Migrants
He is that great void we must enter, calling to one another on our way in the direction from which he blows. What matter if we should never arrive to breed or to winter in the climate of our conception? Enough we have been given wings and a needle in the mind to respond to his bleak north. There are times even at the Pole when he, too, pauses in his withdrawal, so that it is light there all night long.
R.S. Thomas watched birds, and for those who do, there is an awe when seeing migrating flocks. When I was a little girl (and not so little) I used to envy them, wondering where they were going to spend a warmer winter than I was. I’d watch in wonder, as I still do, the way they seemed to know by instinct where to go, and how the odd stray one would be brought back into the flock. Is this how we are with God?
I always listen with interest, but dread, to conversion stories. Interest, because it is wonderful to be allowed to hear how God has brought others to him, dread because, well, when I am asked for mine, I have none. I am like those migrating birds I think. I have always, like the needle pointing to the magnetic north, gone in that direction. The first time I read St Augustine’s
You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
St Augustine, Confessions
I knew it was true. It was what I’d always known. Like that migrating bird I knew I was called.
The migrating bird arrives after a long journey. So, I believe, shall we. I don’t know if the bird knows she will arrive, but then she has been there before. We journey, the theme of this week’s readings, in hope. It would not be an R.S. Thomas poem unless there was a sense of the hardship and of the doubts which arise when God seems to be absent, and we know, by now, to expect the poet to point us in the direction of an apophatic approach to God – seeing him in what he is not.
We journey in hope, like those migrating birds, and our hearts are restless, so much so that we press on, eager to get to the destination, not stopping to capture those small ephiphanies which are a foretaste of that wider felicity which awaits us. In our hustle and bustle, especially at this time of the year, we risk missing the whole point of Advent – we press on to the manger, but reach it exhausted and miss what the journey brings. As we enter this third week, let us pause and take stock – and thank God for his blessings, even in this darkest of times.
There is an #adventbookclub using “Frequencies of God” by Carys Walsh and you can support the publisher by buying it here: https://canterburypress.hymnsam.co.uk/books/9781786220882/frequencies-of-god. We’ll be running this club on Twitter and Facebook, and you are welcome to join in with thoughts and comments. Other folk doing this are https://grahart.wordpress.com/ and https://becausegodislove.wordpress.com/ so please pop over and read their thoughts too!
All Along the Watchtower 
I do find it odd, however, to see the poet referring to God as the void. For me , though I think I know what the poet is getting at , that is not the right choice of word. The void for me is not a good place; it is that darkness in which we wander when we lose sight of God. That is where Melkor wandered and became corrupt. I should prefer the word expanse or domain.
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I think it is to do with the way Thomas so often seems to define God in an apophatic way x
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I tend not to think of God that way. Mine is generally more anthropomorphic, a consequence of reading the Prophets a lot and perhaps some other influences.
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Well, all this about R.S. Thomas is very nice. I was forced to study some of his poetry way back in the early 1980’s, because he was a favourite of our English teacher.
But don’t you think that the guy is a little bit very weird?
I just looked at his Wikipedia page and I strongly recommend it for anybody in need of a good laugh to cheer things up. For example, `The Thomas family lived on a tiny income and lacked the comforts of modern life, largely through their own choice. One of the few household amenities the family ever owned, a vacuum cleaner, was rejected because Thomas decided it was too noisy.’
And …..
`He became a fierce advocate of Welsh nationalism, although he never supported Plaid Cymru because they recognised the English Parliament and therefore, in his view, did not go far enough in opposition to England.’
and, on his religious views
`Thomas’s son, Gwydion, a resident of Thailand, recalls his father’s sermons, in which he would “drone on” to absurd lengths about the evil of refrigerators, washing machines, televisions and other modern devices. Thomas preached that they were all part of the temptation of scrambling after gadgets rather than attending to more spiritual needs.’
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Frankly, on what you term his religious values, I fail to see where he made a single error, all of them may have offsetting value in civil life, but he is correct, all promote consumerism as opposed to Godliness.
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…. it was from the section `religious values’ in the Wikipedia page.
True. You are, of course, correct on this.
The Wikipedia page also says that he ` described himself as a pacifist, but also supported the terrorist Meibion Glyndŵr fire bombings of English-owned holiday cottages in rural Wales.’
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Thanks Jock. There is no doubt that Thomas was, shall we say, out of the ordinary. Not sure how his poor wife coped!
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Well, I suppose that would depend on how much she liked the cold.
`Thomas retired as a clergyman in 1978. He and his wife moved to Y Rhiw, into “a tiny, unheated cottage in one of the most beautiful parts of Wales, where, however, the temperature sometimes dipped below freezing,”
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