The Vicar of Large Things
Friends, if you’re like me, and I expect you are, you have often thought about the great variety of control consoles in LEGO vehicles of all descriptions: boats, starships, trucks, and so on. You have tried without success to grasp the complexity of the situation. But don’t worry! George Cave has you covered: “Piloting an ocean exploration ship or Martian research shuttle is serious business. Let’s hope the control panel is up to scratch. Two studs wide and angled at 45°, the ubiquitous ‘2x2 decorated slope’ is a LEGO minifigure’s interface to the world.”
I have absolutely fallen in love with the photography of Tony Cearns.
Nick Cave: “The idea of lyrics ‘not coming’ is basically a category error. What we are talking about is not a period of ‘not coming’ but a period of ‘not arriving’. The lyrics are always coming. They are always pending. They are always on their way toward us. But often they must journey a great distance and over vast stretches of time to get there.”
The great Welsh poet R. S. Thomas (1913-2000) was for many many years a village parish priest. After his retirement he wrote a poem about his experience:
I was vicar of large things
in a small parish. Small-minded
I will not say, there were depths
in some of them I shrank back
from, wells that the word “God”
fell into and died away,
and for all I know is still
falling. Who goes for water
to such must prepare for a long
wait. Their eyes looked at me
and were the remains of flowers
on an old grave. I was there,
I felt, to blow on ashes
that were too long cold. Often,
when I thought they were about
to unbar to me, the draught
out of their empty places
came whistling so that I wrapped
myself in the heavier clothing
of my calling, speaking of light and love
in the thickening shadows of their kitchens.
Simple country people … but not so simple after all.
I think it would be a great life’s ambition to be a vicar of large things in a small parish.
I wrote a post lamenting the fact that revolutionaries and scholars all write like HR departments.
And a short post, prompted by the terrible Beirut explosion, on the Texas City Disaster of 1947.
