Chapel

Dear Reader, 

Happy Easter to you all and may the rest of your year be full of hope and joy, with restrictions lifted and a return to a sort of normality.

As a Christian with many doubts, I always feel emotional about Good Friday and the Saturday before Christ rises from the tomb, in a divine state. And then when I wake up on Easter Sunday my first thought is that Christ has risen.  This is a great relief to me and I can enjoy all the festivities that Easter Day can bring.

 Somebody said that believing the impossible is the Christian story.  But now in my old age I believe it more than ever, I know that Christ has been in my life on many occasions.  Not least just before I had a serious operation for lung cancer, He was there with me and I felt at peace.

                                                                                *

From Gilbert White, 1793, in Hampshire
April 5th

'The air smells very sweet, and salubrious.  Men dig their hop-gardens and sow Spring corn.....Dug some of the quarters in the garden, and sowed onions, parsnips, radishes and lettuces.  Planted more beans in the meadow.  Many flies are out basking in the sun'.

From Dorothy Wordsworth, 1798, in Somerset
April 9th

'Walked to Stowey, a fine air in going, but very hot in returning.  The sloe in blossom, the hawthorns green, the larches in the park changed from black to green in two or three days'.

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Chapel

Away with the cherubs
the angels, the painted ceilings
the high arches
the high ceilings
nudes male and female
the artefacts
the gold crosses
and ornate statues of the
Virgin Mary.

Give me a chapel with
whitewashed bricks
wooden pews
oak door with studs
daisies on the altar
in a china jug
a bust of St.Columba
and quiet peace
in God's house.

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With very best wishes, Patricia