The word of god turned out to be not
today thank you
An early morning walk on the beach this morning became something of a meditation on melancholy, impermanence and fragility. Apart from the plashing of the incoming waves, the crunch of pebbles underfoot and a few end-of-season walkers celebrating the unexpectedly fine weather, the beach was quiet and being rapidly erased by the tide . As we came to the top of the steps a group of women, three generations of Welsh speakers came towards us speaking quietly like a happy hive of bees as they cooed over a baby in a pushchair. Welsh is still the first language in this part of the country and local people sometimes speak of the places beyond Porthmadog as ‘the mainland’. Every village here has a tall, grey and hard-faced buildng with words like ‘Morab’ and ‘Ebenezer` carved above the door. The churches are mostly closed down, the subscription books stored in dusty archives as the subscribers turn to dust in the churchyards outside. “No one comes to the brittle miracle of the bread” On Sunday I did spot a preacher in his best suit, bible under his arm and with the look of a man who had something to say. I wanted to pull over and ask him what it was that pleased him so, and depending on his answer I might have stood at the back of the chapel where the uncommitted stand, and heard him out, but I couldn’t bear the thought of being disappointed again.
Why does it slip through my fingers all the time? The meaning? – and so when I’m in this way I’m filled with questions whose answers are always just a sentence away but out of reach. On the way home we spotted a buzzard on a telegraph pole and he must have caught my question because the answer came back quite clearly –
For once it’s not about you!
