On the podcast this week I reference T. S. Eliot's lines from Little Gidding:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
This week I am angry at the state of the world and the state of the church, I am grieving the loss of an old friend. But poetry is comfort.
We die with the dying:
See, they depart, and we go with them.
We are born with the dead:
See, they return, and bring us with them.
The moment of the rose and the moment of the yew-tree
Are of equal duration. A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.
There is comfort in friendship. Comfort in words. Comfort in the landscape. Comfort in curiosity, and in ritual.
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well.
