So, I read a review of a book about Eliot's poem "Four Quartets" in this issue of Touchstone, and the review of the book about the poem was so compelling, that I went to my bookshelf, got down my book of Eliot's poetry, and spent a couple of nursing sessions rereading "Four Quartets."
The poem is about time, and mortality, and sanctity. All and all, a fitting meditation for a homemaker.
The Touchstone article (written by Franklin Freeman) quotes the book it's reviewing (Eliot's Edifice: Dove Descending in T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets, by Thomas Howard) as saying that the poem "is about sanctity, the Way (up or down) by which we mortals may finally win through to the Beatific Vision. No other 'reading' of the poem will do justice to Eliot's work here."
I have little to add to that, except to say: read the poem. Read Touchstone. And, probably, if you can find it, read Howard's book. Then read the poem again.
"the rest/Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action." Hunh.
Off to pray, observe, be disciplined, think and act,
and pay attention to the hints,
Jessica
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