Welcome to Telegrams From Heaven
In his Telegram From Heaven, T.S. Eliot remarks on a fellow poet’s comments concerning the extraordinary imagination and word pictures of children.
Before we share his telegram, we must first answer the question, “Who is T.S. Eliot and is he in heaven?” T.S. Eliot, winner of the 1948 Nobel Prize in Literature and widely regarded as the most influential poet of his time, claimed to be a Christian and was criticized for his faith, shared his beliefs through his poetry, and by the grace of God most assuredly resides in heaven.
We’ve transcribed his telegram into a simpler format. We hope you enjoy it. Thanks for dropping by.
Fellow poets, A.M. Sullivan, a fellow poet, shared some word pictures created from the imagination of children. One such word picture reads as follows: "When you open the window at night, you let the dark in and it gets all over everything." That is an amazing word picture. And I believe it has an unintended second meaning. Consider what happens when we allow spiritual darkness to creep into the windows of our soul. The result, as the child describes, is that darkness "gets all over everything." It is best not to keep the windows to your soul open to the darkness. Keep it open only for the light, and you will rejoice. T.S. Eliot
More About T.S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns Eliot was born on September 26, 1888 in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended Harvard University and Oxford University, and became acquainted with many of the famous writers of his time, including Ezra Pound and William Butler Yeats.
He wrote many important works, including a poem he wrote in college, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. This landmark poem was followed by decades of other important works, including The Waste Land, written in 1922, and, according to poets.org, “considered by many to be the single most influential poetic word of the twentieth century.”
In 1927, Eliot changed his religion from Unitarian to Anglican. According to Christianity Today, he was not shy about his faith. In fact, his poetry reflected his faith.
His faith became more widely known with the publication of "Ash Wednesday" in 1930, a poem showing the difficult search for truth ("Where shall the word be found, where will the word / Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence") and the discovery of a faith that will last, expressed in the repeated phrase, "Because I do not hope to turn again." Though criticized sharply by the literati for his turn to Christianity, he continued to express his faith in his poetry.
Eliot believed his finest achievement was writing the broadly religious poem "Four Quartets" (1943). It deals with the themes of incarnation, time and eternity, spiritual insight and revelation, culminating in an allusion to Pentecost.
Christianity Today
T.S. Eliot lived a long life of 76 years. According to the Poetry Foundation:
T.S. Eliot’s last years, though happy, were darkened by illness. He died of emphysema in London on January 4, 1965. The London Times obituary was titled “The Most Influential English Poet of His Time,” and the long obituary in Life magazine concluded with “Our age beyond any doubt has been, and will continue to be, the Age of Eliot.”
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A Few More Items
Through brief, focused and topical messages, Telegrams From Heaven intends to encourage, entertain and inspire our neighbors around the world. We want to provide hope and inspiration.
The “authors” of each Telegram From Heaven are men and women of accomplishment who lived in the ancient or recent past. Each were known for their faith, or at least the potential for faith during their lifetimes. They are from around the globe, from every walk of life, and their life stories are inspiring and encouraging. We believe these stories offer powerful messages that might help change lives in some small or meaningful way, even if just to improve your walk with God, or to realize someone cares enough to send you a Telegram From Heaven.
The word “heaven” inspires limitless definitions among the religious and non-religious. A few examples include “the home of God,” “a setting of ultimate perfection in the clouds,” or “a place where the resurrection bodies and departed souls of believers spend eternity.” Most often the word conjures up images of ornate, opulent buildings and streets paved with gold. Of beauty, of paradise, of a heavenly kingdom.
Most Christians believe it is a real place, separate from Earth. Others are convinced it is close enough for its inhabitants to reveal themselves miraculously to the living.
Thanks for dropping by
FINE PRINT: WARNING: Telegrams may irritate the eyes, cause soreness in various muscles or induce a groan, a grin, a smile or a laugh. If the reader has no sense of humor, block out anything that has been read and click to other sites without humor, serious religious conviction, credibility or journalistic standards. We recommend the New York Times or Wall Street Journal. The writer involved in the creation of these telegrams was left unsupervised. We apologize. Contact your doctor, priest, rabbi or pastor if horns appear at the top of your head. Reading a telegram has not been “proven” to cause earthquakes, headaches, diarrhea, nausea, or hair to catch fire … yet. CAUTION: Not intended to be read if drunk, constipated or ignorant. Do not operate heavy machinery or drive a car while reading telegrams. Do not read while sleeping. THE GOOD NEWS: Telegrams are fat free, caffeine free and non-toxic. No animals have been harmed during the writing or production of content included on this website. Reading these telegrams have not been found to cause cancer in lab mice. Heaven is a real place.