Photo by Luke Knight

R.S. Thomas and the Question of God’s Migratory Patterns

The early reports on February 6 were of a massive earthquake with substantial casualties expected. Within a few days, the death toll had climbed to the thousands and the stories of trapped people began to emerge. We looked for glimmers of hope, but the thought of hundreds still stuck and dying alone under collapsed buildings became overwhelming. I was in England at the time, visiting family and taking a holiday. I tried to enjoy myself, but the thought of those suffering in Turkey and Syria raised afresh the age-old question: where are you, God?

I had been reading R.S. Thomas (1913 – 2000) for about three years, and like a great many others met in his poetry an unflinching mind and a wide-open heart; a personality willing to take on the stark questions of life and God, even if conclusions were hard to come by. Once nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature, Thomas was a reclusive Welsh poet-priest, revered today as one of the most incisive voices of his generation.

While traveling in England the chance came to visit Wales for a day, so I shared my plans with an online affinity group that celebrates Thomas’ work. Jane responded immediately, "I'm the vicar of one of R.S.'s old parishes and would be happy to show you around." I was just about the only passenger to get off the train at Welshpool where Jane was waiting with a big smile and rainbow-coloured hair. We drove to St. Michael's Church in the village of Manafon where Thomas served from 1942-54.

On the way I learn that Jane trained for ordination in later life following a long teaching career. Spending the last twelve years being reluctantly promoted, she now oversees several rural parishes. She and her husband Nick, a local flight instructor, are planning their retirement to a cottage on the coast by the end of the year. They’re English, but after thirty years in Wales this is clearly home. In a knitted vest embroidered with sheep, three dogs in tow, and a pilot herself, Jane well fits the description I once heard from Rowan Williams about his home country's clergy: “Some of the most interesting and strange people I've met are Welsh vicars.” We could say the same of R.S. Thomas, though for different reasons.

Jane admits she does not appear a predictable successor to R.S. Thomas at St. Michael's as he usually comes across as austere, more at home with long lonely walks and birdwatching than with the chatter of church life. His tendency toward parishioner avoidance is well documented, some half-jokingly caricaturing him as the ogre of Wales. "I'm not sure what R.S. would think about a woman vicar, let alone one with rainbow-coloured hair," Jane remarks as we stand in St. Michael's on a frigid February afternoon, just as bracing as it must have been when Thomas presided.