By 
One mild, still morning a couple of weeks ago, I’d dandered into town to lift the car when an odd impulse took hold. Before I knew it, I was walking under the high arched doors of the Sacred Heart Chapel.
But it’s what happened next that makes this story worth telling.
I looked over both shoulders to check the coast was clear, then furtively slunk down the steps and across the holy threshold – lest I be spotted by some big mouth who might proliferate conspiracy theories around town about my contrition and the supposedly conscience-gnawing improprieties responsible therefore.
Because apparently local gossips have adopted the vernacular of Victorian lawyers now…
Once inside, with the murmur of the world behind me and an absolute silence just beyond the doors, I glanced at the holy water font.
Then I paused, and where I stood, sank into a dilemma.
To dip or not to dip? That was the question.
I thought about how, on those rare days when I find myself summoned to the chapel by one of life’s great events, I never bother with the holy water, or the genuflecting, or the communion.
Then I realised that was a lie.
The odd time, I do go up for communion. But there’s always a point, when I’m standing in line with hands joined and head bowed, that I wonder whether it’s right that I – with the blasphemous beliefs I hold about the reality of the wafer I’m about to eat – should have stayed where I was and let the actual Catholics do their thing.
Then I thought about how, when I’m sat, standing, kneeling, or caught in some no-man’s-land position between all three, I generally bless myself when encouraged by the priest to do so.
Except, I remembered, when it comes to the triple signing of the cross, which I always decline.
Choosing not to do even the single blessing seems like an act of defiance; whereas thumbing the sign of the cross on my forehead, lips and chest would seem excessive, inauthentic and disrespectful.
Standing at the font, unsure whether this visit was the first step in a possible reconciliation with religion or just a secular stroll into an iconic local landmark, I decided, for some mysterious reason, to go for a dip.
But when I dropped my fingers into the basin, I found (surprise, surprise) it was bone dry.
Standing there alone, before I knew it I did what, in similar circumstances, I used to do as a wee Mass-going boy, who feared the big man but doubted his existence in equal measure: I pretended to shake the excess water off my fingers and blessed myself as though they were soaking wet, then headed in through the door.
I laughed my way down the aisle, composed myself, knelt down with a smile on my face, and stayed for ten lovely minutes.
Nobody else came in.
Just me and that huge baroque building, cold and warm at once, welcoming and indifferent to whoever comes through its doors.
I still don’t know if I went in as a nostalgia-seeker, a curious agnostic, a lapsed believer, a playful sceptic, or somebody simply in the mood for a bit of peace and quiet.
But for those ten minutes, it didn’t seem to matter.
