Tell Us
We have had names for you:
The Thunderer, the Almighty
Hunter, Lord of the snowflake
and the sabre-toothed tiger.
One name we have held back
unable to reconcile it
with the mosquito, the tidal wave,
the black hole into which
time will fall. You have answered
us with the image of yourself
on a hewn tree, suffering
injustice, pardoning it;
pointing as though in either
direction; horrifying us
with the possibility of dislocation.
Ah, love, with your arms out
wide, tell us how much more
they must still be stretched
to embrace a universe drawing
away from us at the speed of light.
Complaint. Argument. In your face frankness. This is R S Thomnas at prayer when he dares be critical of the One whose mighty power thunders, pursues and rules. This is the old argument forever unanswerable of almighty power, divine benevolence and a contingent universe of sentient suffering and ultimate dissolution into non-being. Interestingly there is no question mark in this poem, only a questioner whose urgent question is stated, not asked.
Questions require answers. But not all answers are logical, reasoned, satisfyingly resolving the tensions. The answer of God in this poem is to reveal the image of himself, and the image is cruciform, present in and present to the suffering of a broken creation and sinful humanity. The answer is to absorb the cruelty and violence of injustice and to pardon it. Yet the Cross itself is ambiguous, no real answer, pointing in two directions, exhibiting both horror and forgiveness, the victim forgiving the punishers, and horrifying onlookers through the centuries unsure what to make of it all. The image of the crucified, and note that Thomas has avoided using the word cross, creates, as does the judicial process of execution, a sense of dislocation, intellectual collapse of the psyche, a conceptual exhaustion parallel to that of arms and legs which give way as joints disintegrate.
Then those closing five lines, when the name we have withheld is used, "Ah, love..." These are amongst the most economic and theologically personal lines in these late poems. God is invited to share his suffering with a humbled and now worshipping mind and heart, and to tell "how much more" before divine love catches up with a universe expnading at the speed of light. As a meditation on suffering and faith, this poem is for me an education in theological honesty in that place where it matters most, prayer.
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