The Hawk and the Dove new edition.

The Hawk and the Dove was the first book I ever wrote; a novel.

It explores the theme of God’s power being made known in human weakness, and marks the creation of an imaginary community of monks in the (fictional) medieval St Alcuin’s Abbey on England’s North York Moors.

In writing that first novel I carried in mind two famous medieval texts – Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and the delightful Fioretti of St Francis – a candid, endearing, often funny set of tales about his first followers. The Canterbury Tales is structured as a frame-tale; a device holding a series of different stories together by presenting them within one common setting – in this case the frame-tale is the story of a group of pilgrims on the road together, providing the structure linking the stories they each tell.

Because my novel also has a medieval setting, I took the device of the frame-tale, and The Hawk and the Dove is structured as a series of stories about the medieval monastery, linked by and embedded in the modern setting of a mother telling stories to her daughter. This also allowed the balancing of a masculine community with a feminine one.

A sequel, The Wounds of God, swiftly followed, in 1991, again shaped by the same frame tale structure.

The third book in the series broke away from this structure, which seemed inappropriate for the subject matter of that third novel, The Long Fall. This time the story was a close-up, slow, somber sketch of a man struggling with illness and disability. It deals with intensely personal relationship, helplessness, infirmity, and the narrowing down of a person’s life as it draws to a close. For this, a pared-down, simple structure seemed a better fit.

The books were first published in the UK, and in the US Crossway took them on. Christian fiction struggled to be taken seriously in the UK – in those early days, when I was a Local Preachers’ tutor in the Methodist Church, the Methodist Recorder refused to review them on the grounds that they were fiction so had no serious theological content. They flared and died in the UK, but in the US it was a different story. There they sold steadily for twenty years, becoming gradually widely known and loved.

After they’d been twenty years in print, the thought occurred to me to write another novel in the series. Crossway were pleased with this idea, and so I wrote The Hardest Thing To Do, quickly followed by The Hour Before Dawn and Remember Me.

These also have been well received, but in the years since the first books were written Crossway had run down their fiction department, and The Hawk and the Dove series had become something of an anomaly in their list, and so it was that they decided to take no further volumes, and the seventh – The Breath of Peace – was self-published. It, too, has been well received.

But natural changes in Crossway staff meant it was time to prune and re-organise the list, and so it came about that the whole series was offered to my UK publisher, nowadays Lion Hudson.

They have taken it on, creating a new set of cover designs for this new edition of the series.

The first three books – The Hawk and the Dove, The Wounds of God and The Long Fall – will be available next month. The next three books – The Hardest Thing To Do, The Hour Before Dawn and Remember Me will follow in a few months, and The Breath of Peace comes out next year in this new format.   

During this year I will be working on an eighth book, The Beautiful Thread, which will be added to the series next year.

In these hand-over months I guess their availability will be a bit patchy. The cover for The Breath of Peace in the new edition hasn’t yet been done, and the pre-order for that book is not up yet, so in the meantime it’ll still be available in its original form. The Crossway editions are now available only through second-hand bookshops (I think), and The Breath of Peace will be withdrawn from sale in its present form as the time for the new edition draws near.

For those of you who don’t know these books at all, I’ll tell you a bit more about them in future posts, but I think that’s enough for now – just keeping you up to date. I’ll be changing the graphics and links here on the blog to show the new cover designs, which I hope you like.

Minimalism as visual silence

Still comparing and contrasting minimalism and simplicity.

I have known a number of people who lived very simply.

One category of such friends is the make-do-and-mend variety. I think of George. He lived in a house he built himself, and most of what he owned was stuff other people threw away. So he had a collection of strange clothes found by the roadside or in rubbish bins, and a number of rusty and broken bicycles he used for parts. He made a living catching fish by the sea then cycling inland to sell it. Some of it he smoked in the smokeries he made of old freezer cabinets.

In between his house and the shed (that he also built himself) was a HUGE pile of assorted . . . things. Stuff other people had thrown out he’d brought home because he thought it might come in useful.

Another friend in the same category was Derek. Influenced as a young man by reading The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists, he lived in extreme frugality, with great simplicity. A freegan, he scavenged his food from dumpsters (or attending church functions offering free food). He took home all sorts of finds and wore only other people’s discarded clothes. He bought nothing. He came to eat Christmas lunch with us one year – a very cold day – and I remember he walked the three miles from his home wearing no socks and shoes without laces.

