Miraculous Simplicity

Book excerpt: Pondering now the being and nature of God, now the mystery of time, now the assault of contemporary lifestyles on the natural world, R. S. Thomas’s poetry and prose reflect his Welsh heritage and his determination to be Welsh. Moved by his own personal attraction to the work of Thomas and guided by his careful reading of it, William V. Davis brings us this excellent collection of essays exploring the distinguished yet controversial poet-priest. In the autobiographical essay, Thomas reveals his passion for his homeland and his ever-present hunger for spiritual and natural exploration: As I stood in the sun and the sea wind, with my shadow falling upon those rocks, I certainly was reminded of the transience of human existence, and my own in particular. As Pindar put it: “A dream about a shadow is man.” I began to ponder more the being and nature of God and his relation to the late twentieth-century situation, which science and technology had created in the western world. Where did the ancient world of rock and ocean fit into an environment in which nuclear physics and the computer were playing an increasingly prominent part? . . .