Lucky Dip Number 15
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Sanctuary
"It is here you are meant to be" a silent voice spoke within as I reached the door of the church where worship was due to begin. In the cool of that morning early I had trod forest paths alone and powerfully felt an assurance in a way I had never known. Light through the branches was dancing with shadows on the forest floor where fallen leaves were hinting that Autumn was beckoning once more. I looked out from the edge of the forest on a vista of meadow and hill and there on a bench I was tranquil as I sat for some time and was still. Then with canopy of leaves above me and a carpet of moss beneath a prayer of thanks I breathed softly walking back in that sanctuary of peace. But a tempest raged within me that was far from a feeling of calm after entering that other sanctuary, the church where this poem began. Nothing I heard in the service could explain the trembling I felt but the previous week had known traumas and places where terror had dwelt. For this was the week when Internment* had unleashed the demon of dread with riots where twenty-six perished and seven thousand people had fled.** My father had Catholic neighbours who were threatened with fire to their home and this mother and daughter he sheltered till the husband from England could come. I sat with them that night long after midnight had come and had gone to secure some semblance of calmness and assure them they were not alone. This was the start of a sequence that ushered in difficult days when leaving known paths of perception I journeyed in uncharted ways. But I never once felt abandoned having loved ones in whom to confide, and the presence I sensed in the forest a sanctuary safe did provide. * Detention by army and police of suspected IRA members **See Wikipedia article on 'Operation Demetrius' |