Thanks Maura

'The sun dipped out of the valley at the end of the long autumnal day, burnishing one of the furthest peaks so brilliantly a passing angel might have dropped its halo right there. there was the luxuriant sound of Tchaikovsky on the radio in my allotment shed and, after an hour of light weeding, I went and stood by the fence looking out at that dropped halo of light.
A stray sheep cried out in the thickening darkness and my nose picked up the wafting smell of woodsmoke. My hands were dirty as I placed them on the hard creosoted fence and, if anything, that dropped halo became larger and more luminously brilliant. Im the beauty of this given moment I saw the whole of my valley as one vast cathedral with the lights of the nearby houses looking like stained glass windows. The river running the length of the valley floor was the cathedral's nave and that place where the dying sun was washing over that peak was the high altar. The ceiling was a vast valut of sky nailed up there by many stars.
And there was old Caradoc, a long pilgrim with drity hands, standing at a creosoted communion rail patiently waiting to be fed. Here was an old worker of the soil, with trouble in legs, needing at that moment to be fed with the body of Christ. So I found a bit of old bread in the snap tin in my allotment shed and there was an inch of wine left in a bottle too. The bread was stale and the wine was sour but I only needed a taste as I fed myself, reciting aloud those words which are engraved on my heart: 'Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for you'.
Then, with Tchaikovsky still playing in my shed, I raised my arms in prayer on behalf of these ancient hills of coal, calling on God to be gentle with all of us and cleanse us of our sins. This was my moment here at the communion rail of the world; a time of personal worship and celebration. The sun had nearly gone by now, leaving just a thin sliver of light as a haunting bat flitted overhead. There was the sound of a woman's laughter and someone was trying, but failing, to start a car. You could already feel the start of a big rush of night cold charging down the valley slopes.
It is easy for us to look around the valleys and believe that God has forsaken us. But he is always here and, at certain given moments, you can actually feel him all around you. At these moments we should all take the time for some personal worship and celebration. There is a whole generation of a tribe here in my body. I am them just as surely as they are me and that was the way I joined my people with God at the end of that long autumnal afternoon. Everyone fed one another with the body and blood. We were all blessed and became as one in front of the high altar of a valley home. Theirs was the kingdom, the power and the glory as an old man, who keeps struggling to maintain his faith, stood crying with tribal poetry at a sun which, sending up a new explosion of gold, seemed reluctant to leave the valley.'