Blog #1

Alright, because I'm such an amazingly social person (heh...) I read a lot of poetry, and the other day I came across this passage in T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets that really jumped out at me:

"So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years-
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate-but there is no competition-
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business"
-East Coker; Four Quartets, T.S. Eliot

Now, if any of you have read anything else by Eliot: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land (O O O O that Shakespeherian rag!), etc, you'll know that T.S. Eliot's poetry is not easy reading. With an overload of imagery, radical voice shifts, abstruse allusions, and sometimes writing in German, French, Greek, and Sanksrit, T.S. Eliot's poetry is considered one of the greatest authors of the 20th century. He considered his last work, Four Quartets, to be his masterpiece: a compilation of four poems, Burnt Norton, East Coker, The Dry Salvages, and Little Gidding, based upon more than two decades of studies in religion, philosophy and mysticism.

In all of our lives there are people who we look up to, people we admire. These people often more talent than us or have accomplished much more than we have. There is some trait about these people that we want to emulate, to equal or surpass them. I know that I'll never be as good of a pianist as Elton John, or as good of a composer as Claude Debussy or as good of a writer as J. R. R. Tolkien, but this is a reminder to me that I don't have to be. In fact, I wasn't meant to be. What beauty these great creators found still exists and it's mine and yours for the finding, but we have to find it on our own, and always comparing it to what already has been done doesn't help us at all. It is our job to do what we do best to the best of our ability, and that is all. Now, I know this isn't scripture, but I think God speaks to us through more than scripture. (However, if you were curious if I had any scriptural backing for this, I do!)
The parable of the talents (or, Matthew 25) describes a master going off on an extended trip. He calls three of his servants to him and gives them each some money (in ancient times known as talents) He gave to the first one 5 talents (that was a ton of money!), to the second 2 talents (not as much as the first guy, but still a fair fortune), and to the third the master gave 1 talent (still less than the second, but not cheap by any means). The master apportioned this money by the ability of the servants. He then left. The first servant put the master's money to use and doubled his master's investment, the second did likewise, but the third buried his money, so that no one would steal it. When the master returned, the first and second servants showed him their earnings and to both of them the master said: "Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner." But when the third servant explained that he had hidden the money because he was afraid it would be stolen, the master became angry that he had not even invested his talent in a bank, where it would gain interest. That servant was thrown out.

Notice from that passage that the response to the first two servants was identical, even though one of them had returned with 10 talents and the other with only 4, yet they were both praised the same and offered the same position of power. God doesn't mean for you to beat yourself down because you're not as good as someone else at something, maybe God's purpose has been served out with the amount of talent you have now. God gave you a gift, and it's up to you to use it to your best, not to the best of anyone else!