79. Notre-Dame de Paris

One of the great things about not being allowed to go anywhere is that you can go anywhere. 

There was a time when being sent to your room in solitary shame meant being cut off from the world. Now, without the prospect of another person sharing the room with me for many weeks, I’m able to travel, meet, converse and experience as I wish. If only it were real, I keep reminding myself. Because it isn’t.

Good Friday finds me taking a virtual stroll past the bookshops on the left bank, crossing the Seine and heading through the imposing doors of Notre Dame. All thanks to live-streaming of course.

It’s a year, give or take a few days, since this familiar Paris view could be seen on any TV screen around the world enveloped in the flames of the unthinkable fire that turned it from a symbol of faith and history into a blackened, smoking ruin, its spire and roof gone for ever.

It was a truly terrible time, the closest many of us will get to understanding what it was like to wake up the morning after the bombing of Coventry. History is, it would seem, not there forever.

An overwhelming tidal wave of support doused the flames somewhat and, a year on, the work is continuing - although it seems to have moved from the uplifting community stage to the bickering politician stage. Today represents a rare chance to take a look inside.

Because of the nationwide French lockdown, only seven people attended the service in person. The annual observance of Holy Week in all its pomp, a fixture on the catholic world’s calendar, is for the most part off or forced to find new arenas. 

For the short service the cathedral’s archbishop symbolically brought with him the fabulous golden crown of thorns snatched from flames. This was supposed to be a moment when the priceless relic overcame the devastation of the blaze. It may have done that, but the people chosen to transport it have yet to come through their own equally devastating challenge. Rescued and restored it currently lives elsewhere.

Planned as a veneration offering the chance to reflect on the fire, the year of restoration and the current pandemic, we also enjoyed readings from a variety of poets read by two stars of the French acting community. Music came entirely from a solo violinist, a haunting voice in the cavernous space.

It was an odd sight throughout, as many of these live streamed services seem to be. The clerical contingent of four arrived complete with hard hats - this is a construction site after all - to be met by the trio of performers clad in full anti-contamination suits and Wellington boots. Even in these other-worldly times, nobody does costumes quite like the Catholic church.

The service - fine readings and moving address testing my surprisingly still workable understanding of the french language - takes place at the foot of a giant golden cross halfway down the cathedral. Behind it scaffolding and damaged stonework extend upwards. Close-up shots of surviving windows and artefacts tail off into a dark, smoke-stained gloom you can almost smell through your computer screen. There’s still a lot to be done Mr Macron.

First the building and now the people who treasure it, everything has to prove it can endure whatever time decides will be put in its way. I’m sure we will one day see far better times for the cathedral and its worshippers but at the moment, with thousands being added to the death toll every day, it’s as great a test of faith as you can imagine.

78. St Peter’s, Draycott, Somerset

I’m not actually at St Peter’s this morning of course. If I were, I would be enjoying the fine view across the Somerset levels out to the coast at Bridgewater Bay or, by turning round, the wooded slopes of the Mendips rising like a wall at the back of the village. Coronavirus restrictions mean I’m visiting St Peter’s partly through the technology of Zoom and partly through memory.

And it’s the memory which has made this choice for me today. Thirty years ago this weekend, my dad finally succumbed to the health battles he’d long been fighting and died. He’d lived the latter part of his life just down the hill from here and had grown very proud of his Somerset base. His funeral was held at this beautiful village church and his headstone is still a place I visit every time I’m lucky enough to come down this way. 

Different people mark these anniversaries in different ways as you’d expect. Although I always circle the date in each new diary so I won’t miss it, this would have been the first time I would have set foot inside the church. I’ve been down to visit on key dates before and I usually raise a glass and spend some time in thought but we make our own traditions when no other tradition dictates and mine has never been elaborate or over-emotional. 

The news each day is filled with the latest rows over how many ventilators the  nation has managed to scrape together, the Herculean task of creating from scratch giant temporary hospitals to cope with the thousands who need help and the grimmest predictions of what kind of economic chaos will await those who survive its seemingly endless rages. And, deep down in each evening’s bulletin, the number of people who have died. Today it’s over 700. The figures are becoming almost a blur.

I have no idea how people who have suffered a bereavement in the last fortnight have coped. I hope I never find out. Funerals can go ahead but the restrictions which prevent everything from shopping to parties, football to worship apply here too. And heaven alone knows how the funeral industry is coping. At least, in my dad’s case, we were given the reassurance of a stable background against which we could grieve. 

