‘There is no life that is not in community’
A poem to start off this project:
What life have you if you have not life together?
There is no life that is not in community,
And no community not lived in praise of God.
Even the anchorite who meditates alone,
For whom the days and nights repeat the praise of God,
Prays for the Church, the Body of Christ incarnate.
And now you live dispersed on ribbon roads,
And no man knows or cares who is his neighbor
Unless his neighbor makes too much disturbance,
But all dash to and fro in motor cars,
Familiar with the roads and settled nowhere.
Nor does the family even move about together,
But every son would have his motor cycle,
And daughters ride away on casual pillions.
– T.S. Eliot, Choruses from “The Rock”
Hat tip: Rod Dreher, Crunchy Con
Was Eliot a Christian?!
He most certainly was, at least after the mid-1920s or so.
About everything he wrote after “The Waste Land” — although even that fits in well with a Christian worldview — was purposely and distinctively Christian.
You can check out “Ash Wednesday,” “Journey of the Magi” and especially “Four Quartets.”