comment on anti-US riots in Afghanistan

“Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,
More hideous when thou show'st thee in a child
Than the sea-monster…
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!”

-- King Lear, Act I, Scene iv

more TSE

Yet if the only form of tradition, of handing down, consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its successes, "tradition" should positively be discouraged. We have seen many such simple currents soon lost in the sand; and novelty is better than repetition. Tradition is a matter of much wider significance. It cannot be inherited, and if you want it you must obtain it by great labour. It involves, in the first place, the historical sense, which we may call nearly indispensable to anyone who would continue to be a poet beyond his twenty-fifth year; and the historical sense involves a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence; the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order. This historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together, is what makes a writer traditional. And it is at the same time what makes a writer most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity.

-- T.S. Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent" (in The Sacred Wood)

WS and TSE

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,--and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings'.

-- William Shakespeare, Sonnet 29


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.

-- T.S. Eliot, Ash Wednesday I

Measure for Measure

From Samuel Johnson's Preface to Shakespeare:

ACT III. SCENE i. (III. i. 32–4.)

Thou hast nor youth, nor age:
But as it were an after dinner’s sleep,
Dreaming on both.

This is exquisitely imagined. When we are young we busy ourselves in forming schemes for succeeding time, and miss the gratifications that are before us; when we are old we amuse the languour of age with the recollection of youthful pleasures or performances; so that our life, of which no part is filled with the business of the present time, resembles our dreams after dinner, when the events of the morning are mingled with the designs of the evening.

to appear in my church's newsletter

THE FIRE AND THE ROSE:
Some Thoughts on Pentecost and the Church


And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

-- T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding


Pentecost is the birthday of the Church. On this day in 33 AD, as recorded in the second chapter of the Book of Acts, the disciples of Jesus received the Holy Ghost and experienced the miraculous “tongues of flame”. The multitude, gathering about to witness the spectacle, heard the disciples declare the works of God in the many different languages of the Roman world. After a sermon from St. Peter, those in the audience who “gladly received his word” were baptized and received the Holy Ghost themselves (verses 38, 41). Thus the Church, the Body of Christ, was created through the incorporation of its members via the action of the Holy Ghost -- recall the Prayer Book definition of the Church as “the Body of which Jesus Christ is the Head, and all baptized people are the members”.

The above story illustrates the sacramental nature of the Church and God’s action in it. God uses the “stuff” of creation -- water, fire, rocks, flowers, cows, what have you -- in his interaction with us. The Church accordingly views the material world as an “outward and visible sign” of a deeper, spiritual reality. During the Middle Ages, there was a custom on Pentecost Sunday in which acolytes would crawl into the rafters of churches, wait until the portion of the liturgy when Acts 2 was read, then drop rose petals on the unsuspecting congregants, thus reenacting the descent of the tongues of flame. In various parts of Italy and Sicily Pentecost is still called Pascha Rosatum or “Passover of Roses” after this practice. Here we find the Church again in its sacramental embrace of the world, connecting with God in an outward and visible way through material things. The symbols of the fire and the rose, however quaint in the above instance, seem to likewise convey an “inward and spiritual” significance for the Church.

Consider first the case of fire. We have, for example, the symbolism of fire in the Old Testament, where the rites called for sin-offerings to be burned-up on the altar of the Tabernacle. Here fire is understood in a purgatorial sense, symbolizing the eradication of sin. The sinful desires of the flesh are to be burned-up inside of us in order to make room for the Holy Ghost. In the words of St. Gregory the Great, on Pentecost the Holy Ghost “changed the carnal minds of men, filling them with love for himself. Thus, whilst there appeared outwardly cloven tongues like as fire, inwardly their hearts began to burn.” Fire is a sign of love penetrating and transforming the heart. A heart sufficiently corrupted by sin will require a more thorough and painful purging; the purgatorial fires will be that much hotter, as it were. This is the Church’s “intolerable shirt of flame”, to quote Little Gidding again.

On the other hand, the shirt of flame is worn only for a short time in comparison with eternity. If the Church is pictured as a great conflagration of sin while on earth, what is the picture like when sin is gone? The symbol of the rose provides an answer. Take, for example, Dante’s vision of paradise in the Divine Comedy: upon reaching the Empyrean portion of heaven, he encounters the Church as a white Rose that “slopes and stretches and diffuses fragrance of praise unto the Sun of endless spring”. The ranks of the blessèd saints constitute the Rose's petals, and the offering of their worship before God is the Rose's "sweet smelling savour" (cf. Eph. 5:2). Just as the petals of a rose together make up its form and comeliness, so the Church reaches its perfection when its members are joined in an eternal consort of love and worship. In the absence of sin and self-centeredness, the Church draws together in perfect unity -- within itself and with God -- and the Rose reaches its fullest bloom. This union is the proper end of the Church, never to be fully realized while on earth.

The fire and the rose can be viewed as signs of the Church in this way, existing on earth and in heaven (respectively). As Christian signs, moreover, they necessarily transcend the level of mere symbolism; they have an ending and a fulfillment. The day will come when “the fire and the rose are one”, signs and symbols are no longer needed, and the Church sees God face to face.