T. S. Eliot, “Ash Wednesday,” Part VI

For many, Lent is to Easter as Advent is to Christmas. Having its roots in the Council of Nicaea (AD 325), Lent is a forty-day season of soul searching and repentance leading to the celebration of the resurrection. This season preceding Easter, rooted in Jesus’s forty-day period of testing in the desert, often begins in the church with the prophet Joel’s call to “turn,” combined with an urging from God—as recorded by Isaiah—for a fasting of the heart.

In Eliot’s “Ash Wednesday,” readers find an arid desert of despair. But in Section 6, as the focus shifts from this world, hope seeps in (though, as is common in Eliot’s works, not very overtly). The point-of-view character contemplates nature’s cyclical pattern of life and death and the space between the two.

1. The speaker in Eliot’s work references “this brief transit where the dreams cross” and “the dream crossed twilight between birth and dying.” Life is fleeting. What are some reminders you have had recently of life’s transient nature?
2. The character also mentions “The empty forms between the ivory gates.” Because in Christian contexts we sometimes hear mention of “the pearly gates,” we might think the speaker has heaven in mind. But references to “gates of horn and ivory” appear in numerous literary works—as far back as Homer—as true and false dreams. In Homer’s Greek, the word for “horn” is similar to that for “fulfill,” and the word for “ivory” is similar to that for “deceive.” Based on this wordplay, then, true dreams are likened to gates of horn, and false dreams to ivory gates. What have been some of your ivory gates, your false dreams?
3. In the speaker’s reference to learning from God and being honest with ourselves, we find the short prayer, “Teach us to care and not to care.” What do you need to care about that you find difficult? What do you care about that you know you should let go?
4. The subject prays, “Suffer me not to be separated.” This brings to mind the prayer of dereliction at the crucifixion of Christ. What makes you feel separated from God? 
5. Eventually the speaker ends with the request, “And let my cry come unto Thee.” The line probably comes from Psalm 102. The KJV is often considered the “literary” version of the Bible, and in verse 1 we read, “Hear my prayer, O Lord, and let my cry come unto thee.” The introduction to this psalm says, “A Prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and poureth out his complaint before the Lord.” What feels overwhelming to you today? God invites you to pour out your heart.

For more devotionals in this series, click here.

About the Contributors

Sandra L. Glahn

In addition to teaching on-campus classes, Dr. Glahn teaches immersive courses in Italy and Great Britain. She is a multi-published author of both fiction and non-fiction, a journalist, and speaker who advocates for thinking that transforms, especially on topics relating to art, marriage, and first-century backgrounds as they relate to gender. Dr. Glahn’s more than twenty-five books reveal her interests in bioethics, sexual ethics, and biblical women. She has also written twelve Bible studies in the Coffee Cup Bible Study series. A regular blogger at Engage, bible.org’s site for women in Christian leadership, Dr. Glahn is also a Substack writer and co-founder of The Visual Museum of Women in Christianity. She is married to Gary and they have a married daughter and one granddaughter.