To Seek and To Know the Place for the First Time
Written by Lucile Foley
When we began this Year of the Seeker, I was in the midst of an intense period that felt like the climax to years of searching. What did I seek? Healing. A return of our fertility. In these years of secondary infertility, it has been hard not to sink into the pain of the past, remembering the trauma of miscarriages, the removal of a fallopian tube, and years of yearning for another child. It has been tempting to optimistically jump to the future, assuming that we will eventually come to the edge of this wilderness of infertility and have more children. But during our discussion of T.S. Elliot’s Four Quartets, my friend called us to a few lines from Little Gidding.
This is the use of memory:
Four Quartets by T.S. Elliot
For liberation—not less of love but expanding
Of love beyond desire, and so liberation
From the future as well as the past.
So often, memories can feel like chains holding us back, but Elliot writes of memory as a tool to help free us. Memory allows us to see a more complete tapestry than when we first experienced those moments. We can see the threads of love woven throughout our memories, so instead of being chained by what we did not understand, we can be filled by the memory of love and realize that love is acting now rather than just hoping for it in the future. We can be liberated to live in the present moment.
T.S. Elliot affirmed for me, through the Four Quartets, that to be a seeker, I need to live in the present moment, not dwelling on the past or jumping to the future. This seems like a contradiction at first. (Is not a seeker focused on the end that is sought?) But Elliot wrestles with this paradox throughout all four poems before drawing the loose ends together in Little Gidding. He writes:
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.
One can view these lines from both a universal and personal level. On a personal level, I have done all I can to seek healing. Still, even after years of regimens, treatments, surgeries, and prayers, I find myself where I started, here in the marriage and family that God has given me. I see it for what it is—not an incomplete gift but exactly what our Lord has in mind now.
On a universal level, God created each of us to be in relationship with Him. Because of sin, we spend our entire lives seeking Him, not recognizing Him. We struggle to realize He was there, is here now, and will always be. At the end of our seeking, we will find Him and recognize His presence for what it has been all along—a gift.
About Lucile Foley
Lucile is a full-time wife, mother, homemaker, and homeschool teacher of one. She lives in Minnesota with her husband and son, where they are never far from family, friends, and a good book. She has published pieces in Radiant Magazine and Verily.
About Well-Read Mom
In Well-Read Mom, women read more and read well. Our hope is to deepen the awareness of meaning hidden in each woman’s daily life. We long to elevate the cultural conversation and revitalize reading literature from books. If you would like us to help you select worthy reading material, we invite you to join and read along. We are better together! For information on how to start or join a Well-Read Mom group visit our website wellreadmom.com
