Full Circle
Jun. 2nd, 2008 10:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphiloWhen last night's TV film about Florence Nightingale (informative but - as a film- not very good) revealed that she undertook her mission as a result of hearing the voice of God, my reaction was not- as it might once have been- "Dear me, what a loon", but ,"Seems like my kinda gal"- which shows, I suppose, that I've finally completed the circular walk I took off on 22 years ago.
At the time I didn't know it would be circular. I though I was walking away from Christianity for good. But that's not how it works, is it?
As T.S. Eliot says-
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Also, yesterday evening, I finished Balzac's Le Cure de Campagne- a novel about guilt and redemption which quite unashamedly bangs the drum for old-school catholicism- and, instead of chucking it accross the room, I laid it aside with thoughtful sympathy.
No, I'm not going to ring the bishop and ask for my dog-collar back, but- well- I have to admit the thought has fleetingly crossed my mind.
What I care about- what I have always cared about most deeply- are the things of the spirit.
At the time I didn't know it would be circular. I though I was walking away from Christianity for good. But that's not how it works, is it?
As T.S. Eliot says-
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Also, yesterday evening, I finished Balzac's Le Cure de Campagne- a novel about guilt and redemption which quite unashamedly bangs the drum for old-school catholicism- and, instead of chucking it accross the room, I laid it aside with thoughtful sympathy.
No, I'm not going to ring the bishop and ask for my dog-collar back, but- well- I have to admit the thought has fleetingly crossed my mind.
What I care about- what I have always cared about most deeply- are the things of the spirit.
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Date: 2008-06-03 09:12 am (UTC)There are passages from the Four Quartets (mainly from Little Gidding) which I've carried in my heart ever since I first read them forty years ago.