Next week's cover story, tentatively entitled Prophet Motive, deals with some intriguing aspects of LDS doctrine and life in the trenches of immigration law. Oddly I found myself thinking of it at midnight mass around 11.30 p.m. on Christmas Eve at Thomas More Catholic church in Sandy.---

I was raised Protestant in small town England and as far as memory serves I didn't take communion. My two girls are being raised Catholic by their mother. The youngest, Katy, will take communion for the first time next year. The eldest, Elli, took communion last year but doesn't like the wine. Not sure what I think about that.

Anyway, they went up for communion during midnight mass by jovial Father Dave Van Massenhove. While not Catholic, I usually go up for communion, perhaps if for no other reason that to complete the service. But a few weeks before I attended a Hispanic LDS service while researching the cover story. Then I did not take the sacrement, so why, I wondered, did I think it was acceptable to take Catholic sacrament but not LDS?

Since moving to Utah five years ago this coming January 2, the curious nature of the state has made me think much about my relationship or lack of a one with god. I did a shopping guide for those seeking celestial relief a few years ago for this paper. The most religious experience I had doing it was staring up at a 30 foot-plus pine in Cottonwood Canyon at 6 a.m. while some LDS men and boys prepared breakfast in a nearby clearing. I was listening to Sigur Ros on my cd player and as a trumpet crescendoed it was as if ever nature itself was quivering up through the tree's limbs.

I left midnight mass feeling almost bereft, jealous even of my daughters' religious journey to come, even though I am not a great fan of the Catholic church. But on the drive home through the smog-bound Sandy streets I recalled a line from a song called Medias Negras by Spain's answer to Tom Waits, Joaquin Sabina, that made me smile.

Y yo que nunca tuve mas religion que un cuerpo de mujer/And I who'd never had more religion than a woman's body