The Brightness of Eternity

 

I came across the poem below by R.S. Thomas quite serendipitously. It was not in any of my Advent collections. If anything it was filed away with “mindfulness” and “presence”. And yet it spoke to me as though a Christmas gift.

I was just yesterday telling someone that I was so grateful for a heightened awareness during this strange Advent, a deepening of faith and hope really.

This Advent has caused me to pause more and not to “go my way” quite as unthinkingly without some moment of appreciation. 

This week I hope we are readier to “turn aside like Moses to the miracle...to a brightness” never to be taken for granted. Perhaps the pandemics and accompanying anxiety and grief have hollowed out that space for the brightness of eternity to enter in. How silently, how silently...

The Bright Field by R.S. Thomas

I have seen the sun break through

to illuminate a small field

for a while, and gone my way

and forgotten it. But that was the pearl 

of great price, the one field that had

the treasure in it. I realize now

that I must give all that I have

to possess it. Life is not hurrying

on to a receding future, nor hankering after

an imagined past. It is the turning

aside like Moses to the miracle 

of the lit bush, to a brightness

that seemed as transitory as your youth

once, but is the eternity that awaits you.