Via the miracle of Zoom - and despite a lifetime working for BBC Radio my father would have regarded being able to see and talk to so many people in their own homes, nothing short of a miracle - I join a combined congregation upwards of 80. It is clearly an uplifting sight for regulars to see one another healthy and happy and the babble of voices - plus the contributions of at least one dog - is just as it would be were they all to gather to hand out hymn books and prepare the coffee urn.

Thanks to the welcoming generosity of the vicar of St Peter’s and his clearly resourceful IT helpers, my mug shot is top right on my screen and I’m able to wave to all and hear Rev Stuart explain why I am adding my presence today to the regular worshippers.

This Palm Sunday service is a slightly shortened communion (something we may have to live with for a few weeks yet) and carries a message of hope after suffering and comfort and thoughts to those in the community facing the anxiety of these odd and worrying times. The sense of togetherness, even across the miles and the network cables, is palpable and buoyant.

I’m invited to join the locals in a separate room for virtual coffee. Sadly the miraculous powers of Zoom fall short of giving me a voice. Somehow my microphone is switched off and no amount of clicking around on my part can rectify the problem. A pity as I would like to have spoken to those whose memories of the village might have gone far enough back into the last century. But it was not to be. In the end I scrawl ‘Thank You’ on one side of a piece of paper and ‘Goodbye’ on the other and hope that my thanks for allowing me to be there in so many people’s (very smart) front rooms, is understood. A most unconventional way to mark the turning of another year, but one I won’t forget.

77. St Nicholas, Kenilworth (Online)

I suppose comedians must be used to it in some ways. To live all your working life with a live audience which you can hear, see and - through the response of their laughter - interact with. Then suddenly, thanks to a TV chance, to find yourself on a film set with nobody to react to your lines however funny and well-timed they might be. Musicians would have it too. Sitting alone in a silent, sterile recording studio is so different from the occasionally restless but reassuringly present audience you are used to.

For vicars, this is a learning curve may will be embarking on for the first time. Preaching when there’s nobody there to preach to; looking for responses in an empty room. And, in many cases, not even being able to try to cope with these unfamiliar times on familiar territory. No church, no pulpit, no congregation.

The coronavirus crisis has worsened since last week. We are now all but confined to our homes. The wonders of IT mean many of us have the simulation of reality in our work, but step outside the door and the real world is a changed place. I combined my permitted exercise with a walk to pick up essential shopping. I passed only one person on my Saturday lunchtime walk through town. After queuing like stacked aircraft before being signalled in to the supermarket I wandered home past St Nicholas which, like everything else at the moment, is shut and locked with just a note on the door to indicate that somewhere deep down, things ARE carrying on. There was nobody around as I sat for a moment to enjoy the fabulous colours of the flowers in which the church is fringed. It’s a fine sunny day and I can’t resist a picture or two.

St Nicholas is, like many churches, offering live-streaming of some services. This morning’s communion is coming from the vicarage dining room. Thanks to a selective raid on bits and bobs from the church itself, the room has been converted into a makeshift chapel. How fortunate the archbishop last week who has such a space already available in the crypt of his palace.

It’s a one-woman-show from start to finish. It must be so odd to hear yourself recite such familiar words without any response, indeed without any real idea of who (if anyone) is listening. The absence of supporting clergy and the usual church wardens is evident in the moment when the vicar realises the altar candle has not been lit and we’re left watching an empty room while she races out to the kitchen for a box of matches. 

After that it’s a refreshingly straightforward service, shortened by necessity, but sticking to the usual format and easily followable thanks to the PDF order of service you can also download. It’s not impossible to concentrate on what’s happening, but without the physical reminder of actually being in church surrounded by others, it’s understandable that the gaze will shift at times.

I find myself distracted in particular by the tiny icon at the top of the video which shows how many people are currently watching. It starts off at about 30 and hovers around the 45 mark for most of the service. But I can’t help view it as some sort of real-time approval rating. I only hope the vicar can’t see it; the temptation to adjust the content to boost the ratings is a debate familiar to churchgoers even in non-virus times.

The prayers focus strongly, as you’d expect, those suffering and anxious at the moment and those risking so much to look after them. A few nights ago we all stood on our doorsteps and demonstrated our gratitude toward those battling on the the frontline of the virus by applauding the NHS. I feel after watching this, and pondering for a moment the commitment and determination that makes so many of us at least try to keep going, I wish there were some sort of applause button I could press. But I content myself with sending (I believe) a thumbs-up and a smiley face. 

