Imaginative truth is the most immediate way of presenting ultimate reality to a human being... ultimate reality is what we call God.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that creativity and imagination are essential for understanding profound truths about existence and divinity.
R. S. Thomas posits that imaginative truth provides a direct connection to the ultimate reality, which he equates with God. This highlights the significance of creative thought in grasping complex spiritual concepts, indicating that our understanding of the divine is often shaped by imaginative processes rather than strictly rational or empirical ones.
In practice
In a discussion about the role of art in understanding spirituality.
The furies are at home in the mirror; it is their address. Even the clearest water, if deep enough can drown. Never think to surprise them. Your face approaching ever so friendly is the white flag they ignore. There is no truce with the furies. A mirror's temperature is always zero. It is ice in the veins. It's camera is an x-ray. It is a chalice held out to you in silent communion, where gaspingly you partake of a shifting identity never your own.
A recurring ideal, I find, is that of simplicity. At times there comes the desire to write with great precision and clarity, words so simple and moving that they bring tears to the eyes.
Man is a dream about a shadow. But when some splendour falls upon him from God, a glory comes to him and his life is sweet.
Poetry is that / which arrives at the intellect / by way of the heart.
An economy where advertisers thrive while journalists and artists struggle, reflects the values of a society more interested in deception and manipulation than in truth and beauty
In the very early days of Wham! the attention felt great, but I do wonder how much freedom I gave away by trying to become something I wasn't.
We stand on the threshold of a twilight-whether morning or evening we do not know. One is followed by the night, the other heralds the dawn.
Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.
I am a Negro: Black as the night is black, Black like the depths of my Africa.
A theologian is born by living, nay dying and being damned, not by thinking, reading, or speculating.
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