The Light of God Reflected in Us

Concluding Eliot's "Choruses from The Rock"

Photo by Mike Labrum on Unsplash

We’ve come to the end of our time with Eliot’s “Choruses from The Rock” (see parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and ten). The overarching theme has been the building of Christ’s Church during a time of moral decay, social disorder, and spiritual abandonment. We have really only skimmed the surface of this poem, but I hope it has been helpful for our own time, which I think is also marked by moral decay, social disorder, and spiritual abandonment. Eliot concludes his poem with an extended metaphor of God as the Invisible Light which illuminates everything. That is what he calls the “Greater Light.” There are also lesser lights which point us to the Greater Light and give us hope in a fallen world. We are among those lesser lights, reflecting God’s love to others. And it is to these lesser lights we turn in our final reading in this series:

In our rhythm of earthly life we tire of light. We are glad when the day ends, when the play ends; and ecstasy is too much pain.
We are children quickly tired: children who are up in the night and fall asleep as the rocket is fired; and the day is long for work or play.
We tire of distraction or concentration, we sleep and are glad to sleep,
Controlled by the rhythm of blood and the day and the night and the seasons.
And we must extinguish the candle, put out the light and relight it;
Forever must quench, forever relight the flame.
Therefore we thank Thee for our little light, that is dappled with shadow.
We thank Thee who hast moved us to building, to finding, to forming at the ends of our fingers and beams of our eyes.
And when we have built an altar to the Invisible Light, we may set thereon the little lights for which our bodily vision is made.
And we thank Thee that darkness reminds us of light.
O Light Invisible, we give Thee thanks for Thy great glory!

Eliot first acknowledges that as frail, sinful humans, a part of us tires of these minor lights which reflect God’s Invisible Light and give us hope. Whether that’s friendship or caring for a neighbor, or acts of mercy. There’s a reason Paul warns the Galatians in chapter 6 verse 9 not to grow weary in doing good: we can grow weary doing good. We can tire of the light. We can be glad when the day ends because it’s all just too much. The line “and ecstasy is too much pain” I suspect refers not primarily to good works that we are doing, but the goodness of life: great poetry, art, sex, good food, and so on. There is a way in which even the light of the good gifts from God can be blinding to us. So we prefer to not have this good gifts. This is the sin of despair, denying our nature as God’s children and rejecting His good gifts for us. Denying the light, as it were.

Then he changes his metaphor and calls us “children quickly tired.” On the one hand, we’ll stay up half the night excited to watch some fireworks, but as soon as the show starts, we’re already asleep. The rocket, this image of light, is another example of the way we neglect God’s goodness to us. Like the disciples, we can’t stay awake when we are asked to. Our spirit is willing but our flesh is weak. I think here Eliot is calling us to self-denial and self-control, disciplining our bodies and wills so that we can be lights for others and experience the light God sends our way, whether it be through a late night conversation with a friend, or a concert in a park, or an opportunity to share the gospel, whatever stretches us beyond our physical and mental comfort.

But I think here the tone slightly shifts. Eliot writes: “and the day is long for work or play.” There’s a reason for our exhaustion. We’re not just children who can’t stay awake, we’re also adults who work long hours. The next few lines capture this sentiment: “We tire of distraction or concentration, we sleep and are glad to sleep, / Controlled by the rhythm of blood and the day and the night and the seasons.” Whether we are “distracted from distractions by distractions” as he says in the Four Quartets or we are intensely focusing on a task, we grow weary and are glad to sleep. And the reference to the rhythm of blood and seasons suggest that this weariness is by design from God. We are only human. So we might conclude that sometimes we act light children, denying ourselves the experience of the light because we are too weak to carry on, but sometimes we are just listening to our bodily rhythms.

Eliot elaborates by bringing back the light metaphor: “And we must extinguish the candle, put out the light and relight it; / Forever must quench, forever relight the flame.” This is human existence. We turn off our lights and go to bed. And the next day we turn them back on again. I think the key to these lines is “Forever must quench, forever relight the flame.” This is our lot. In our own hearts there will be times when our desire will wain and we must with the help of the Holy Spirit, relight the flame of passion for Christ. There will be seasons when we will grow weary and faint, and we will need to relight the flame. For most of us, this side of Paradise, our passion for God is not a flame lit once and then ignored, but a fire which must be tended to, relit, fanned, rekindled. Psalm 51:10: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.”

Eliot concludes with a note of gratitude: “Therefore we thank Thee for our little light, that is dappled with shadow.” Each of us, like little moons, reflects God’s Greater Light, and like the moon with its craters, we are “dappled with shadows” of sin, but it is a great thing to be able to reflect the glory of God in the world.

He continues by thanking God for moving us to “building, to finding, to forming at the ends of our fingers and beams of our eyes.” It is a gift to be able to participate in the building of Christ’s Church, and we ought to be thankful for it, even if it is thankless work in this life. And we ought to also be thankful for our human creative abilities, our ability to form “at the ends of our fingers and beams of our eyes.”

We’ve been talking a lot about the building of the Church in this series. In these closing lines, Eliot tells us why this work is so important for the human person: “And when we have built an altar to the Invisible Light, we may set thereon the little lights for which our bodily vision is made.” We were created to worship God in His Church. But before we can do that the church must be built. Of course, Christ’s universal Church has been established since His coming and will exist for eternity. But in local places, churches must be built. Communities must be built so we can worship together.

Finally, Eliot concludes: “And we thank Thee that darkness reminds us of light.
O Light Invisible, we give Thee thanks for Thy great glory!”

I know right now many people are distraught or lamenting or confused about the State of the World or America. Most of us have been for a long time. But here Eliot gives us a healthy reminder, that the “darkness reminds us of light.” This doesn’t justify the darkness, but it does bring us to our knees. It reminds us of our hope, which is in the “Light Invisible,” not in ourselves or our plans or agendas. All the moral decay, social disorder, and spiritual abandonment we have seen in this poem and in our society should not make us hopeless, but should be a sign pointing us to the Light. And we must be lights in that darkness, reflecting God’s love, goodness, justice, mercy, and longsuffering to a hurting people.