A Chapel Speaks of God within her Shadows

I know you see me from up there, from halfway up the steep and twisting lane. In early half-light as you take your walk I no doubt seem to loom as you descend, appear to grow, to rise from earth, my boxlike rectilinearity, severe and unadorned geometry, a silhouette against the solitary sodium source. I once hosted fiery-throated hymns from dedicated souls in Sunday best: “Marchog, Jesu, yn llwyddiannus”, “O! Iesu mawr, rho d’anian bur” – voices rich and raised and resonant, so filled with faith, so gorged with God. My pitch-pine pews were polished by coat and skirt and trouser twill. Abandoned now, unloved, slab-still, void and stark and desolate, with quarry-tiled floor that would resound with joy were anyone to walk upon it, I present gaping emptiness, a thing felt, a cave whose darkness, palpable, is peopled by retreating echoes of my past, like timorous ghosts far too afraid to speak. But there is One I must not name – though He might be known by the four letters of the tetragrammaton – who lodges in my roomy quarters, cowers within my tight square corners, seeking shadows when the sun stares in. I hear Him breathing as He sweats in His remorse, a thing smelt. He hides from the accusing eyes of every nation, the eyes that witness daily His forlorn creation. (The chapel speaking here is in a small place in West Wales, UK) (Translations: “Marchog, Jesu, yn llwyddiannus” = "Ride on Jesu, all victorious"; “O! Iesu mawr, rho d’anian bur” = "O Jesu, let Thy spirit bless")