The Upper Room
2 min
Red on everyone, a proper bar, a plated dinner and a hall that did not sit down again after the lights went purple.
Pentecost is the red one. Wind and fire come down on a room of people who were upstairs with the door shut, and the Church starts that afternoon. So the party took the name of the room and the dress code took the colour.
The Upper Room ran on the Friday going into Pentecost weekend. Candles down the middle of every table, the hall uplit until it stopped looking like a hall, and a crucifix at the front of the room all night, which was the right amount of explaining for anybody to have to do.
There was a real bar with a real list. Holy Spiritz, aperol and prosecco with tonic and orange. Blessed & Bubbly, vodka with cranberry and pomegranate. Tropical Fire, tequila with pineapple and apple. Every one of the three was made again without the alcohol and priced the same, because a night like this should not quietly sort people by what they are drinking.
A grazing table opened it. Figs, salami, blue cheese, manchego, and enough of it that most of the room had eaten standing up before anyone sat down. Then chicken parmigiana and broccolini, plated, carried out by a team of servers who are young people from the parish. They were lined up and briefed in the lobby before the doors opened.
Then the lights went purple, and that was the end of anybody sitting down.
Pentecost is not an anniversary of something finished. It is the part that is still going. This is what it looks like when a parish throws it a party.
