Chalice

‘Chalice’, The Dublin Review, 49 (Winter 2012-13), 44-60

The Dublin Review 49, just published, includes my memoir essay ‘Chalice’, a consideration of faith and church-going as ritual and as commitment. It interweaves the Presbyterianism and evangelicalism of youth with a renewed, unsteady desire for a faith to live by. The Dublin Review is available in bookshops and to purchase online at The Dublin Review website here.

Extract:

We were taken through the story of Daniel in the lions’ den. In a small, over-crowded, darkened room, it had an effect. It created a hush. Then we were given a special religious version of Fuzzy Felt and we made scenes from the Bible. Daniel; Joseph and his brothers; the Nativity; the Feeding of the Multitude, with loaves of bred and fishes pre-cut in cloth and waiting to be arranged on a black background. As after every evangelical meeting I went to as a child, I lay in bed that night and tried to imagine dying. I wondered what would happen to my parents, who weren’t saved. I thought about being alone in the Fuzzy Felt lions’ den.