Poetry, T-S- Eliot Poetry, T-S- Eliot

T.S. Tuesday: The Sun Away

Don't think I forgot T.S. Tuesday. It's a little late, but finally here. 


"Time and the bell have buried the day,
The black cloud carries the sun away.
Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis
Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray
Clutch and cling?
Chill
Fingers of yew be curled
Down on us? After the kingfisher's wing 
Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world." From T.S. Eliot's Burnt Norton

The black cloud of night carries the sun away. Away from our ambling conversations, from the rusty red bricks of garden planters, from the flowers that clutch and cling. Cling and clutch. Clutched to the smooth cold, concrete, drawing light. Light draws us like a sunflower. 


The sun away, it is only us. Us soaked in rays, in freckled remnants of radiant light, burned across our very skin. 

Read More
Social Justice, suffering, T-S- Eliot Social Justice, suffering, T-S- Eliot

T.S. Tuesday: I Hope You Get Crushed

“To rest in your own suffering
Is evasion of suffering. We must learn to suffer more.” ~T.S. Eliot, Family Reunion

Yikes.

Photo courtesy of Plant With Purpose

I’ve been puzzling over this one for a while and haven’t come to any satisfying conclusions. I don’t understand how resting in suffering is evading suffering. Are we supposed to be dissatisfied in our suffering and search out more? I agree that we should learn to suffer more. That we should even welcome suffering. But does that mean we cannot rest in suffering or that we shouldn’t stay in suffering? Should our suffering point us somewhere else?


Along these lines, Ken Wytsma, the founder of the JusticeConference said on Friday night, to over 4,000 justice hopefuls, “I hope you get crushed.”

I. Hope. You. Get. Crushed.

He went on to describe how a seed needs to be crushed and buried before something life-giving can grow.

Sex slavery should crush you.

Lack of access to water should crush you.


War and rape and genocide should crush you.

Violence—physical and political and economic and structural—should crush you.

Should we rest in this crushing, this suffering? Do we stay and find comfort that our hearts and consciences are granted the sensitivity and empathy to be crushed in the first place? Or is this evading the very thing that is crushing us? Must we learn to suffer more?

Yes and no.

I think we should stay. I think we shouldn’t numb.

Photo courtesy of Plant With Purpose

But I also think we are called to leave. To sprout tendrils of hope and release roots of redemption. To take part in the very redemption—redeeming, revaluing, renewing—of our suffering for the sake of others.

In that way, let us not be content to rest in our suffering, but learn to suffer more for the sake that others might live, might hope, might be freed from even greater crushing.

What do you think this quote means? How do you take Eliot’s words? What do you think of my take on crushing and suffering? 
Read More