Thursday, June 24, 2004
An Old Friend
I don't know why, but my feet carried me to Langham Church today.
I'd just rushed to the medical supplies store on Wigmore Street to buy some earpieces for my Cardioscope. Mission accomplised, I just... wandered. Sometimes it almost feels like I'm running, although I don't know what from.
She was there, standing on the steps of All Soul's looking distantly out as if to sea. Clearly waiting for someone. An old acquaintence, from days long since past. I'd always thought of her as "handsome"... I don't know why. Not quite pretty in my books (but very pretty in my mum's lol)... just "handsome". Even in the days when I very nearly counted her amongst my friends, and she counted me amongst hers, when we shared the odd meal and concert together. Before I went slightly ga-ga over her rather pretty friend *laughs*.
I hadn't met her here in London in years. I didn't even know she was still in the UK. She looked slightly older, wiser, and even more handsome now, her long hair billowing slightly in the wind and her bright, and slightly amused eyes searching the horizon.
I paused, then dropped my head and hurried by. I don't know why I did that, either.
Fifty yards down the street, I stopped, and then turned around. Something was drawing me back. Perhaps it was common decency. I could hear my mum's voice ringing in my ears - why didn't you stop to say hello? My friend's daughter!
I drew nearer, and she was no longer there. The steps stood vacant, and forlorn.
And it didn't really matter at all.
I felt no disappointment. I guess that shred of common decency was just a pretty lie to myself.
I drifted up the stairs the way, I suspected, I'd meant to the first time around.
So many memories of these steps, and this yellow stone church.
People from yesteryear stood on the steps by me, before me, shadows almost spoke to me, some hugged me. Some were cold and awful. Some were lukewarm, and one, sultry like the breath of wind on a summer's day, the memory of her touseled hair eliciting images in my mind, for some reason, of a comfortable well-worn fleece. Truly, I regret losing that one.
I found myself standing at the wood-and-glass doors to the church peering into the darkened interior. Searching... for what, I don't know either.
And then I turned around, and strode away. Quickly, as quickly as I could. Run, run away.
Fifty yards down the street, I wheeled around again, and again, I found myself at the glass doors.
This time, I pushed. And strangely, they opened.
More memories, within. Familiar memories, like old friends. Strange, how a vacant room brought back so many more intimate memories of the past, when it's Sunday incarnation, teeming with crying children and sombre adults does nothing for me.
I knelt within, before a generic grey cheap metal seat... (A church like All Soul's deserves real pews, IMO)
...and prayed this prayer :
"Father, I pray to You :
for all the people I have ever hurt,
and for all those that I have failed to help
that You might hold them close to You."
I prayed quite a few more things, and I had one or two thoughts that simply don't translate into words. And a few things that I'd rather not write here.
And then I stood, and left for the last time.
*****
I crossed myself and genuflucted on the way out, unselfconsciously, for once.
*****
It's funny how, as a Christian, with the sheer, bewildering and utter freedom of prayer-form available, I was never quite sure how to pray, yet as a Catholic, mouthing prayers now committed to memory (eg: Oh my Lord, I give Thee my Heart... grant me the grace to pass this day in Thy Holy Love, and without offending Thee) -- I now feel how to apply that freedom of form in my prayers. And I realise that there is no "right" way after all.
I'd just rushed to the medical supplies store on Wigmore Street to buy some earpieces for my Cardioscope. Mission accomplised, I just... wandered. Sometimes it almost feels like I'm running, although I don't know what from.
She was there, standing on the steps of All Soul's looking distantly out as if to sea. Clearly waiting for someone. An old acquaintence, from days long since past. I'd always thought of her as "handsome"... I don't know why. Not quite pretty in my books (but very pretty in my mum's lol)... just "handsome". Even in the days when I very nearly counted her amongst my friends, and she counted me amongst hers, when we shared the odd meal and concert together. Before I went slightly ga-ga over her rather pretty friend *laughs*.
I hadn't met her here in London in years. I didn't even know she was still in the UK. She looked slightly older, wiser, and even more handsome now, her long hair billowing slightly in the wind and her bright, and slightly amused eyes searching the horizon.
I paused, then dropped my head and hurried by. I don't know why I did that, either.
Fifty yards down the street, I stopped, and then turned around. Something was drawing me back. Perhaps it was common decency. I could hear my mum's voice ringing in my ears - why didn't you stop to say hello? My friend's daughter!
I drew nearer, and she was no longer there. The steps stood vacant, and forlorn.
And it didn't really matter at all.
I felt no disappointment. I guess that shred of common decency was just a pretty lie to myself.
I drifted up the stairs the way, I suspected, I'd meant to the first time around.
So many memories of these steps, and this yellow stone church.
People from yesteryear stood on the steps by me, before me, shadows almost spoke to me, some hugged me. Some were cold and awful. Some were lukewarm, and one, sultry like the breath of wind on a summer's day, the memory of her touseled hair eliciting images in my mind, for some reason, of a comfortable well-worn fleece. Truly, I regret losing that one.
I found myself standing at the wood-and-glass doors to the church peering into the darkened interior. Searching... for what, I don't know either.
And then I turned around, and strode away. Quickly, as quickly as I could. Run, run away.
Fifty yards down the street, I wheeled around again, and again, I found myself at the glass doors.
This time, I pushed. And strangely, they opened.
More memories, within. Familiar memories, like old friends. Strange, how a vacant room brought back so many more intimate memories of the past, when it's Sunday incarnation, teeming with crying children and sombre adults does nothing for me.
I knelt within, before a generic grey cheap metal seat... (A church like All Soul's deserves real pews, IMO)
...and prayed this prayer :
"Father, I pray to You :
for all the people I have ever hurt,
and for all those that I have failed to help
that You might hold them close to You."
I prayed quite a few more things, and I had one or two thoughts that simply don't translate into words. And a few things that I'd rather not write here.
And then I stood, and left for the last time.
*****
I crossed myself and genuflucted on the way out, unselfconsciously, for once.
*****
It's funny how, as a Christian, with the sheer, bewildering and utter freedom of prayer-form available, I was never quite sure how to pray, yet as a Catholic, mouthing prayers now committed to memory (eg: Oh my Lord, I give Thee my Heart... grant me the grace to pass this day in Thy Holy Love, and without offending Thee) -- I now feel how to apply that freedom of form in my prayers. And I realise that there is no "right" way after all.
