Often I try
to analyse the quality
of its silences. Is this where God hides
from my searching?…
These are the hard ribs
of a body that our prayers have failed
to animate. Shadows advance
from their corners to take possession
of places the light held for an hour. The bats resume
their business. The uneasiness of the pews
ceases. There is no sound
in the darkness but the sound of a man
breathing, testing his faith
on emptiness, nailing his questions
one by one to an untenanted cross.
R.S. Thomas (1913-2000), ‘In Church’, Pieta, London, Hart-Davis, 1966.
The Sunday after Easter is sometimes called 'Low Sunday' - low in the number who worship in church and low in spirit, in contrast to the joyful celebration of the Resurrection on Easter Day. With this poem in mind Jim Cotter (1942-2014) wrote: 'If the words no longer catch fire.... Hope hardly finds it easy to fend off despair. Prayers seem so often to be like the sparks that come from a lighter that has no fuel for a flame.... A search, a vigil... A hidden divinity... a lifeless stone, shadows, colonizing bats... Silent questioning, with nothing but emptiness within the building and within oneself... "Breath" the only sound, where once there were words and music.' However Revelation 8:1 & 11:15 offers a joyful conclusion in prospect for those who wait in hope: 'When the Lamb opened the seventh seal there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.... Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign for forever and ever."'
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