I can't sleep…
At church a baby girl was baptized. She lay quietly in the vicar’s arms, absorbed in contemplation of things around her, her eyes very wide and bright, her hands spread like stars.
— Helen Garner, One Day I’ll Remember This: Diaries 1987–1995 (Text Publishing Company, October 12, 2021)
Post inspired by Jay, Lizzy & Ellie. Thinking of you. Photo Credit: Pexels
Church. My sister is one of the servers. Unaware that I’m there, she approaches the spot at the altar rail where I’m kneeling with my hands out. She stops in front me, carrying the big silver chalice, looks down, recognises me. She rocks back on her heels, her face is still with astonishment, then she smiles and I have to keep my eyes on her black shoes. My lips quiver against the rim of the chalice so hard that I’m afraid I won’t be able to swallow.
— Helen Garner, from a diary entry in 1987 when she was 44 in One Day I’ll Remember This: Diaries 1987–1995.
Notes: Portrait of Helen Garner in 1984 by Ray Kennedy via smh.com.au. ‘A poet in plain prose’: Reflection on Helen Garner’s amazing opus by Kerrie O’Brien.
During communion a man played a long and beautiful piece on the piano. I asked him later what it was: Beethoven. He played correctly, and with feeling, but he is not ‘a good pianist’ and that’s why I enjoyed it so much, because it was hard come by and humbly offered.
— Helen Garner, One Day I’ll Remember This: Diaries 1987–1995
Notes:
And the boy went into the elves’ church. He had never seen such people before, so noble and happy. Such is life when it is lived in peace and in song. When the hymn was over, the priest mounted the pulpit and preached a sermon. Never had the boy heard a sermon so beautiful or so touching. And never afterwards did he hear a sermon like it. All his life through he remembered it, meditating upon it in secret and trying always to live up to it; but the theme of the sermon he told to no one. Some people think that it must have been about how in the end good will be triumphant in the life of man. Then the priest went to the altar and intoned in a warm, gentle voice; quite differently from our priests here on earth. It was as if a good hand was laid over his heart Then when the last hymn had been sung, all the people stood up and went out… He kept the memory of this Sunday ever afterwards in his mind and it consoled him when he had to do without the happiness that others enjoy in life; and he grew up into a man pleased with what he had and contented with his lot.
— Halldór Laxness, “Independent People”
Photo: Photo by Tabitha Mort, Portland, Oregon
…No religion except whatever Mary Oliver had going on.
Notes: