Bog Myrtle & Peat

Peregrines called from the golden finials of St Paul’s Cathedral, then one appeared to coast around the haughty heights. In the rush for Evensong, the birds were a welcome distraction from the immediacy of a queue. I was checked by security as the service bell rang; people wanted to see inside my bag, and the subsequent search was cooly invasive. Londoners have internalised these intrusions, and nobody thinks twice about being signalled to step forward with a silent gesture. They offer themselves, and expose their armpits in tired submission. But it troubled me, and I tried to smile and make eye contact with a man who was suddenly very close at hand. He was already reaching for the next person in the queue, and then I was checked again by two women inside the door. The first told me that I was not to take photographs during the service, and the second offered me a card machine which accepted contactless payments. 

Forestalled by security checks, I rushed past and took my seat for a brief and perfunctory pattern of praise. Instead of liturgical paraphenalia, the priest wore his ID card on a branded lanyard around his neck. The microphone magnified his voice and played feedback upon itself so that he was forced to pause and let silence descend again upon his reading from the Book of Matthew. 

And the service was no sooner done than security guards came to tell us that the cathedral was closing. A woman next to me tried to take a photograph of the dome, and an official came to tell her that she couldn’t. Seconds later, and without a hint of self-awareness, he returned and thrust a card machine towards her in anticipation of a tip. The congregation was being pressed to leave so quickly that we’d begun to form a knot in the doorway; trapped together, we listened to the racket of our chairs being stacked behind us.

Going to church is an exercise in acceptance. I am training myself to believe that if you cannot find anything to take from a service, you must have missed it. So I was glad to hear the peregrines calling again as I emerged into the clatter of dusk. It was tempting to imagine that they could fill the gaps in a slender experience, but then I remembered that there are peregrines nesting on St Michael’s church in Dumfries, and I could have saved myself four hours on the train if birds were all I wanted. So it’s safer to come away with a renewed sense that small beauties lie all around us, and things which seem grand often turn out to be empty.