Ash Wednesday
I was very fortunate in high school to have, in my junior and senior years, two wonderful English teachers. They introduced me to Shakespeare, and Donne, and Faulkner, and Tennyson. And T.S. Eliot. Especially T.S. Eliot. Something about Eliot got its hooks into me, and never let go. It was so complex, like a vast puzzle, but there was something simple and real and profound underneath all of the allusions and references. I wrote my senior English paper on Eliot's "Four Quartets." I have no idea what I said in that paper, but it was probably something stupid--who knows anything as a 17 year old? Nevertheless, I tried. For Ash Wednesday today, I reread Eliot's "Ash Wednesday." I was struck by this section at the end of Part I: And pray to God to have mercy upon us And pray that I may forget These matters that with myself I too much discuss Too much explain Because I do not hope to turn again Let these words answer For what is don...