Despite the feelings of life revealed the evening before, I woke up in the night with the usual worries. Again, at Lauds, some nasty thought had entered my head, but at that precise moment I looked down at psalm 146,

Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save.
When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing.
Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD their God.
He is the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them.

Later, during the Easter Vigil, I again had this sense that I was not just two people in one – a body and a soul – but other people as well. I wondered if our extended form is, indeed, completely separate.

The choir were singing the psalm ‘Preserve me O God, I take refuge in you’ as the last psalm of the Vigil. ‘Like the Deer that yearns for the running streams, so my soul is yearning for you O God.’ I felt an unbelievable calm and cleaner essence.