21 October 2022, Week 19 after Trinity
LANGUAGE
Poetry. In his lecture “On the origin of the Working of Art” the 21st-century philosopher Martin Heidegger explains that poetry is where we see language as it is meant to be — that poetry protects and presents language.
From my study of Heidegger I’ve learned that language is not a tool or instrument but the atmosphere we must have to grow and to exist as human beings, but Heidegger got his understanding from reading and teaching great German poetry.
From my reading of Scripture and our Lutheran Confessions, I’ve realized that I should have had that understanding of language all along. After all, “scriptures” means “writings. The Scriptures tell us and show us that God’s Word is alive and active, a means of God’s grace to us all.
A MODERN ENGLISH POEM
I love my wife’s poetry. Paula is a publishing and award-winning Wisconsin poet whose vocabulary and poetic forms astonish and wake me up to the world we share.
But for the power of contemporary poetry to prophesy and protect as Heidegger says, I think that TS Eliot is important as well as being verbally and formally astonishing.
That’s why you’ve heard me quoting Eliot’s dedicatory poem, Choruses for the Rock, so often.
Since a few of you have asked, Eliot’s Choruses is widely available online, as well as in collections, such as Volume One of The Poems of T.S. Eliot (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015), which is wonderfully annotated.
BTW, the line I have (shamelessly) recommended adding in order to update Eliot for the 21st-century would come shortly after “Where is the Life we have lost in living?” in the first part: “Where is the information we have lost in lies?”
Next post, SCJ: Ideas for a weekly LUTHERAN PHILOSOPHER book club!
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Grace and peace to you and yours in Christ, the incarnate Word.