Heaven on Earth

The mighty Cathedral stood silent. The gathering dusk spread shadows across its bulwarks, and inside the gathering darkness closed in the columns that stood sentinel to Gods praise. Evensong was complete, but the rafters seemed to hold their silent echo so that on that evening it seemed to be filled with a strange vibrant air. The organ rose high above the nave, its mighty pipes brooding over the choir stalls below, the power of their bass notes held in bay waiting only for the touch of a key set them forth.

An old priest slowly padded across the chancel, the strange gliding motion they have long gone as his joints had aged. His job, for more years than he cared to remember, was to set the clock in the East wing and to ensure that the eternal lamp was well supplied with oil to last the night. The Bishop would be mighty upset if it went out, compassion was not his forte’. The old priest smiled to himself at the thought, maybe just once he should forget and cause a stir within the chancellery, he sighed, would anyone notice.

‘I would.’

 He stopped in his tracks and looked about him. The shadows had darkened into the blackness of the night and were closing in on the  Cathedral’s entrails. He knew from experience that it was easy to imagine anything in its unearthly tempers. Made by man to the glory of God, good and evil had jostled side by side down the centuries and they had left their mark on the very fabric of the place.

‘Pull yourself together,’ he thought, ‘ This isn’t the place to imagine……….,’ he let the thought drift away.

He turned towards the alter steps, crossed himself, and knelt down to pray as he had for those many years. As he did so he heard the sound of a bird’s wing fluttering as if caught in a trap. He looked up and there before him stood a cloaked figure holding out a simple sparrow clutched in its hands The priest fell back in terror, was this the mighty Arch Angel Gabriel before him or the Angel of Darkness? The priest’s heart swelled in his chest and beat as if to burst, it caught in his throat until his breath gave out, so that he seemed on the brink of death.

‘What save thee for thy spirit, this life or the lamp?'

In the gathering darkness the base pipes of the organ rumbled in their throats as if in warning. The priest clutched at his throat and gasped for breath, he knew the meaning all right; heaven or hell! He looked about himself for help, a fellow priest, a sign, a staff, there was none but the rumble from the organ which was becoming more insistent.

‘What say thee priest?’

The priest looked down as if from a great height, and saw himself, an old man, frail and broken lying in a heap, and yet he felt as a child and so stretched out his hand to save the sparrow, and yet? A still small voice whispered caution and he stayed the child’s hand, surely the eternal flame that represented the spirit of man through the ages and was the small voice of the mighty church must be kept alight A life for a light, the humour of the thought made him smile . And then he remembered  the  teachings of Jesus, now almost a childhood memory; ‘anyone who refuses to come to God as a child will never be allowed into the Kingdom of Heaven.’ And so he let the child’s hand reach out and took the sparrow from those mighty hands and released it to the heavens.

With that the mighty organ came to life and sang out a hymn of praise. The low notes sounded like thunder and swept in glorious waves between the columns whilst the tremolos raced around the rafters chasing the flight of the released sparrow.

‘Thee have chosen well priest, thy heaven is an earthly paradise

to do God’s work and save souls'.

The Bishop never found out why the eternal lamp went out, or the strange disappearance of the old priest, whose name he could not recall, but he pondered mightily the way the organ occasionally sprang to life in the reaches of the night.