The Certainty

THE CERTAINTY? Every Sunday at 10.35, whatever the season, The elderly couple from down the road walk by on their way to Matins. It used to be 10.45 in their prime but, as age creeps on, it takes more time to get there. He still wears a suit with collar and tie, whatever the season. She still wears a hat, complete with hat pin, whatever the reason. Well, her generation did, Convinced no doubt of eternal damnation for bareheaded women. So here they are on their way to their Church -C of E, medium high, Where the service is just as it’s always been. No guitars or modern beat, no gimmicks from the pulpit. Just Hymns Ancient and Modern and Psalm eighty-four; and later the Vicar shakes hands at the door as they leave. They’ve prayed to their loving and merciful God; and I’d like to ask them, “Is this the same loving and merciful God who let children die in that earthquake last week? And who sends no rain to an African state so that more children die at a terrible rate in the sun?” But, of course, I wouldn’t challenge their faith. Just think how I’d feel if they were convinced And I’d taken away their strength that saw them through life. But they would simply smile indulgently at one naive enough to question what enlightened folk have known two thousand years. “It’s all in the Good Book,” they’d say and quote a verse or two that proves to them that everything in that same book is true. And now, at 12.25, whatever the season, the elderly couple from down the road return to their Sunday lunch. To the warm smell of the slowly cooking joint and the scolding yap of the poodle who doesn’t see the point of Matins. They’ll carry on in the simple certainty of their faith, And leave me to ponder my uncertainty. November 2018