Believe

I arrived at a house for a tuning a little early at the weekend so I parked the car and walked from the road to the high street. As I had twenty minutes to spare and it's East Dulwich, full of delis and eateries I thought I could grab an interesting snack as my breakfast. As I turned the corner I was approached by two Christians from the local Baptist church. Now, when I was a teenager a friend of mine started going to his local Baptist church back in the 70's. I followed him in. Both of us from working class poorer backgrounds from the more affluent people of the congregation. They were a friendly bunch and I was invited to dinner or tea at someone's house. I would be introduced to food I have never tasted and rooms that were as big as the whole floor of our Victorian semi. Wooden floors with grandfather clocks ticking, a Grand piano here, a Chesterfield sofa there. We even swam in a private swimming pool on a hot summer afternoon. At the church we would sing the hymns and listen to the organist playing Bach fugues and other composers from the last century but here was more interesting music happening there. A young group. A guitarist with a beard and a liking for ethnic shoes and chunky knitwear and two girls, one blonde, one dark black haired, long and perfectly straight. They were very good. Singing in harmony with the guitar thrashing in a style that was influenced by Paul Simon, Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell. Well I liked Simon and Garfunkel and Bob Dylan at the time and this group had lyrics and songs with stories about love and loss. It was a new world, an extended family and new friends. Now here I am, so many years later trying to convince these polite and good intentioned believers that I cannot take them up on their offer of a visit to their church.
I talk briefly to them about how I was advised by the church back then to meet a nice girl and settle down as there was nothing as sad as an old, lonely, homosexual. They couldn't really offer me anything to explain apart from that they believed I should be celibate or find my inner man. I declined the obvious innuendo and walked back to the house.
When I walked in, there, on the top of the piano were some wooden silver painted letters that spelt
" B E L I E V E "