Thanks for letting me be a guest Countrywife. Talking as you were of online monastery retreats, I have been finding the Other Half almost impossible to deal with in the last few months, so much so that I have tried seeking out churches during the day to pray in. All to no avail though because they are closed…closed to the people who randomly need their support because if the ministers were to leave their doors open all the time, the contents of the church would be stolen.
Anyway, I got so desperate yesterday that I went to a very unattractive church in the nearby market town – modern and not a stained glass window in sight, not even a Jesus on the cross! Of course the church was locked but on the programme pinned outside it said: 2pm The Hy-Way. So I decided to return then. Although I am not an overtly religious person I have found that sitting in a church can sometimes make me feel whole again. Crazy may beeeee, but no doubt something to do with feeling warm and safe with my parents all those years ago…in a church….. on a Sunday morning….. in my kilt and black shoes, knowing that there was a big fat roast chicken and a hug waiting for me at home afterwards.
I went back to the unattractive church at 2pm where there were fifteen ladies waiting in the small corridor at the side of the building, all of them extremely elderly, which is fine of course but I sensed that this was more of a social event than the highway to heaven, so I decided not to join them. Just as I was leaving I saw a gentle man and asked him if he could unlock the doors to the church. He smiled a great big loving smile at me and said “Hello there. I am the minister, how lovely that you are here and of course you can come inside”. That was it, it was all I had needed, a big genuine smile from a kind and caring human being who I know is just that little bit closer to God than my twit of an Other Half.
Alice P.
p.s.Other Half spending way too much time away from home in the evenings, doesn’t answer his mobile – even at 2am.