Christmas Day and I’m back where I started this blog a year ago. It was while pondering a very sparse turnout for the Christmas morning service that I fell to wondering where I might find better-attended places of worship. Where were all the people going (if not here) and what was driving them to go. I decided to take a look round what I could find and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my wanderings. Just for the record very little has changed in a year’s turning.
The church is marvelously light on this bright morning. The windows have all been replaced during the course of the year. The church had been the target of vandalism with the old mullioned windows smashed by a few stones. I’m quite proud to say that Romany Pie played our part after spotting the reports in the paper and holding a benefit evening. I can’t help remembering that we filled the pews on that evening - perhaps one of the bright new windows is down to us. Anyway, it looks fine and should last for a good many years to come. I just wonder how many people will be here to look out through them.
I thought for a while this morning we’d be in single figures but a late surge of worshippers bumped us up to the mid teens, clergy included. There was nobody on duty at the piano when the curate made a start, explaining that we’d be getting retired minister at some point who would be authorised to perform the sermon and the communion. And so we launched into Once in Royal David’s City unaccompanied and, as it turned out, arbitrarily shorn of a few verses.
After twenty minutes or so, the curate’s increasingly plaintive glances to the back of the church were rewarded when the latch was lifted and in came the minister I normally expect to see. Spotting the vacant piano stool and noticing we were about to stumble into another carol, he sat at the keys without even the time to take his coat off and even chipped in with a decent vocal. He spent the rest of the hour racing from keyboard to lectern to altar - whatever Christmas dinner awaited him at the conclusion of such multi-tasking, he certainly earned it.
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It’s a quiet conclusion to the year but a homely one for all that. The experiences and encounters my last Christmas Day visit to St Barnabas inspired have been both fun and enlightening. I’ve joined services and gatherings in 65 very different places, all of which - through their nature and the way they go about spreading whatever message they bring - inspired thoughts in me and gave me plenty to write about. I’ve met lots of good people who I’d certainly visit again and learned a lot about what makes people attend the places they do week in week out. I’m by no means an expert on the religious spectrum as a result of my pilgrimage but I’ve enjoyed going into places I’ve never been and filling in some of the many gaps in my understanding of what goes on inside these buildings we walk past every day. There’s a recurring pattern of familiarity and community, reaffirming your beliefs and values, recognising change while at the same time valuing stability - all of which adds up to a palpable sense of belonging.
I’ve thought a lot about whether there’s a place to me in this process. I’m sad but perhaps relieved to report that there have been no celestial thunderbolts; at no stage has the sky parted to reveal a vision of heaven. No religious epiphany, no vision while meditating beneath a tree. But I suppose this was never about finding God, any god. It was more about finding the people who go along to meet their god and about the fascinating things they do. And they still hold a fascination. So I will carry on going - not because I’ve been convinced by any single community or theism but because the curiosity which got me started is still there. I’ll just write a lot less.
