Commissioned by St Martin-in-the-Fields to be performed by Sir Simon Russell Beale.

There is a word – no, not that
In The Beginning one,
though it begins much. Ends much too.
No, another. Outwardly at least.

It is a word which glitters. 
Which fizzes on the tongue.

Which twinkles in your memory
from a once when it was softly gifted to you
in a vulnerable morning of your life
and now sparks like a portable star forever moving
through the story of yourself.

It is a word with charisma.
A bright, shimmering, reflecting word. 
A word with brilliance jewelled within.

It rings with courage and joy. 
Hear it in the dimittis, the magnificat,
the Trafalgar Square World Cup chant. 

And friends, it is a word we share tonight,
when in our many-angled splendour we accepted an invitation.
Later you’ll listen to your neighbour 
and this word, I’m sure, will shine from them. 

Because in this place, this word is given freely.
Given to fellow travellers in our ever-aching need.
The simplest, smallest word as the biggest beacon
to love and hope and love and love.

So elemental there should be a square for it in the periodic table.

So fundamental to the wider kindness the physicists could smash all their atoms into it,
and still it would hold sinlessly together as an indivisible force.

Yes. This is the word. Yes.

So much harder to say than no. 
It opens us up to whatever may follow.
It unlatches the established door.

It is a word which catches the light of what it is to be human.