THE roly-poly priest with the heaven-searching blue stare eased an itch on the back of his hand by brushing it against the white whiskers rambling from his chin, before continuing with a homily, delivered in a homely spirit, which told the congregation in the little, red-bricked church that God was seen best through the eyes of a child.

Outside, by the crunching gravel, the chilly shadows of winter crept down the naked trees and a sharp bird jerked a pink worm from his earthy lair.

Inside, the eyes of those sitting along the faith-shone pews had been smoked wet by memories and the experiences of lives spiced with many anxieties. To be able to see again through the eyes of a child would indeed have been welcome.

The priest’s gentle wisdom reached into the room, as he sat on his chair in front of the altar, never raising his voice. There is purity held in the visions of childhood, but it soon slips away in the chase to grow up. #

Now, in the creaking years, we long to regain it, so we rub our eyes and hope.

It seems to me that we are always at the wrong age. The young long to taste wine and flesh, to explore and experiment, and to step free and confident into the awaiting world before they are ready for it; the middle-aged look back and forth and wonder where they are going. The old long to return to the lost certainties.

“He’s at a difficult stage, you know,” my late mother would say to the gloating parents of much-decorated sons and daughters, who were already plotting their places at the best universities – while I donned the Red Indian head-dress, pumped the tyres on my tricycle and left thoughts of algebra, trigonometry and the kings and queens of Europe in the long grass.

“He’s still at a difficult stage,” she said some years later to the same friends when I sulked, festering, in the corner of the old café – with the gloomy resignation of a dung beetle, who had just shut the blinds on his unhappy home.