Wednesday 21 November 2012

THEOLOGIA





I have never sought a transcendent God,
nor one that sat on sovereign heights above angel wings
on sceptred thrones or in hallowed vaults
that echoed with eternal hymns.


For I have sought
only one,
who


would come and sit with me
and drink tea from a china cup
one velvet, late-summer's afternoon
when shadows stretch across evening lawns.



And who, smiling, would balance
a bumblebee on the tip of his finger
and clap his hands at a stranger's joke.


Music written and performed by Helen  Ingram

14 comments:

  1. this makes me beam ;)
    absoloutely yes. a god with head in the clouds whilst rooted to the earth spinning the other planets on the ends of his fingers and shooting stars from his eyes.
    this creator is in us all, i believe

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    1. Thanks ma'am ;D
      Yes, the eternal tension between transcendence and immanence that has kept theologians employed and off the streets for centuries. I guess most of us long for something of the cosmic and something of the familiar. It is interesting how in the Judeo-Christian tradition God gets further and further away... and yet, as you say, s/he is often closer than most people think. ;)

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  2. Brilliant..I love being inside your poems and what I feel each time I read them..and especially the feeling that I never want to leave that inner space! Beautiful pictures in my mind you have conjured..from the shadow-lawn image..to the sweet bumblebee.. I am smitten!
    Thanks for another beautiful gem Richard!

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    1. I am really touched that you can feel these things in the words that really are just attempts to articulate thoughts that constantly evade words. The fact that you can find in them a place that touches you is wonderful. I am so glad that you 'get' these posts, Victoria.

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  3. Thank you, Yannis. That means a great deal to me, coming as it does from someone with such great talents.

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  4. fabulous!
    just love the whole idea, the intimacy, the magnificent and quiet divinity.

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  5. Thank you :)
    Yes, I find that mixture totally enchanting.

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  6. After our conversations about the house of Tom Bombadil, of Tolkien's understandings of the divine expressed there, and about possible translations of John 1.14 I have come back to Wingfall at Dusk and it all makes sense, although I need a better word than "sense" here, I think. If Tom drinks from a china mug surely it will be one that he gave as a gift to Goldberry in order better to share her world of dancing, singing water; and if there is a bumble bee balanced on the tip of hid finger (as there might well be) then it is to deepen their communion together and to draw us into it too. It is a dwelling in which I would like to be at home and I think it will take this life time at least.

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    1. Yes, there is a LOT of Bombadil in my sense of the divine. I think, I too, would be very much at home there!

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  7. Thank you, Yannis, and the same to you. I have not had much time to write recently, but I will be back soon! :)

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  8. Your world is always a place I wish to revisit again and again!
    you are brilliant..
    Victoria

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    1. Aw thank you, Victoria - you're always welcome!!

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  9. ...keep well ~ i hear your footseps ~ echoing ~ on the hidden path ~ that ~ sO many miss... ...a blessing ~ that left it's mark in a little earthen portal ~ has been noted... ...may ~ your ~ blessings ~ be yet unnumbered... ...much love and a distant sonnet i bequeath to thee... ...dear gracious beautiful brother... ...xXx...

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    1. It is really lovely to hear from you, Samantha. I was getting worried about you.
      Thank you for visiting.

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For your voice is important... and words that are shared grow wings.