Meeting R S Thomas at 4.00 am

It was that awful 4.00 am feeling.  Restless and unable to sleep, with a mind churning and chewing over every single thing, I got up and made a cup of tea (what else?!)  Often during sleepless nights I read or try to pray.  But most times prayer doesn't seem to 'work', or bring the longed for peace when there are enough words tripping through my mind already.  Reading doesn't always seem right either.  The wordiness of the novel, unputdownable by day, is too much and non-fiction prose too taxing during the dark hours.  So last night I reached instead for this book which had arrived a few days earlier.

Flicking through, I came across a poem by R S Thomas.  I had heard his name before but could not say any more than that about this poet. I liked the title though - The Moor.  And reading it proved to be one of those moments when you are just so glad that someone else has felt what you feel and has been able to express it for you.

'The Moor

... was like a church to me....

What God was there made himself felt,

Not listened to ...

There were no prayers said.  But stillness

Of the heart's passions - that was praise

Enough; and the mind's cession 

Of its kingdom'

Having come from a church background where everything about God was conveyed through words, and there have been times in recent years when I have felt overloaded by words and have found no words for certain experiences, what a relief to find this poet who feels rather than hears God.  And what a joy that this  happens not in a church building, but out on a moor.  No words are necessary.  Prayer simply arises and the heart and the mind find peace.

And so I have met R S Thomas at last.  Sometimes when you discover an author properly for the first time, you wonder how on earth you had not found them before. I am now intrigued by the brief biographical details of this Welsh nationalist Anglican priest who spent his life ministering in rural Wales and who wrote a poem that so speaks to my own experiences, even if I have to get up in the middle of the night to meet him.

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for lovers of god everywhere; poems of the Christian Mystics - Roger Housden, www.rogerhousden.com

www.poetry-chaikhana.com for spiritual poetry from all traditions