It’s awkward and obviously lacking, through no fault of its own, in so many areas but this online response is so much more than the church could have offered even a decade ago. Without this link, and with home visits ruled out by the virus measures we must all follow, I suppose the church would simply have had to lock the doors and wait for better times. Instead it is able, like the spring flowers which defy the icy blasts the virus blows into all our lives, to keep its head above the soil, offering a promise to us all that normality will one day return.

76. The Crypt Chapel, Lambeth Palace, via Facebook

There will have been a different moment for each person when it finally struck home just how serious this crisis is. A moment when this went beyond being the threat of a virus affecting a distant community with the potential to cause inconvenience to travellers, to being something that has profoundly changed our lives at present and may well leave them looking very different in the future. 

For some it may have been the moment the first cases reached the UK or the realisation that the weekend in Rome was off. Many people I know properly sat up an took notice when football was stopped. Perhaps when the school gates were locked. And there will have been plenty of people for whom any remaining sense of distance from the problem will have been crushed by the sight of the pub door closing with no immediate  prospect of re-opening.

And for those who live lives even remotely religious, the closing of the the churches has been both a profoundly spiritual and upsettingly practical development as well as an undeniable statement of how serious a position the world now finds itself in. 

All these aspects of our different lives - football, pubs, work, shopping, schools, churches - make up the underlying fabric of what we do. They dictate the meaning and structure of out lives. Their removal, even either temporarily or in part, leaves us bereft and struggling with how to make sense of things. We also, quite naturally (and with commendable creativity) look for alternatives, ways to beat the crisis. Footballers have been challenging each other to YouTube skills contests; musicians and theatre groups have been live-streaming their efforts just to keep reaching the isolated. 

As an aside it makes me ponder what would happen in the future should some global computer virus gradually wipe out life online. Perhaps many of us would be forced to isolate ourselves in the real world in search of entertainment, companionship and fulfilment. But that’s probably one for the satirists.

You can have a faith without a church of course. History has provided us with plenty of instances when particular faiths have been driven out of any overt public presence. Many people have relied on their faith to get them through such crises. Conversely there are examples of religious communities existing without any open congregation, opting instead to mark the offices of the day with closed prayer and absolute disconnection from the world outside. But, for most, it’s the interaction of place and people which is essential and it’s this which has provided the problem and the catalyst to what the faith community has been doing in the last few days. How do we keep going when we can’t go at all?

My still lengthy list of places of worship I’d still be fascinated to visit has had to be set aside. Who knows for how long. I’ve enjoyed doing this blog but to keep things going in the way I’ve been producing it is going to need some creative thinking. 

I’m starting this period of necessary exile by tuning in on Facebook to the sight of Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, conducting a morning prayer service to about three people in the crypt of Lambeth Palace Chapel. It’s a specially-recorded short service offered to the online world through the Church of England website. It’s strange to hear the familar words of the service with no response. A tough time for vicars too evidently but at least they still get the sermon. The thoughts expressed are in many ways identical to those we’ve heard from politicians and the medical community; Keep yourself safe and think of others. 

All churches have been responding using the new technologies which, one could assume, have played their part in keeping attendances falling. Online services, webcams, community forums, downloadable instructions for having your own service at home. Virtual Friday prayers. It’s all out there. 

The fact that this also happens to be Mothering Sunday is, awful as it sounds, neither here nor there. Cynics might say restrictions on what we can do have probably hit the retail and service industries far more than any other area. All those unsold chocolates, un-sent flowers, cancelled pub lunches. If you haven’t been thinking constantly of your vulnerable parents over the last few weeks, then not being allowed to deliver a card and a bunch of flowers is hardly going to make a difference.

The panel discussion on Radio Four this morning shows that the problem is similar across all faiths. And so will be the resourcefulness of the response no doubt. It may provide some more of the heartwarming community rallying we’ve been seeing.

One of the things faith - any faith - has enabled people to achieve is in providing the chance to pause, reflect and reset for the trials to come. Ironically this new life of avoiding as much actual social contact as possible gives all of us the opportunity to do just that. 

Whatever the resources, whatever the setting and whatever the faith (or complete absence of it) I hope we all manage to do that. Priorities have never been clearer.

75. All Saints, Preston Bagot

I got three texts quite close together toward the end of last week. Two were NHS reminders about my forthcoming appointment urging me not under any circumstances to forget it. The third was from the doctors’ surgery itself telling me the appointment had been cancelled so resources could be concentrated on the imminent arrival of coronavirus cases.  I also had a number of emails on the same day encouraging me not to lose sight of the need to renew a library book, telling me my home contents insurance is due and breaking the news that the football match I wasn’t going to anyway was now off.

