Eliot’s idea of simplicity reminds me of the parable of the talents in Matthew 25: 14-30. When the master travels to a distant country, he entrusts his servants with eight talents (one talent was apparently worth roughly 20 years wages to an ordinary worker): five to the first, two to the second, one to the third.

The first two servants trade their talents and double their master’s investment, but the third servant hides his talent in the ground out of fear. Is this act of simplicity motivated by lack of subtelty and penetration or freedom from pretence and guile ? The servant is unworldly, but not wise. He is punished for his timidity where he probably expected to be rewarded for his prudence.

What I think Eliot was not advocating was simplicity as a default position, after the failure of positive ambition. Living in a state of simplicity can be an ambition in itself, albeit a costly one. This line resonates with a verse from “Ash Wednesday”:

“Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will”.

Is it possible to live with the gifts of joy, passion and spirit and still to allow God’s pattern and purpose to guide us in our lives ? Maybe a form of simplicity is learning to use our talents wisely while remaining at peace with the result.

Eliot has a recurring theme of the end being the beginning and the beginning the end, which to me immediately points to the Crucifixion: life in death. Really, it’s a very simple thing to do, to die in a traitor’s stead (as Aslan puts in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), but has the ultimate cost — not less than everything. I like his recurring use of Julian of Norwich’s line.

As to the second question, these lines of Little Gidding always bow me to silence:

You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
Is England and nowhere. Never and always.

JMJ+
~Betsy

Totus tuus Maria!