A Hermit of the Rocks, Wind & Mist

Gustave Doré, "Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

Gustave Doré, “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”

Spiritual Sunday

Today is the Sunday prior to the Ascension. According to John (14:15-21), before ascending to heaven Jesus promised his disciples that he would ask the Father to provide them with “another Advocate, to be with you forever.” This advocate, he explained

is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

Knowing that his simple reassurance wasn’t enough, he then elaborated:

I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.

Keep these words in mind as you read R. S. Thomas’ amazing poem “Sea Watching.” He has Jesus’ promise in his mind as he looks out over the grey waters of his life. Instead of perceiving the Holy Spirit, however, he reports, “Nothing/but that continuous waving/that is without meaning/occurred.” In other words, he is gazing into the abyss.

Rather than give up hope, however, he compares his search to bird watching:

Ah, but a rare bird is
rare. It is when one is not looking
at times one is not there
                                  that it comes.

Although this doesn’t sound promising, nevertheless he devotes his entire life to watching for this bird, becoming “the hermit/of the rocks, habited with the wind/and the mist.” Thomas is describing here the path of the mystic.

He doesn’t experience the Holy Spirit directly. But he witnesses, through his holy watching,

days,
so beautiful the emptiness
it might have filled,
                          its absence
was as its presence…

The Holy Spirit doesn’t appear in response to an act of will. It may never show up as a presence. Paradoxically, however, its presence is felt in its absence. It is manifest in the beauty we experience as we gaze out to sea watching for it.

Sea-Watching

By R. S. Thomas

Grey waters, vast
                       as an area of prayer
that one enters. Daily
                      over a period of years
I have let my eye rest on them.
Was I waiting for something?
                                          Nothing
but that continuous waving
                             that is without meaning
              Ah, but a rare bird is
rare. It is when one is not looking
at times one is not there
                                  that it comes.
You must wear your eyes out
as others their knees.
               I became the hermit
of the rocks, habited with the wind
and the mist. There were days,
so beautiful the emptiness
it might have filled,
                          its absence
was as its presence; not to be told
any more, so single my mind
after its long fast,
                          my watching from praying. 

From Laboratories of the Spirit, 1975

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