We get our messages lots of different ways in these modern times but some things, I found myself pondering on Sunday morning, remain resolutely non-modern. It’s a grey and rainy morning a good half a mile outside the small hamlet of Preston Bagot and the bells of All Saints are being rung loud and long to advise the faithful not to lose sight of their appointment with Morning Prayer. It’s a very reassuring sound, even if I used to hate its intrusion during my younger days when Sunday mornings didn’t really start until well after lunch. I wonder if the pealing of church bells will one day be replaced by the ping of a text reminder - I certainly hope not.

Of course it’s not just a question of the medium, it’s the message too and this morning’s message is one of faith, compassion and support backed up by simple common sense. As messages go it’s no earth-mover. It’s hardly dramatic and hardly anything we couldn’t work out for ourselves. But boy do we need it. 

There are fewer than a dozen here for the early start. Brave souls the vicar calls us. She begins by telling us (with an exasperation only partly-feigned)  how, as a person past the age of 70, she’s received calls from members of her family telling her what she should do to avoid the virus. On top of this comes the advice from the government and medical communities, all routinely filtered, enhanced and just plain exaggerated by the news industry. Add to that the rumours we seem to pass from person to person with a far greater efficiency than any virulent bug, and it’s a cocktail of information and supposition guaranteed to bewilder.

Perhaps it’s the natural cynicism of the journalist in me but some of the messages which seem to sweep the nation on a daily basis seem to have a very calculating hand behind them. One well-placed salvo of social media posts results very quickly in another gap on the supermarket shelves. Toilet rolls, pasta, anything with the phrase ‘anti-bacterial’ on it - they’ve all disappeared in the last few days. It’s a pity I can’t get any success with spreading fears over the future availability of the Romany Pie CD; a few boxes of that being loaded into trolleys wouldn’t be a bad thing. 

Of course the past masters of the whole ‘terrify them into buying’ thing was always the church itself. Take a look at any history of pre-reformation catholicism and the sight of carbootfuls of Andrex pales into insignificance. In the teeth of such apocalyptic behaviour it’s a wonder the church doesn’t cash in afresh. 

Perhaps now is the time for a neo-Victorian bible-thumping campaign warning all to get in line or face the damnation of coronavirus without the Almighty’s help. But it doesn’t and the patient invocation to us to act responsibly and with others in mind is as much a measure of how the church has changed as it is an indication of what we in the pews feel we need to hear. 

But at least we’re here to hear the message. It has emerged this morning that the government is on the brink of instructing all those over 70 to stay in their homes and have no contact with the rest of the population. Without being unnecessarily rude I think that would leave this morning’s congregation at just me and the organist. He’ll be busy so it might fall to me to ring the bells.

As a footnote I stopped off at Sainsburys on my way home to buy milk and cereal. The car park was gridlocked, shoppers very stoney-faced and the shelves noticeably sparse in places. Caught up in the maelstrom of mass-hysteria all around me and being swept along by the herd, I panic bought three onions I really didn’t need. These coming weeks will provide many tough trials for all of us I expect.

74. Holy Ghost Zone, Coventry

This weekend has seen the threat of coronavirus spreading even further, bringing with it not only the prospect of further deaths - I believe the national figure stands at just two as I write - but a whole wave of rumour, concern, reaction, overreaction and more rumour. Who knows where we’ll be in a week’s time, let alone a bit further down the line.

At times of concern like this people turn to their faith. Maybe not in the form of thousands of new converts streaming into churches in the hope of deliverance, but certainly in the form of those who already go placing their trust not in the politicians and the scientists but in the Almighty. 

Last week the Church of England moved to advise clergy to avoid actual contact during services and to urge its congregation to shelve the traditional handshakes just for the present. Today the hands are very much in evidence - held aloft, clapping to the rhythm and rattling the living daylights out of more tambourines than I’ve ever seen in one place.

The Holy Ghost Zone in Hillfields is part of the Redeemed Christian Church of God. It’s based in a fine-looking red brick building right in the heart of this highly diverse part of the city. There’s a branch of the church in Leamington too but it was firmly shuttered-up when I attempted to go there. This one, though, is very much open.

