Corpus Christi

It's two hours and eight minutes since I left St Mary's Cathedral in Glasgow; two hours and eight incense-scented minutes of a journey by car and ferry back to Dunoon. Even after taking off the coat I was wearing I can still smell the incense - perhaps the whole world does indeed smell of it and I just hadn't noticed. In the photo, the rose petals still lie on the floor where they were scattered before the Host as it was processed round the Cathedral (though not in the old choir - why, I wonder, not?), the candles still burn, but the procession has passed and gone and I was too caught up in the moment to detach myself sufficiently to take a photo then.

We were asked to think: what would we say to God if God turned up tonight? And now I know the answer. I'd be speechless. 

Religious experience is a strange thing. Perhaps it is enough to say here that extravagant beauty, music and ritual go a long way towards allowing it to take place.