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"What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from. And every phrase 
And sentence that is right (where every word is at home, 
Taking its place to support the others,
The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,
An easy commerce of the old and the new,
The common word exact without vulgarity, 
The formal word precise but not pedantic,
The complete consort dancing together)
Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning, 
Every poem an epitaph."

(Eliot, Little Gidding)

Little Gidding was the poem that showed me why people read poetry; these lines gave me a vision of what writing should be.

2019 has been my own time of ends and beginnings, and despite some misgivings, I've decided to make a blog one of the beginnings. If certain of these misgivings end up being accurate, the blog may also be one of the endings as well.

One of my great fears is of cordoning off a blog, or really any writing or conversation, into a navel-gazing echo chamber. Somewhat alleviating my fear are those clear-thinking, incisive writers whose blogs have helped me to think more clearly myself. In particular, I take as unofficial, unknowing patrons Simcha Fisher at I have to sit down, Dorothy Cummings McLean at Seraphic Singles, and Rachel Fulton Brown at Fencing Bear at Prayer. These three women have showed me "the complete consort dancing together," even when their contributions to various conversations are ones with which I disagree.

Throughout my time at Hillsdale College, I found myself meditating repeatedly on the mystery of Pentecost, particularly on the connection between the outpouring of the Spirit and various gifts of speech and communication in service of the truth. The blog's address is taken from one of many poetic invocations of the Holy Spirit found in the ancient hymn Veni Sanctus Spiritus: Veni, lumen cordium! Come, Light of Hearts! It is my hope that the working of the Spirit may "disperse from my soul the twofold darkness into which I was born, sin and ignorance" and help me to write well and truly.