Passion Play

I am indeed a part
of all those I have met,
and must learn who I am.
A politician, a cooking contest winner, a troubled clergyman, a much-married socialite, a TV evangelist - what could they have in common? Why do they (and half a million others) travel to Oberammergau, the small German village that has staged a Passion Play every tenth year since 1634?
In a four-day bus trip, very different people are drawn together for diverse reasons, similar to the varied group whom Chaucer brought to life in his Canterbury Tales. But these travellers do not tell invented stories to entertain each other; they reveal to us with raw and often painful honesty their own lives and motives.
Shortlisted for the 2014 OMEGA Writers CALEB Poetry Prize