At halftime, as we say in Bach Choir circles, I thought: Well, that was a nice thing. Once every decade or so I could do this.

So then came the second half. The church was plunged into darkness. From each side, singers emerged from the large doors and walked up the side aisles and then back down the middle aisles, singing as they went, candles burning in a clever portable music-stand-cum-candleholder. They were singing "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel."

And I lost it. Tears were streaming down my cheeks. I was surprised by my tears and uncertain how to turn them off. At one point I was sobbing like someone who had just lost a relative.

It's a carol I know, so I guess some childhood nostalgia thing may have been at play. But I am not religious and thus do not believe that Emmanuel has come to ransom captive Israel - although I wish someone would ransom captive Israel and soon too, before the world blows up. Just tell us where to leave the money. I do not believe that the birth of Jesus of Nazareth is a cause for rejoicing any more than I believe that the birth of Jesus of Mexico City is a cause for rejoicing, except among Jesus' immediate relatives.

And yet, and yet ... music is music. Good singing is good singing. And candlelight is candlelight, and when you are surrounded by song in a darkened room, something in your soul - in my soul - reaches out for the ineffable.

I think maybe the religious impulse doesn't have anything to do with religion. I think it has to do with yearning and loss and beauty and hope. It can attach itself easily enough to a belief system - hymns are basically a get-them-into-the-tent marketing device, which is why megachurches use rock 'n' roll to keep the parishioners on message - but it doesn't need to. It can merely be wonder that we flawed humans can produce such transcendent sounds.

And the beauty makes us cry, which is as it should be.