When I was young, Christmas began with going to church. Very late at night. We'd get bundled into the Station Wagon and delivered.  

This was not unusual in my neighbourhood. Everyone seemed to go to some church or other at Christmas. Church was a given in those days, like school and Roman sandals.

By the time we arrived at the little white church it was packed, with all the seats taken, and people spilling out the doors. Nobody in our family ever suggested we go early to get a seat.

So we'd stand outside, or perch on the steps, or, as was often the case, sit on the grass. Which was a lot cooler and nicer than being sardined inside.

It was special too when the stars came out.

We could hear the organ music, and we'd sing along to those songs that we sang every year at this time. Songs of angels and shepherds and gloria. Whoever Gloria was. They were songs that didn’t make much sense. But they made us feel good. We were feeling with our hearts.

We couldn't really hear the service or sermon outside. Not that we or the other grass-sitters seemed to mind. We weren't there for that. Something more primal was going on, something on the periphery of language.

Later we'd file in for a wafer and a sip of wine. A piece of Jesus. Not that I oranyone else really thought Jesus was there in pieces. The wafer and sip, and what was going on, was called ‘communion.’ Which is not a bad placeholder of a word when heart feelings elude language.

Thinking back now, a big part of it was being together. Doing something not just as a family but as a community together. Something that was kind of unusual, beyond the usual. The only other time we'd be woken up in the middle of the night for something was a rugby test.

And there was something unusual about a Christmas without presents, food, or even much of what the minister thought was religion. Which is shocking, discombobulating, when you think about it. Can you imagine a Christmas where Santa didn't show and there were no gastronomic goodies? Or when the myths of a virgin birth and God couriering Jesus to earth not only didn’t make sense, but didn’t feature?

It was something like those stars in the night sky that we watched as we sat on the dewy grass and gazed. Lots of mystery and wondering about long ago and faraway but also now and close. It was about being a piece of something bigger than us. That somehow, miraculously, magically, we were connected to that something. And that something was both comforting and strangely disturbing.

A feeling. A heart feeling. Primal. On the periphery of language.

So we came back year after year to sit with that feeling. On the grass, outside the white church, singing songs, under the stars.

Glynn

 (Imageof A church under the stars. It’s the Church of St Martin in Martincek,Slovakia. Not, in case you’re wondering my childhood church!)

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