Christian Agnosticismbetter because of it – a little more conscious of my own mortal-
ity, a little more attentive to the present moment.
The question became how to do this new way of living as well
as possible? I did not want to ‘get closure’, as the ugly phrase from
pop-psychology has it. Even if closure were gettable, it would be
to move on, not live with. Neither did I want the comforts of the
language of immortality for it did not feel right to simply say that
my mother was in heaven or just on the other side of the veil.
If pushed, even now I tend to think that I won’t see her again
because identity without a body is so diffi cult to conceive, and her
body has most certainly gone. However, I also had this spiritual
sense in which she has not straightforwardly ‘gone’ either.
An uncertain though nonetheless Christian-shaped response
has proven to be the answer. As I lost my atheism, and my reli-
gious imagination returned, it was the silence conveyed through
certain liturgies that came to shape the ambivalence of, on the
one hand, the clarity of my remembrance and, on the other, the
lack of clarity as to what death may or may not be. One such
service is the ashing of Ash Wednesday. Here, the priest marks
the penitent on the forehead with the sign of the cross, saying,
‘Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.’ The stark
reality of that act is chastening, of course, and to some might
be objectionable. But it is an intimate moment: the ashing
becomes an oddly life affi rming assertion of one’s mortality.
Another service that I found capturing my ambivalence was
All Souls Day, when churches of a Catholic persuasion have
a requiem mass at which the dead are remembered by name.
I now look out for a service that includes a liturgical perfor-
mance of one of the great Requiem Masses. Though the All Souls
Mass is full of words and sound, its purpose makes it different
from other services. It becomes a container for an underlying
silence which I now take to be the best response to my mother’s
death. Christianity has become for me, in this context at least
and to use Denis Potter’s phrase, ‘the wound, not a bandage’
Several composers have written some of their most profound
music in response to this rite, capturing the mixed uncertainties