Art and the Sacred: A talk from the 1977 Lindisfarne Conference by Bro. David Steindl-Rast O.S.B.

Have the courage to be still. Not just externally quiet, but quiet in the ultimate sense of waiting without hope.

[Cont. from page 2] ...

I think the three phases might become clearer when I read three passages from Eliot’s Four Quartets . Obviously, we won’t exhaust these passages now. Don’t focus on what we are missing. We’ll be missing most of it, but we’ll find something in it and that’s the important thing. Here is the holding still, the poet confronting reality:   

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without
hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong
thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and hope are all
in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not
ready for thought:  
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

and a few lines earlier:

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark
come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God.

There is the sacred. We can feel it. This first phase is no longer just stillness in general, but it is an explicit command: “Be still.” That means have the courage to be still. “I said to my soul, ‘be still.’” Not just externally quiet, but quiet in the ultimate sense of waiting without hope. “Wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing: wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing: there is yet faith but the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”

Just a very short space after that there is another passage, about discovery.

Shall I say it again? In order to arrive
there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is
no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way
of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which
you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing
you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.

To arrive at what you do not know, at that order which is not your own, is discovery. But... “In order to arrive at what you do not know, you must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.” The decisive point is to have the courage to go by the way of ignorance, by the way in which we are not. That is real courage. To get from where you are not, “...you must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.” That seems important because, linguistically, “ecstasy” is the opposite of “instant.” You have to be in the present moment. That is how Eliot, in this context, speaks about confronting reality. To be really in the present moment, to immerse yourself in it, to allow it to do something to you, to expose yourself to it and not protect yourself by preconceived notions—all this is the way of ignorance.

Now a final passage from the Four Quartets about that Yes of blessing. (I’ve been really struggling in trying to say something about this final phase.) I think Eliot expresses it powerfully when he speaks about worship in confrontation with reality.

If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
S ense and notions. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel...

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