Inner strength comes from the sure conviction that God has placed us in this world to do the work of life, and not of death. (pg101)

He also frequently makes reference to other’s works. One, so far, has stood out to me particularly. From page 100:

In one of his great poems,”Choruses from The Rock,” T.S. Eliot asks,”Why should men love the Church?” This is his answer:

She tells them of Life and Death, and of all that they would forget.
She is tender where they would be hard, and hard where they would like
to be soft.
She tells them of Evil and Sin, and other unpleasant facts.
They constanly try to escape
From the darkness outside and within
By dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good…

I’m doing all of my reading for Eng 206 — which I’ll be taking in the Fall — right now so I can pursue my own studies in the class when it comes around. Eng 206 is English Literature 2, and much of what I’m reading for the class has been eerily consistent with my own reading on the side. I recently read Eliot’s The Waste Land and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. In a general sense, I’m not surprised at the fact that old works can still be relevant today. When I encounter a particular instance of the fact, however, I never fail to be caught off guard.