There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.
T. S. EliotRead
Any religion is forever in danger of petrifaction into mere ritual and habit, though ritual and habit be essential to religion.
Interpretation
Religions can become stagnant if they focus solely on rituals and habits, despite their importance.
T. S. Eliot's quote highlights the paradox of religion being both vital and potentially stagnant. While rituals and established practices are essential for the sustenance of faith, they can also lead to a rigid adherence that undermines the dynamic and transformative nature of spiritual belief. The warning here is to remain vigilant against allowing the essence of spirituality to be overshadowed by mere ceremonial repetition.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of adapting traditions, one could reference Eliot's insight on ritual.
There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.
Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them.
I am an Anglo-Catholic in religion, a classicist in literature and a royalist in politics.
If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?
For I have known them all already, known them allβ Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing
Among American citizens, there should be no forgotten men and no forgotten races.
Americans have a severe disease - worse than AIDS. It's called the winner's complex.
There can be no rebirth without a dark night of the soul, a total annihilation of all that you believed in and thought that you were.
They are supposed to be dispassionate dispensers of Pure Justice, icy islands of emotionless calculation. In short, umpires should be acute Republicans.
When I use the word 'healing', by that I mean that every disease has a physical element that we're very good at handling, but there's always a sense of the violation. 'Why me?' 'Why is my leg broken on the ski trip and not anyone else's?' And I think that medicine has done a terrible job of addressing that spiritual violation.
Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner
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