A phrase used by T.S. Eliot in his long poem The Wasteland, probably inspired by this Biblical thought for the day:


God shall likewise destroy thee for ever,
he shall take thee away,
and pluck thee out of thy dwelling place,
and root thee out of the land of the living.

Psalm 52:5

I don't know why Hallmark hasn't plucked that up for one of their Any Occasion cards, but it does fit in nicely with Eliot's mention of "Carthage," an ancient city in Tennessee, home of both Queen Dido and Al Gore, long ago razed to the ground and sewn with salt to insure the sterility of the soil.

Not only that, but the word pluck also resonates with the more wholesome New Testament abjuration:


And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out:
it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye,
than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.

Mark 9:47

Luckily there are not too many plucky Christians running about.

This phrase from The Waste Land, like the Carthage reference mentioned above, alludes to the Confessions of Saint Augustine of Hippo.

Augustine has been speaking about the temptation to become ensnared by worldly beauty and human creations. This occurs when we forget that all beauty in the world comes from God, and merely passes through our hands and into the things we create. Then he says:

"And I, though I speak and see this, entangle my steps with these outward beauties; but Thou pluckest me out, O Lord, Thou pluckest me out; because Thy loving-kindness is before my eyes. For I am taken miserably, and Thou pluckest me out mercifully; sometimes not perceiving it, when I had but lightly lighted upon them; otherwhiles with pain, because I had stuck fast in them."

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