LEANING forward, Stephen looks into my eyes while grabbing the top of the table. "I must be able to touch it!" He routinely says this when our conversations revolve around “the God stuff”. The palpable and concrete is what he’s looking for after too many years of empty words. Trust is what he seeks, having borne for so long the judgment, pronounced by a priest; "No drunk will ever be accepted by God!"

We are in a room where a meal is in progress; a shared table where homeless folk, lonely elderly, free church youths and Salvation Army folk meet to share food and conversations.

Some stay to rest for a while after the meal. Others bring some leftovers and saunter back out into the uncertain. Others stay for a time of worship in the adjacent chapel. Here, in the old Salvation Army building, hymns and other sounds of worship blend with smells of damp clothes, urine and food.

I let go of my eye contact with Stephen, instead directing his attention to what is going on in the room. Maybe I too am tired of abstract explanations? "So you want something palpable? Take a look around this very room. This is how God is present and palpable!"

That is all I remember. I hope I said something wise and comforting about how Heaven turned up right then and there, embracing “the drunk" and other folks, but I do not think I did. I’d like to say that Stephen saw and understood God as tangible and concrete, but the truth is I do not know.

What I do know is that seemingly unspectacular events like this meal happen all the time, and that "Heaven" can no doubt be described and understood by taking part in such events.

The Rev Andreas W Andersson

Chaplain, Scargill Movement, Kettlewell