The lady in the red shirt

When I was 20, I decided to visit a Spiritualist Church.  I was brought up as an athiest and was not a believer in God, however at that time in my life I was starting to have a faith in something of a higher power (thanks to Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life).  I was also interested in Eastern philosophies/religions like Tao and Buddhism and New Age kind of things.  I saw an ad in the paper for a Spiritualist Church which attracted me as I thought it might be a more spiritually focused church rather than being about God as per the Christian religions. The ad specified to bring a flower to leave at the front, which i did.

When I arrived I felt really uncomfortable as I’d never been a church goer and I was by myself, not to mention how shy and self conscious I was at the best of times, let alone in an environment that was out of my comfort zone.   Looking back I think how brave I was!

On the wall there was a sign with a quote that started with ‘The Fatherhood of God, Brotherhood of man…’ and I thought ‘oh god, how sexist, no wonder I’m not religious’ followed by ‘what on earth am I doing here?’.

Anyway I stuck it out – we had to hold hands at some point, and there was hymn singing, all of which made me feel even more self conscious.

The priest (if that is what he was called) walked up to the stage to make his speech.  He started by talking to a man at the back of the church, so I looked around and saw a man standing by himself, wearing hippy-like clothes, he had long straggly hair, and wore Hare Krishna type beads around his neck with a large cross.  the priest said that ‘They tell you…. ‘ etc – I can’t remember the details, but it seemed to me like the priest must have been talking about how the church members were telling him what to do and were judging him.  While this was happening I was thinking ‘how rude, this is totally not where I belong, this was a bad decision’.

However as the priest continued, it slowly dawned on me that it was the spirits that were talking through him.  As soon as I realised this, it suddenly dawned on me that I was going to be next.  Sure enough, the priest pointed straight to me and said ‘the lady in the red shirt….’

I was wearing a red t-shirt that day.  I wish I could remember more of what they told me.  The only thing I remember them saying that I was scared of success, not failure.