Well, I've just come back from the sung eucharist at the cathedral, where I went with John this morning. It was a good service as well as an aesthetically-pleasing one, the sermon being delivered Radio 4 style. The reading was (partially) on 'doubting' Thomas today. It occurred to me, possibly for the first time, that the gnostic gospel of Thomas is directly antagonistic to Thomas' thinking as presented in the canon. He requests physical evidence before acknowledging Christ. As ever, the local quirks of liturgy threw me a little, but the service sheet was good enough to have musical notation for some of it, which, thanks to choral society, is now actually a small help rather than a compounding of the mystery.

I was in the mood to just wander off, rather than talking to a clergyman, which was an ostensible reason that I was there as opposed to anywhere else, but John helpfully persuaded me to stay. They had apple and cinnammon tea, which was very nice. A clerically-attired guy in red turned up, and John said I should speak to him, which I did, after prodding. It seems that the Church of England is just full of people who approve of the style and pastoral emphases of the C of E without thinking it any more 'right' than any other denomination - including Catholicism. "Follow Christ", they all say, in a community which seems to be doing so itself. Yes, very true, but I wonder if anyone saw which way he went?