The Search For Enlightenment

What a great day! After a rather lazy, though well deserved late start, we took a trip in Fishponds to get a Father’s Day card for Ivor, who’s back in hospital again. Although the problem is well known, it can’t be fun for him to keep shuttling back and fro between Frenchay and the nursing home.

We were being picked up by Lisa and Vee in the early evening, so by the time we got back from the hospital we were a bit tight for time. Not that we rushed the visit. While B went off to talk to the nurses, I read Ivor a story about Women’s intuition.

It was all about how, as men, we try all the obvious technical routes to getting things working, like the car that won’t start. Check the plugs, points, carburettor etc. to no avail. Then the lady of the house notices that the number plate is loose and when it’s tightened, the car inexplicably starts, for no apparent reason.

Ivor and I laughed and laughed, and I know it made us both feel better in the circumstances. So a quick bite to eat, a shower and into our glad rags just in time as L and V turned up bang on time. The rain that had been threatening all day finally arrived as we set off for Bristol Cathedral.

So what, you might ask, were we doing in Bristol Cathedral on a Saturday night in mid June? Well we were there to listen to Handel’s choral piece, Israel in Egypt, all about Moses and the exodus of the Israelites, performed by the Bristol Choral Society.

It was the last performance by B’s friend Tina’s mum, retiring after over 30 years as a member. And it was stirring stuff. The choir were fantastic, the acoustics amazing, and the cathedral itself is an awesome building.

So a really enjoyable evening, in a very fitting setting. Albeit that the subject of the piece isn’t exactly in line with Buddhist practice, it was clear that the singing had a very similar effect to Buddhist chanting. The very sound lifts the heart, and when sung so beautifully, it goes to show that we should member that there’s a lot in common between religions.