Is T.S. Eliot in Heaven?
Monday, June 24, 2024
“For us, there is only the trying. The rest is God’s business.” – T.S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot was born in St. Louis MO on September 26, 1888. His parents were prominent Boston Brahmins, meaning they were upper crust through and through.
In 1914, Eliot moved to England where he lived for the remainder of his life except for a brief period in the early 1930s when he taught at Harvard. Eliot became a British subject in 1927, renouncing his American citizenship.
A prolific writer, Eliot authored dozens of poems, seven plays, and scores of non-fiction works. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948 "for his outstanding, pioneer contribution to present-day poetry." Eliot also won a Tony award for Best Play in 1950 for The Cocktail Party, and two posthumous Tony awards in 1983 for Cats (Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score).
Raised in the Unitarian Church, Eliot converted to Anglicanism the same year he became a British subject and was named a warden of his parish church in London. Whether his conversion was sincere or simply a means to gain entrance into British high society is unknown. However, he once described himself as “classicist in literature, royalist in politics, and Anglo-Catholic in religion.”
Regardless of the sincerity of his faith, Eliot stumbled on an eternal truth in today’s quote. In fact, it jives perfectly with my life verse, which is Philippians 1:6 (see below). If God is truly sovereign, Eliot reasoned, then He is responsible not only for the origin of our faith, but also for its implementation and culmination. I suppose that’s why, late in life, Eliot described his religious belief system as follows: "I have a Catholic cast of mind, a Calvinist heritage, and a Puritanical temperament.”
I am not sure if T.S. Eliot is in heaven today, but I am 100% that I will be when I die. Not because I was a world-famous author or because I won three Tony awards and a Nobel prize. After all, my earthly merits are nothing but filthy rags in God’s sight (see Isaiah 64:6). On the contrary, I will spend eternity in Glory because Jesus died for my sins, and I accepted that free gift… period.
How about you, my friend? Will I see you there? I desperately hope so. Trust Jesus TODAY!
“…being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6 (BSB)
- Rev. Dale M. Glading, President
