The liturgy at Old St. Paul's this morning was presided over by a charming, soft-spoken, and articulate young female priest. Her command of liturgical gestures, symbolic movements, and the traditional choreography of High Mass was flawless, but not fussy. Her sermon moved me, unexpectedly, to tears, especially when she said "it is through love of the strange that we encounter Christ." And, in conclusion, she quoted the poet R.S. Thomas, to the effect that the kingdom of God is entered through "the simple offering of your faith, green as a leaf."
    Green as a leaf is how I left the church onto the streets of that busy stone town. I had entered brown and withered, blown there by an old wind out of the past, drawn by a memory of a cave-like place, a place where one might expect to see crudely-rendered drawings of mastodons and wooly mammoths along side the icons and shrines. There in that cave, that womb, the wind found me once again, and turned me green.