Can you ever truly become a non-Christian? Are we inevitably pulled back to Faith as we age? I have spent years professing my agnosticism, defending, explaining, trumpeting, arguing with Jehovah’s witnesses in my own car park when they come round with leaflets and lovely smiles.
And yet today, I turn on the radio. The news I am half asleep. Interesting. The Queen Consort is not to have Ladies-in-waiting but instead, “Queens companions”. Anne Glenconner said on Woman’s Hour this week “Such a shame – it was so lovely after official functions to be able to go up to Princess Margaret’s apartments after a busy day and laugh and have a drink”.
Then after the news. The “Daily Service” to be broadcast from Glasgow. Too sleepy to turn radio off. The first hymn is, “O come Emmanuel“. In the key of E minor and sung so beautifully. Memories of church services of my youth come flooding back. Standing beside parents and other loved ones in church. In school chapel, in my grey cloak, red lining with school friends singing our hearts out. I lean out of bed and turn it up. Can’t help it.
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The River Files 