It’s an early start for those who fancy joining in the pre-service Sunday School. This runs out to be not a colouring book session for the under fives but a detailed discussion on a topic led by a very convincing teacher. Today’s subject is, with one eye on International Women’s Day, the subject of why some people find it difficult to meet the right marriage partner. I’m not entirely sure ALL the women I know would see that as the ideal subject but, via a few verses from the Gospel and some decent audience contributions, a lively discussion ensued on what we as men and women could do to reduce the delay preventing us from fulfilling God’s wish that we all find some sort of wedded bliss.

The Sunday School gives way to the service itself and - as seems to be the case in quite a few churches now - we’re in the hands of the band to get things going.

Very decent musicians and an undeniably confident singer lead the way through the best part of an hour of extended songs with very limited lyrics but gutsy, soaring choruses and the chance to belt out some noise. This is where the tambourines come into play - not only and percussive accompaniment to the music, but as a kind of accentuation to spoken prayer. Only those with fully-charged hearing aids will know the shattering effect on the eardrums of a dozen out-of-control hand percussionists. It’s unbearable, so I retreat to the back of this large space for the remainder of my time. 

The effect on everyone else though is clearly profound. There’s something refreshingly unashamed about the way worshippers at churches like this connect with each other and with God - totally immersed in the moment and, in some cases, literally floored by the power of what’s going on. 

The prayers are not that dissimilar to the music in many ways. There’s a repetitive rhythm and an invocation to join in and shout out. It’s uplifting, cathartic and leaves those who lose themselves in it visibly invigorated. It’s also - dare I say it with the shadow of the virus creeping ever closer - highly infectious.

In the recent days I’ve heard a lot from the politicians and the science and medical community about ways of at least delaying the spread of coronavirus;  we must wash our hands while singing Happy Birthday, disinfect door handles and catch our sneezes the instant they threaten to emerge. I’ve not heard anyone talk about combatting the deadly threat simply through the power of prayer but, it that were remotely possible, I’d put my money on the Holy Ghost Zone leading the crusade.

73. St Peter’s, Wellesbourne

You can get whole books of phrases we take for granted in everyday speech but which all come from Shakespeare. One fell swoop, the course of true love, heart on one’s sleeve, protesting too much, borrowers and lenders and so on. They become part of the fabric without us pausing for too long to wonder at their original context or specifically intended meaning. I’m sure the same is true for phrases which have made the short journey from the bible or the church into collective ownership. Even the most cursory Google search yields rise and shine, fight the good fight, wolf in sheep’s clothing, the powers that be and a whole host more. The one which springs to mind today is the concept of turning the other cheek. 

St Peter’s in Wellesbourne managed to make the news last week - albeit in a very local way. The vicar turned up one morning to discover, like thousands of others every week, that burglars had called. While the church was open to the public, someone had forced open a collection box and helped themselves to the contents. In the case of the other thousand people what follows has a familiar pattern - rage against the unfairness of it all, ring the police to try to get justice, ring the insurers and see if someone can compensate this loss and then lock the doors securely and resolve not to let the outside world in again. 

In the case of this church that hasn’t happened. Instead the vicar posted a polite note on the church door inviting those responsible to think about their actions and come along to a service where the forgiveness the church preaches would be put into practice. 

I’m curious as to how far this concept of turning the other cheek will stretch, and if there is a point at which one will simply run out of cheeks to turn. The note is still there as I arrive, as - at the back of the church - is a ripped-open donation box as a reminder to all. But that’s all there is - no mention is made of the missing money, or the damage caused in stealing it. 

St Peter’s has a decent, if slightly subdued, turnout for this family communion. It’s a fine airy church with the added bonus of a full set of bell ringers hard at work in their glass enclave.

This being Lent, the theme is about avoiding fairly hollow promises to forego chocolate or alcohol, concentrating instead on spending more time in personal and religious reflection. Self-denial is always secondary to self-education it would appear.

Perhaps this fairly inward-looking approach is designed not to pull in fresh numbers, but to make better Christians of the ones who are here. Trouble is, they all look decent and vice-free to me. Not for the first time I’m confident that I’m the youngest person here.

Restraint is certainly evident in some parts of the service. The continued spread of Coronavirus and the seeming certainty that things will get a lot worse, has forced the church into a reaction. The usual offering on peace in the form of a handshake is replaced by an awkward if well-intentioned nod.

When it comes to communion, those with even the suspicion of a cough or a cold are implored to skip the communion cup. We are all advised to keep washing our hands and informed that blessings will, for the time being, be administered to the head of the recipient with a virus-defying gap of a few inches. Never mind the chocolate or the wine, this Lent might see us all giving up human contact.