Will Self
(Picture: Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures)I have a confession to make: while not being a Catholic — or even a practicing Anglican — I’m a regular attendee at evensong church services. In this, I’m my late mother’s son: she was an agnostic like me, but always used to say she found great solace and aesthetic pleasure in attending church. For years — decades, even — I found this a pretty absurd notion. Sure, some churches may have lovely interiors – and in those interiors there may be some pretty lovely music, singing, and even homiletic speechifying – but the fact remains that the non-believer is hardly getting out of the experience what the believer is.
For the latter, evensong is a carefully structured ceremonial designed to place them in a devotional relationship with their God. It felt to me as if participating in this under false pretences was not only insulting to believers, it also compromised me. I felt a queasy sort of cosmic embarrassment, as they offered up their hosannas — and I hung my head. As for kneeling on a hassock… puh-lease!
