The first thing I saw was the lion.

He stood ten feet high on the wall directly across from me, with white feathered wings twice his size and a golden halo above his head. If I was closer, I'd be able to see every individual hair on his coat, painstakingly painted in a dozen shades of brown.

Beside him was an ox with gentle eyes and the same beautiful wings and a matching halo floating above his horns.

The next thing I saw were the lights. A hundred candles or maybe more, illuminating the stone walls and the chestnut-colored pews, the reflections of their tiny flames dancing on the sides of golden cups and plates.

I saw a rainbow of glass high above the lion and the ox, scenes of kings and fishermen and shepherds and fire.

I saw a statue of a man twice the size of a real one, with blood on his hands and feet and forehead. With the lion opposite me and the man hanging on the wall between us, he could watch us both.

I saw an empty building with seats for hundreds and a ceiling so high it must reach the clouds, empty besides me and the lion and the ox — and an eagle I learned was painted beside me — and the large man.

And then the people came.

I saw a man in green and white robes that shimmered with golden threads as he moved. I saw mothers and fathers leading their little children. I saw an old man who could barely walk make his way to a seat in the very back corner — and he sat there every single morning until I saw him in a large gray box covered in flowers.

I saw a baptism of twin baby boys who cried more than any other children I'd ever heard when the water was poured on their heads, and after that service their older sister took her mother's hand and lead her over to point up at me.

"Look at the pretty angel, mama," she said, "I want to paint something like that."

I saw a hundred weddings, the room filled with fancy clothing and crying women and more flowers than I could count.

I saw fewer and fewer young men in the pews and I heard prayers for the end of a war.

I heard someone say the only reason they kept going to Communion was because wine was illegal everywhere else. I'm not sure if they were serious or not.

I saw even more funerals and I was there when an old woman died right in the middle of Sunday morning service, slumped over for a few minutes at least before someone noticed she wasn't breathing anymore.

I saw the 'Sunday best' get tattered and patched. I heard men pray for jobs and women pray for food for their children.

I again saw empty seats where the men used to be.

I heard prayers of thanks for the end of another war, and prayers for guidance on the new one that started the moment the other was over.

I saw more and more people in the pews every Sunday, although I wasn't sure why.

I heard the prayers of a little girl for the new boy in her class, the one the other children — and the teacher — hated because he didn't look like them, and I heard the prayers of the sullen man beside her to keep "those people" out of his children's school.

I heard the same words again and again — new and change and different.

I saw the priest turn around and face toward his congregation instead of away from them.

I heard prayers sung in a different language than I was used to, one the people seemed to understand far better than the other.

I saw the beautiful lion with the wings on its back covered with three layers of pale tan paint.

I saw the ox beside him receive the same fate.

And then everything disappeared.