It’s a long way off, but inside it
there are quite different things going on:
festivals at which the poor man
is king and the consumptive
is healed; mirrors in which the blind look
at themselves and loves look at them
back; and industry is for mending
the bent bones and the minds fractured
by life. It’s a long way off, but to get
there takes no time, and admission
is free if you purge yourself
of desire and present yourself with
your need only and the simple offering
of your faith, green as a leaf.
R.S. Thomas (1913-2000), H’m (1972).
As Jeffery Alan Triggs commented in 1989: 'This world is certainly not exhausted, but the evil of materialism provides its energy, and it is even more dangerous.... The solution Thomas proposes is personal, and it involves him in a new exploration of interior space. As ''The Kingdom'' suggests, the laws of the material world do not apply when spiritual salvation is at issue: "It’s a long way off, but to get there takes no time, and admission is free if you purge yourself of desire and present yourself with your need only and the simple offering of your faith, green as a leaf."'
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