Sing out my soul

It was as I was leaving the church that my eye caught the wooden panel which listed every vicar since its inception. It started in the 11th century. It is moments like these that remind me I live in England.

I was in the church for a funeral service. The M1 which I had travelled on to get to the church speaks of today’s world. Four lanes in each direction busy with traffic hurling to their destinations. Motorways and their service stations always speak to me of a space age where everything is designed for a function and the needs of the soul are not considered.

Yet once you veer off it you encounter communities nestled nearby. Cranfield is one such community hidden away in the Bedfordshire countryside. My soul immediately responds to the idyllic fields and the country lanes. The church has been here for almost a 1000 years. People have come and people have gone, we stand as the people at this time. Those who have lost share their love while those of us in the congregation support them.

My imagination attempts to think how different life would have been yet I am reminded that we still want to celebrate births, marriages and deaths, the tricyle of life.

Where hymns once may have been known by the masses churches now accommodate contemporary music.

It is often on occasions such as this that I hear music in a new way. I will forever think of wee Katie’s mum when I hear Dolly Parton sing ‘Here you come again’ .

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