R S Thomas, the Crucified God and the virtue of metaphysical humility

Chris McIntosh is a fellow enthusiast for the poetry of R S Thomas. Indeed she is an RST pilgrim who recently went looking again for the haunts of the finest religious poet of the second half of the 20th Century (see her post for 17 July). She asked in her recent comment if I'd come upon Thomas's 1990 collection, Counterpoint, and confesses reluctance to write about them. And when you read them you can understand why the hesitation. Yet they are a remarkably important contribution to Christian thought, representing a voice too often muted in Christian spirituality. So at least some thoughts and initial reflections.

Some of the poems in Counterpoint assert faith at its most interrogative, that is, to read them is to be interrogated, asked questions we'd rather not answer, but that won't go away. And for those who need certainty and not only assurance but chronic reassurance, some of them contain carpet pulling assertions that leave comfortable faith discomfited on the floor. And some of them contain that pastoral tenderness that was seldom sentimental, but understood and respected human fragility, shared that wistful longing to know, to really know, who God is and what God is about, in a world with so many hard and dangerous places, so many dark corners, so much that causes hurt.

Much of Thomas's poetry is therefore in the minor key, and much that would be called negative emotion is drawn into a vision of human existence where the negative has its positive counterpoint, and the minor anticipates the major, even when the major is indicated rather than intimated. To change the metaphor, Thomas's poetry, like Van Gogh's painting, acknowledged, even celebrated light, but against cobalt blue, implied menacing shadow, even in some paintings, impressions of unrelieved dullness or darkness. The contrast of dark and light, minor and major, despair and hope, doubt and faith, carefree joy and recurring sorrow, mirrors for Thomas the poet the task of Christian theology, which is not to explain away the negative, or deny it, or make such experience occasion for guilt. For Thomas any escapist or triumphalist theology lacks a sufficient metaphysical humility, claims more than is warranted by human experience, and simply leaves unaddressed by Christian theology those experiences inevitable in mortal existence, of ambiguity, of desolation, of existential ache for meaning, belonging and hope. You can't have Van Gogh without the cobalt blue - the starry night is glorious because as well as the swirling spheres of coarse brushed gold, there is the background of contrasting space, distance, darkness.

  At times in the Counterpoint collection, there is a sense of a Christian holding on to faith by fingertips and precarious toe-holds. But taken as a whole they are poems of astonishing grasp, a profound Christian theology in which God is neither trivialised nor analysed, but acknowledged as the overwhelming Reality that permeates and penetrates a universe in which all human existence would otherwise be fleeting accident registering for nanoseconds in a story bleakly eternal. Thomas's poetry has as its theological sub-structure the Christian story. And the four suites of poems in Counterpoint demonstrate a soul that has learned metaphysical humility, not docility, not resignation, Thomas is not God's 'yes-man'; but in his questioning he will accept neither trite answers nor final negations. Because at the heart of Thomas's poetry, as the glowing core from which his creative energy was drawn, is the cross, the crucified Christ, the God who scandalises all theology by being born human, suffering, dying, and thus through love defiant in resurrection, contradicting the tendency of the universe to atrophy and die. Wherever else the universe is going, according to Thomas it will not outrun the grasping arms of the crucified God. Here is just one poem, whose last clause captures in six words, the eternally patient movement of God, outwards in Love, towards a recalcitrant but cherished creation.

They set up their decoy

in the Hebrew sunlight. What

for? Did they expect

death to come sooner

to disprove his claim

to be God's son? Who

can shoot down God?

Darkness arrived at midday, the shadow

of whose wing? The blood

ticked from the cross, but it was not

their time it kept. It was no

time at all, but the accompaniment

to a face staring,

as over the centuries

it has stared, from unfathomable

darkness into unfathomable light.

R S Thomas, Collected Later Poems, (Bloodaxe, 2004), page 108.

Four question marks in one poem. And those last six words. Van Gogh's starry night again?

Comments

[chris]

Gosh, Jim - thank you for this! I may not ever now get anything written about Counterpoint, because you've said so much so well that I was struggling to articulate - but I may yet feel moved to think aloud about the effect that reading these poems has on me personally. That lifelong struggle of Thomas's is one of the main factors in keeping me on the road, and having been where he was physically adds to the sense of indentification.
Thanks again!

[Ichthus888.wordpress.com]

My comment didn't get through yesterday, thought I'd try again. I just wanted to thank you for posting this - both for your words and those of Thomas.

[Jason Goroncy]

A(nother) beautiful post Jim. This one cost me a few dollars too, inspired as I was to go and buy a few volumes of Thomas' work. Thanks.

[Dr. James Willingham]

Of far greater depths, born in the brutally sun-drenched cotton-fields of Arkansas, is the exceedingly realistic truth, that the Bible in its Gospel message is the Creator, Redeemer God speaking to man, and, where He speaks and when His message goes home according to His design, there peace brings calm and sanity to violent torn human beings. A deadly and yet completely joyful word claims aloud that meaning and purpose have arrived and even a poor, ignorant, third-grade educated share-cropper can grasp as much and become victorious over his passions and fears of death and die with joy the easiest death an attending nurse had ever witnessed and the most relaxed body the undertaker ever handled. What a glory is shed on our way.

[John]

Hi, I am from Australia.

But what if the entirely fictional story re the blood sacrifice,and alleged death and resurrection story has nothing whatsoever to do with the spirit-breathing Spiritual Way of life taught and demonstrated by Saint Jesus of Galilee while he was alive.

Or with how to live a self Transcending Right Life altogether

Plus the Truth About Death

[Jim Gordon]

Thanks for your comment and question John. "What if the entirely fictional story...." Well there's a bold piece of metaphysical and historical dismissal! Our knowledge of the way of life lived and taught by Jesus of Nazareth to which you refer is derived entirely from the Gospels, which even their severest critics hesitate to dismiss as "entirely fictional story".In any case, in reading the poetry of R S Thomas what is important is that he, despite many deeply felt and anguished questions, held tenaciously to the truth and reality of God revealed in Jesus, crucified and risen.

By the way, links to other sites are automatically deleted from comments on this blog and therefore don't appear on your comment.

[Chris E Green]

I'm with Jason: reading this post is proving costly for me! Beautiful. Both the poem and your account of it. Thank you.