10th December - TS Eliot

For today, Carolyn has chosen an excerpt from TS Eliot’s Choruses from “The Rock”

Poem

O weariness of men who turn from God
To the grandeur of your mind and the glory of your action,
To arts and inventions and daring enterprises,
To schemes of human greatness thoroughly discredited,
Binding the earth and the water to the service,
Exploiting the seas and developing the mountains,
Dividing the stars into common and preferred,
Engaged in devising the perfect refrigerator,
Engaged in working out a rational morality,
Engaged in printing as many books as possible,
Plotting of happiness and flinging empty bottles,
Turning from your vacancy to fevered enthusiasm
For nation or race or what you call humanity;
Though you forget the way to the Temple,
There is one who remembers the way to your door:
Life you may evade, but Death you shall not,
You shall not deny the Stranger.

Reflection

This seems a quite a dark poem but one that resonates with many who feel that we are not good stewards, that we are exploiting God’s creation, it also creates in the reading that feeling of being on an ever speeding treadmill, with all the things we drive ourselves to do, when in all reality we just need to love one another.

Prayer

Lord
We ask you to help us to be good stewards,
To love and appreciate the beauty, and abundance of your creation
To avoid the trap we so often fall into, 
That of wanting things now
Of wanting things just right.
Our lives are a journey towards your perfect love.
Help us to enjoy the journey instead of looking at the destination
Amen.