Where did religion go wrong
My grandma, of the Methodist Chapel
Fervently sang each and every song
I had no doubts as a young man
That I would marry in church
It was, as they say, already in the can
Yet I did show a certain lack of respect
A couple of drinks before the service
Which any self-aware vicar would detect
It is true my children went to Sunday school
And both were duly christened
As if ordained by some ancient familial rule
My daughter followed a similar pathway
Married in church (after a period of forced attendance)
Her children christened, on a parish christening day
Yet neither I nor my children regularly attend
In fact in my case hardly ever
Except the Christmas Mass, on which we all do depend
But this is ceremony, not belief
This is the absence of practice
From which we have taken our relief
The song books and the prayer books
Are left bereft and unused, laid
In the cases, in the nannies and the crooks
These buildings once so filled with buoyant life
Have let themselves be emptied
Foraging instead the paths of argument and strife
