January 4thMARKINGS (25)
“One of the most beautiful things in T.S. Eliot’s Quartets is in the third Quartet, where he speaks of the “unattended moment, the moment in and out of time”—in other words, “fragments”:
The wild thyme unseen, or the winter lightning
Or the waterfall, or music heard so deeply
That it is not heard at all, but you are the music
While the music lasts.
These are only hints and guesses,
Hints followed by guesses; and the rest
Is prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action.
The hint half guessed, the gift half understood, is Incarnation.
I’ve never read a better fragmentary expression of the heart of Christianity, the Incarnation.” [David Tracy]