We went last Friday to the Long Table for an event called Winter Songs.

For those who don’t know the Long Table it is a Stroud-based social enterprise one of whose core aims is to celebrate the experience of eating together on a pay-as-you-can basis.

Friday’s event was held in the Sanctuary Room – a large, sparsely-decorated space in which we ate, fittingly, at two long tables. The high cills of the rectangular industrial windows were set with night lights and there were taller candles on the tables but, apart from that, it was the company that warmed all of our hearts.

The food was wonderful and was brought to our places by people who were clearly enjoying the evening as much as the diners.

And there was music and poetry – two songs from one, say three poems from another. I enjoyed most of it – some pieces more than others, as you might expect.

But it was one of the last songs that I will remember for a long time, Except that’s not quite right. I can’t remember it at all – I wish I could. It was by a singer and guitarist called Philippe Nash (I only found his name out later).

He sang the Christmas carol Oh Little Town of Bethlehem.

I know this carol, I imagine you might too – it’s gentle and reassuring. But that’s not how Philippe sang it.

Starting with a cycle of three chords on the guitar he began to sing the words in low, subdued tones and he hadn’t progressed beyond the first verse before I realised that this was a song of mourning.

The words of the carol are beautiful:

O little town of Bethlehem,
how still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
the silent stars go by.

But also deeply devotional

Cast out our sin and enter in
be born in us today etc.

and Philippe sang them all – word for word. But it was those three haunting guitar chords that spoke most clearly. More than anything else they spoke of sadness, and they spoke of shame.

Faced with what is happening in the world, a natural response might be to voice feelings of protest or outrage. Philippe’s song worked on an entirely different level.

It touched me more deeply than I can express.