Simplify the following text for a Grade 18 native English-speaking person.
Original: `` While father preached away in the pulpit and the congregation prayed , sang , or listened , '' Ingmar wrote in his autobiography Laterna Magica , `` I devoted my interest to the churchâ s mysterious world of low arches , thick walls , the smell of eternity , the colored sunlight quivering above the strangest vegetation of medieval paintings and carved figures on ceilings and walls .
Simplified: `` While father preached away in the pulpit and the congregation prayed , sang or listened , '' Ingmar writes in his biography Laterna Magica , `` I devoted my interest to the churchâ s mysterious world of low arches , thick walls , the smell of eternity , the colored sunlight quivering above the strangest vegetation of medieval paintings and carved figures on ceilings and walls .