. I've written a lot about questions and not having answers, and I've wondered how to continue in a faith that, as it metamorphizes my heart, only seems to multiply the questions because the answers are becoming less and less simple and easy. Then five minutes ago I read this from Eliot's "Dry Salvages":
"These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation."
Ahh! I think I understand! Or at least I have a movement toward understanding. Sometimes (most times) the best we can manage is the "hints followed by guesses," and that's frustrating to me because above all I long to know. But this is comforting somehow, to see that this is how we continue in a faith that becomes ever more complex and deep and multifaceted...we learn to see the hint half guessed and the gift half understood, and we go on what we know at this moment, for "the rest / Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action." And then the thought I always come to is that I would never be satisfied anyway, with a faith that I could completely understand.
posted by Mandy at 10:02 AM
3 Comments:
i have nothing profound to say. but this is good for me--your post, the quote from eliot. I'm glad you're feeling and thinking.
But, the true motivation for commenting is that I wanted to say: I like your blog a lot. You write beautiful stuff, thoughtful and honest. Good work, you swell person.
You do write really cool things on your blog... well, the last few that I've read anyhow. =) I just wanted to say that I love that T. S. Elliot quote. It's on a sticky note on my computer now.
OK -- Better commenting WAY late than never, I guess, but I read this again today, and was struck by two things:
1) Anytime you wanna talk Eliot, I'm down. I haven't read much, don't know much, but want to know more. I could sit at your feet and you could call me "Grasshoppa." But you might not get that reference.
2) Sometimes I feel like those flashes are all we can stand right now. It's like our eyes need to get used to the light, so God spends our lives giving us these little glimpses... like the strobes before the flash. Hopefully, they come more and more often until we can completely, someday, open our eyes wide.
Keep it up, girl! You have a powerful soul.
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