greek exams, t.s. eliot, and paris hilton

i just got finished with my greek midterm! yay! only two weeks of greek, and we already had a midterm. school is crazy. my final is less than two weeks away. i can now look at a "v" and my mind automatically translates it into a "nu." a "w" becomes an "omega," and an "x" becomes a "chi." there is something disturbing about all of this. if my words begin to look misspelled, please refer to the greek alphabet!

on a different note, i have been reading some t.s. eliot, and it is blowing me away. i have been making an effort to be more attentive to poets and artists. i agree with eugene peterson that they are the modern prophets. their work often points to things that we dare not say or think. it exposes beauty and truth in a way that is stripped of all pretenses. it points to simplicity. any way, i wanted to share a little from the choruses from "the rock:"

The Eagle soars in the summit of Heaven,
The Hunter with his dogs pursues his circuit.
O perpetual revolution of configured stars,
O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons,
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Bring us farther from GOD and neared to Dust.

it doesn't take much reflection to realize we can fill our heads with a lot of things, but we are missing it all if we are missing God. even at seminary, it is a constant battle, not just to know about God, but to know Him on a personal, intimate level. there is a great temptation to study man-made texts and arguments and not be immersed in God-breathed words and filled with God-breathed Spirit. it deeply saddens me to meet intelligent, talented people who are determined, well-intentioned, and have enormous potential but are missing the most important thing. what seems to be an area of a small weakness or ignorance translates into a huge area of incorrect living.

it all begins with stillness and silence. these things can be quite disturbing, since we discover our emptiness and incompleteness in them. paris hilton is finding this out. i am sorry, paris, but you are no different than anyone else. you screwed up, and now you have to deal with the consequence. paris' biggest struggle isn't the danger of prison, however, it is that she is being forced to sit alone in a prison cell for 23 hours a day and think. she has nothing to think about because her existence thus far in life has been utterly meaningless. she has been removed from her worldly identity and possessions, as we will all one day, and there is nothing left. her emptiness is eating her alive. maybe she is figuring all this out. but even in a place that is physically still and silent, there can be great noise. i pray paris finds true stillness and silence and can hear God whispering words of love.

may we all find it.

cheers,
jw