When I think about the work being done all over Nashville right now, these lines from Eliot's "The Wasteland" come to mind: "Shall I at least set my lands in order?/...These fragments I have shored against my ruins..." A poem that is, admittedly, impossible for me to understand in any way other than in fragments. So, too, with Nashville post-flood. The widespread devastation is overwhelming and certainly has the potential to be paralyzing. But everywhere people are shoring fragments one piece at a time, setting the land in order again. And once again I find myself in awe of the human capacity to shoulder grief and loss, and to move forward in the midst of it.

It would be a misreading to say that Eliot's poem celebrates the triumph of the human spirit - or celebrates anything for that matter - but today I appreciate the gesture towards it.