Sunday. Here's why

I watched my mother being baptised by the Bishop of Jerusalem. I was quite small at the time, and in them thar days the travel restrictions around the Middle East were Byzantine. Suffice it to say, some border official somewhere needed paper proof that we were a Christian family (Ma, Pa, me, li'l sis), and the easiest way to do this was to find a baptismal certificate quickly. Pa's, if it wasn't lost, was in Hoch Deutsch, mine was in Spanish, sis had never been done, so Ma offered herself up. She thought, what the hell, and started taking it all seriously. So belief and the Church were an integral part of my growing up.

I never questioned any of it - it meant a bunch of friends and activities different from the school usuals, membership of choirs, starting with the Cathedral Church of St Mary the Virgin, Johannesburg (then a hotbed of political sedition - I remember a young curate called Desmond Tutu) where I learned the fabulousness of liturgical music, and a standard bunch of certainties.

Then in my second year at Uni, I had to have small operation on my eye. I hadn't had a particularly Godly few terms, but hey - who does? Nevertheless, I asked for communion on the eve of the op. So there we were - I had the whole ward to myself, empty beds stretching either side, shafts of sunlight making the long room glow, me in a simple white hospital gown, a black-robed priest made anonymous by his office. At the highest point of the celebration, I suddenly thought - 'ooh! I'm starring in the most fabulous piece of theatre!'

And, just like that, it was gone. And I want it back.