Was sad to read on Roy's blog on friday about religious bigotry. We should all hate bigotry, whether it be political, religious or whatever (should we be bigoted against bigots??)
Anyway, I found this poem by RS Thomas and thought I'd copy it here.
It's especially for the Grahams and Bentleys of this world who are convinced only they have the answers to life's big questions and seek to exclude others from their own private little heavens if they're not prepared to jump through all the hoops in the 'right' way.
The Kingdom
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 love looks 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.
4 comments:
It's funny, my post today was color-oriented too, although not nearly as poetic.
Your word check also showed up in green...mere coincidence?
spooky! :)
that is a very cool verse...religeous bigotry...ugh...
I've always had great difficulty understanding why some people insist on singling others out. It was bewildering as a child when French-Canadian kids who had no clue beyond the stupidity baked into them by their xenophobic parents derived great fun from derisively calling me a Joo-if. They couldn't even pronounce the French word for "Jew" correctly. Sad, I know.
As an adult, it just angers me. The world would be so much brighter if we could only learn how to see beyond our wrongheaded assumptions about those we do not yet know.
Maybe our children will figure it out. Either way, I'm glad I dropped in and read your thought-provoking post. Thanks!
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