One Set of Values - T S Eliot

I've come back to thinking about the Menorah - the gold candlestick divinely designed for the tabernacle and the temple of the ancient Jews.

The construction of it teaches us much about what God expects.

Here's another paragraph from the Chumash - Stone edition of the ancient Jewish commentary on the Torah:

The Menorah, whose flames were fed by the purest oil of the olive, symbolized the illumination of the intellect. It was placed near the southern wall of the Tabernacle, opposite the Table on the north. The Ark was equidistant from both. 

Thus the Ark, containing the Word of God, cast its spiritual emanations, as it were, upon the Menorah and the Table, which represented intellectual achievement and material prosperity. This symbolized the conviction that both our spiritual and temporal lives be guided by, and work to serve, the dictates of the Torah. 

Jewish life cannot be compartmentalized in the realms of sacred and temporal.  The Torah regulates all aspects of life and demands purity in all of them. Indeed the requirement that the entire, very intricate Menorah had to be hammered out of one ingot of gold, symbolized the indivisibility of the Torah; a Jewish life must be constructed from one set of values. It may not be a hodge-podge of separate bits and pieces, grafted together to suit anyone's convenience. All areas of life must derive from the same set of values.

 This is the opposite of what we see and hear in our secular humanistic culture today. We emphasize compartmentalizing --looking at someone's physical and spiritual and emotional and mental lives as distinct and separate entities.

We hear it often -- keep a politician's personal life separate from his public life...don't take your religion to work...all kinds of subtle suggestions that we are under different constraints if we are in public than when we are in private.

Apparently in the lives of the Jews there were no "public" and "private" distinctions. Their lives were to be constructed from one set of values.

As are ours.

It is easy to see why our culture wants sharp lines drawn between our spiritual lives and our public lives.  Accountability is not as much of an issue, for one thing. But I am thinking now about something else.....if we consciously divide a person's life into separate, unrelated parts, then look how easy it is to drop one of the parts and not consider it at all in the evaluation of a person's life and work.

This is heavy on my mind right now because I am re-reading T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets.

Here's the deal about that: In high school and college we studied and discussed T. S. Eliot, especially The Wasteland and Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and his well-known final work, Four Quartets.

He wrote Wasteland in 1922. (Prufrock in 1917). Then around 1927 he converted to Christianity and his worldview changed. It is so noticeable in Four Quartets, which he published in 1943. (It was Four Quartets that made him most famous and led to his highest acclaim.)



I didn't know until recently about his conversion experience. He was a completely different person when he wrote Four Quartets. That's why it is so different from his earlier works.

Now when I read Four Quartets I understand it so much better, though it is still somewhat difficult in areas.  But I follow his images and ideas and see generally where he is going.

His phrases make wonderful, profound sense! And he even uses lines from Julian of Norwich (1300's -- and all shall be well...and all manner of thing shall be well....)

Now I am enthralled with Four Quartets -- I pick it up throughout the day and read and re-read sections, receiving more delights everytime I read the lines-- because YES, I CAN SEE IT MORE CLEARLY NOW -- He had accepted the good news of Jesus Christ and his thoughts are no longer mysterious and confusing. They led to a destination.

So here is my frustration: why didn't my literature professors ever mention that T. S. Eliot had become a Christian after he wrote The Wasteland? No one ever mentioned it. I guess they didn't know because no one had ever told them -- and of course, since they believed in keeping a person's spiritual life separate from the rest of his life, why would they even consider it important...

.Duh?....how can it not be important - it changed all his thinking.

Becoming a Christian was a central, pivot point....it turned around his whole outlook on life, his writings, his philosophy, and pointed him a different direction. A different destination.

Life suddenly had meaning. It was not accidental ramblings into various paths of meaningless journeys - his life became centered and focused.  There was a revolution - he threw off the old and put on new!

The world (our culture today) does not want to hear that. They WANT accidental, meaningless lives. Then they are not accountable for their actions and not responsible for the outcome.

So why I expect anything different? Duh on me!

     With the drawing of this Love and the voice of this Calling
     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.....
                    T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets