Some decades ago, I was engaged in ordination training for the Church of England. I still am, of course. Our training never ends. Like conversion to Christianity, it is not a date marked in the past, but rather perpetual work-in-progress: for we never finish being converted. Ever. As part of my ordination training, I was despatched on placement to a remote rural parish, where one day I found myself being assessed on my skills leading a Bible Study. I recall a group of curious and engaged laity, trying to grapple with the text I had set them, and the discussion I was leading – at the same time as marking me for my effort and expertise, and also trying to find the whole exercise vaguely educational and devotional.

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Some years ago, a Professor of Psychology at the University of Louvain took an interest in how people feasted and celebrated. As part of his research, he asked one of his students to write a thesis on the following subject: ‘how do children, from the ages of 9-11 years of age, experience the phenomenon of feast?’.  The student approached the subject in a number of ways, and one of these consisted of showing a controlled group of 100 children three drawings of a different birthday feast.

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