Listening to the past can help us to understand our present, but it is so difficult to read ancient works of literature and theology alone. I’m Dr. Grace Hamman, a scholar of medieval literature and mother of three. Old Books With Grace shares my love for old books and listens to the wisdom emanating from these long dead voices. My hope is that Old Books With Grace will empower you to approach often intimidating works of literature and theology and as a result, ask questions of our current age. We live in a time that values the new and the now more than ever. But I truly believe that these books speak outside of the echo-chambers in which we so often find ourselves and help us to find ageless truth from lost centuries.
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Listening to the past can help us to understand our present, but it is so difficult to read ancient works of literature and theology alone. I’m Dr. Grace Hamman, a scholar of medieval literature and mother of three. Old Books With Grace shares my love for old books and listens to the wisdom emanating from these long dead voices. My hope is that Old Books With Grace will empower you to approach often intimidating works of literature and theology and as a result, ask questions of our current age. We live in a time that values the new and the now more than ever. But I truly believe that these books speak outside of the echo-chambers in which we so often find ourselves and help us to find ageless truth from lost centuries.
East Coker with O. Alan Noble: Four Quartets, Lent 2025
Old Books with Grace
1 hour 7 minutes 5 seconds
7 months ago
East Coker with O. Alan Noble: Four Quartets, Lent 2025
Lent is a time of repentance, reflection, and reconciliation. These are actions that happen in time, facilitated by memory and love. So even though we, as followers of Christ, repent, reflect, and reconcile year-round, one hopes, we set aside a time to especially do so, to be as intentional as we can, to pay special attention to our blessed limitations as creatures of God. It is easy to let these things go.
This is what Lent is for. It so happens that these themes—love, memory, time, attention, repentance, creatureliness—are also themes extensively explored in T.S. Eliot’s masterpiece set of poems, the Four Quartets. Each episode in this Lent series, Grace will be discussing one of the quartets with a guest. Today Grace welcomes Professor O. Alan Noble for a thoughtful conversation on East Coker, the second poem.
Dr. O. Alan Noble is Associate Professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University, a fellow at the Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics, and author of three books: On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living, You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in an Inhuman World, and Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age. Dr. Noble has published articles at The Atlantic, The Gospel Coalition, First Things, and Christianity Today. He lives with his wife and three children.
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Old Books with Grace
Listening to the past can help us to understand our present, but it is so difficult to read ancient works of literature and theology alone. I’m Dr. Grace Hamman, a scholar of medieval literature and mother of three. Old Books With Grace shares my love for old books and listens to the wisdom emanating from these long dead voices. My hope is that Old Books With Grace will empower you to approach often intimidating works of literature and theology and as a result, ask questions of our current age. We live in a time that values the new and the now more than ever. But I truly believe that these books speak outside of the echo-chambers in which we so often find ourselves and help us to find ageless truth from lost centuries.
