Last month was the 100th anniversary of the birth of poet Philip Larkin. I have written about Larkin elsewhere, especially the manner in which his verse seemed to exactly chime with my mood in the 1980's. Rather an old head on young shoulders, even in my twenties I identified with a certain sense of loss, of impermanence, of the wistful glance over the shoulder at unsatisfactory years passing.

I owe much of that, I think, to my drifting from Christianity about the same time - a roaming that to this day I cannot put my finger clearly upon. Returning to the faith after almost 40 years was a prodigal act indeed, for which I thank a loving, patient and forgiving God.

Now, Larkin had no expressed religious views that I know of - he writes in a kind of agnostic way - but his verse often had me dwelling on God and the way religion might once again work in the lives of people. I mean, the loss of faith that was apparent in his world view seemed to present some stark choices which had yet to be worked through.

In "Church Going", for example, he wonders what might become of churches once belief has ended. He stands in an empty church, "bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt/dispersed". And yet, in the final verse, he ponders the individual who,

'will forever be surprising

A hunger in himself to be more serious,

And gravitating with it to this ground,

Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,

If only that so many dead lie round." 

I sometimes feel like that individual, as I am sure many others have too. Perhaps it's the walls, the images, the furniture and the knowledge that countless others have sung, prayed and been blessed in the same space over decades or centuries. And if there is a graveyard about the church, then surely that will be a prompt to thoughts of the mortal self. To run away from such as these is to miss out on something that makes life more precious.