in two weeks will come to Passiontide in the
Christian calendar; as children we prepared
for the season by making crosses for Palm
Sunday and fasting during Lent; each week the
Minister’s alb was covered in different over-robes
the message of Christ’s journey was carried in
the changing colours of the sashes worn

pious women of the area brought flowers to soften the
hard, cold contours of the church, and in a ritual, the chief
serving boy lit candles for the altar from an ‘eternal flame’

as a teenager, following example of elder sister, joined
choir and donned white gown over ‘Sunday best’ dress
blue velvet collar clasped at nape of neck; in two by two
formation the choir tagged the procession of servers and
choristers at the tolling of a bell which announced to
the town that the Anglican Service was about to begin

a tiny, bird-like slip of a woman with a bright open
smile sat in her place in front of the organ while we
sang, stepping slowly down the aisle, our hymn books
held at chest level, until we peeled off, women and girls
to the right nave, and men and boys sitting opposite

from our vantage point the presence of the Holy Spirit
was palpable, and in an adolescent thirst for spiritual
knowledge, the wine symbolised both the infinite and
eternal mysteries, and contrasted with the carnal, blood-like
aspect of our humanity, our physicality, and the strange fusing
in the man-god of our faith; it still astonishes, each time on
entering a Christian church,how this sense of mystery continues



(original draft written on 3rd April, 2003)