Lent Poems: Via Negativa by R.S. Thomas

I have a certain reputation among some for grumpiness and a tendency towards negativity, and at times I play into that. But those who know me better know that isn't the whole story, although neither is the hearty laugh or the times when I am happy to play the fool. No-one is entirely the image they project. All of them disguise something deeper.

R.S. Thomas the Welsh Anglican priest-poet has a reputation for being a curmudgeonly, anti-social, anti-modernist ascetic and because of both his and my reputation it will be no surprise that I really like his poetry, both his earlier earthy poems and his later more overtly religious ones. But one of the things I like is his complexity, both in terms of form and ideas.

And in this poem he touches on the ultimately unknowable complexity of a God, that outwith the incarnation and spiritual ecstasy, can often manifest himself in a profound sense of absence.

Selah

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