evensong..

so last night i left work and had a lovely walk in the dry, nose-reddening cold to the cathedral. they have evensong there at 5, or 5.30 all weekdays....and i had never been before. there were more people in the choir than in the non-choir, and they all knew what to do and when to stand up and when to turn to face the cross and all that stuff. i knew nothing. i realised what a strange and wonderful thing church is when mid-rigmarole, how it makes no sense unless you know.....this, having been precisely why i left catholicism behind me, is why i can't ordinarily now squeeze myself into the routine of organised services...but you know, i think i must be maturing, because the bizzarity of the whole thing struck me as discipline, as order, as quite lifting...it felt like homage...and it was in the cavermous quiet of manchester cathedral, which is like a younger, warmer version of gloucester cathedral...that the half-dozen of us gathered yesterday evening, for the onyl time ever/ would never be in the same room together again, and never have evensong together again four nights before christmas in the year of our lord two thousand and six...
lovely...