T.S. Tuesday: The Lost and Found Pile of My Faith

“There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again.” T.S. Eliot, East Coker*

God answers prayer. Sometimes I forget this. Sometimes I lose this. Sometimes I find this. Then I lose it again. Daily I fight to recover what has been lost.

Today, this post, is a fight to recover and reaffirm my childlike faith.

As Ann Voskamp said in the chapter in One Thousand Gifts that I just read, “I confess, even after all that I’ve seen and tasted and touched, I do scoff.”

After I, Aly Lewis, have seen and tasted and touched and felt that the Lord is good, I still scoff. I scoff at my cheesiness in writing “childlike faith,” I scoff at this blog and my prayers seeking answers, I scoff at my lists of gifts and my love letters to myself.

But I have seen and tasted and touched and felt that the Lord is good. And I will not let my scoffing get the best of me. Instead I will keep writing, keep praying, and keep saying, 'Thank you, Love, for being good.'

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*I promise I will one day venture out of the Four Quartets, but as long as I keep rediscovering nuggets of wisdom within these four pieces, Four Quartets it is. Please show your discontent by sending me wonderfully aged, used copies of additional T.S. Eliot compilations. Otherwise, I will take your silence as consent.

T.S. Wednesday: Making a Scene

"I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you

Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,

The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed

With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,

And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama

And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away—"

It's not Tuesday, but my heart needs T.S. Eliot this morning. I need to be reminded that I'm not the first to question the darkness of God. To watch in alarm as the stage of my life dims, fearful of the dark, of the unknown. To lose hope in the changing of scenes. To mistake the dimming lights and the quiet rustle in the dark for the end. Not the beginning.

I say to soul, be still. And it says to me, "Yeah, right." I crouch, poised for action. If only I knew which step to take. What the next scene holds. But right now all I can sense is the movement of darkness on darkness. The creation of a scene not yet revealed to me.

And I say to my soul, be still. And wait for God to make a scene.

T.S. Tuesday: Moving and Shaking

So I'm definitely a little obsessed with T.S. Eliot's 'Four Quartets', and I will continue to mine these poems for T.S. Tuesday content.

Today's excerpt comes from East Coker, No. 2 of 'Four Quartets.'

"In my beginning is my end. In succession

Houses rise and fall, crumble, are extended,

Are removed, destroyed, restored, or in their place

Is an open field, or a factory, or a by-pass.

Old stone to new building, old timber to new fires,

Old fires to ashes, and ashes to the earth"

The poem begins with "In the beginning is my end" and ends with "In my end is my beginning."

What happens in between? In between the beginning and the ending and the beginning again?

Here, Eliot speaks of the building and destroying and restoring of houses. Movement happens. Progress happens in this in-between, this meanwhile, this space between the now and the not yet.

Movements from building to destroying, from knowledge to ignorance, from life to death, which breeds more life.

Our lives are a series of progressions, of movements. We move from children to parents. From students to teachers. From singled to married. From coupled to heartbroken. From employed to laid off and back again to be promoted.

These movements are constant: sometimes they're life-giving; sometimes they stink of death. Sometimes the moving feels more like shaking, a quivering between growth and retreat.

My spiritual life has followed a series of movements: from unerring confidence to despondent doubts. From running from God's presence to basking in God's love. From tearing down dogma to stacking up truths.

Where are you moving? What's more, where is God moving? Are you moving toward life or are you ushering in death? How is God leading you to give life and grieve death in all of the movements of your life?