Derek bought his own home in the end. He got sick of harassment while he was renting. He had complaints about the compost heap he built on the landing outside his upstairs apartment in his renting days. He saved up from his State pension and bought his house, cash.  Even then he got complaints from the Environmental Health people and his neighbours. His huge piles of salvaged rotting wood provided a haven for rats, who snacked on the stacks of scavenged bread he dried out for fuel. He used to walk from Hastings to Wales for the Eisteddfods, and when my work took me up to outer London, he would walk up from the coast to visit me there (80 miles?), carrying a flowerpot with a little plant he’d grown from a seed. When my children were young, some nights I’d hear a strange sound in the house. Going to look, I’d see a banana on the floor under the mail-slot. Opening the door I’d find a plastic sack of out-of-date food he’d scavenged.

His own house wasn’t big enough to store all his foraged and scavenged loot. He prevailed on friends all over town to accommodate it in our sheds and freezers. And some strangers. He had secret stashes tucked discreetly behind shrubs in no end of herbaceous borders.

The police called at our home one night, tipped off by a concerned citizen. Derek sang in the church choir, and one night my husband (acting as a deputy organist) had offered him a lift home. Derek was happy to accept the lift, but said he first had some things to stash in the park. What the anxious neighbours saw was two wild, scruffy-looking bearded men taking a stroller apparently containing a child (actually Derek’s scavenged loot in a discarded and broken stroller he’d found) into a dark location in the park and emerging without it! Was it a murder?

Well, Derek lived simply and so did George, but they were not minimalists.

While they were undoubtedly exemplars of simplicity and frugality, I found their lifestyle and company stressful in the extreme. Such clutter and its management does my head in.

What I like about minimalism is something I can only describe as visual silence.

I believe in flow – in currency, not in dams. What I own, I rarely keep and mostly give away. I enjoy the time it’s passing through my hands, then it goes on to give pleasure elsewhere. I need very little. Financially, I help other people and (different) other people help me. I work, because I believe in meaningful contribution and working is a happy thing. But I like to choose what I do and when. I am no fan of war, so I like to keep my income low, since I cannot choose where my taxes will go. I dislike government intervention in my life altogether, so if I need money I ask God, not the government; and some work comes along.

Things flow in, things flow out. It is a river. I open my hand in the stream.

Minimalism and Simplicity opening salvo

Sharing posts on Facebook gave rise to a discussion about minimalism and simplicity.

My friend Rachel the hermit 

(do you know her? She makes her living selling the most beautiful stationery) said:

“I am interested that this [shared post] equates minimalism with simplicity - many of these articles do. My own experience (with a fondness for the beauty of white shadows falling on empty spaces) is that past a certain point, minimalism & simplicity part company - trying to live "minimally" can become very complicated indeed!”

To which I responded:

“I had the same experience in my foray into Plain Dress – what promised 'simplicity' turned into a hobby verging on a second career – and needed a lot of storage!”

Not to mention all the ironing!

But then I got to wondering and feeling curious about Rachel’s experience. I thought about Diana and Michael Lorence’s version of simplicity and how, for them, minimalism nailed it (described on this post of mine).

So I asked Rachel:

“Would you be willing to say a bit more - examples of what you mean - of how trying to live minimally can become very complicated? I'm interested in the idea and would like to write a blog post about it. But though I've found some things purporting to represent simplicity being in reality very far from that, I haven't personally found any conflict between minimalism and simplicity, and I'd be interested to know the areas of conflict you found. And, may I quote you?”

Rachel kindly gave her permission to be quoted, and this is what she said:

“Okay then, so 3 examples.

1. I have 4 saucepans: 2 medium general purpose with lids, 1 flat-bottomed Wok & 1 small frying pan. I wanted to find the perfect pan which I could use for everything, but the wok has no lid for general purpose use, and needs to be on a large stove ring which wastes electricity when I am only frying an egg. The small frying pan is only big enough for egg or fishfingers, and the general purpose are no good for frying. None of these are any good for making jam or a large bean stew for freezing, so I have a great big pan for that. And I have a casserole with short handes which can be started on top & then go in the oven. So 6 saucepans. Sometimes you just need the right kit to get the job done efficiently.

2. I dress quite simply - long blue skirt, white/grey/blue long-sleeved t shirt, scapular & jumper. skirt & scapular are woven wool & as outer garments don't need the same frequent laundry as t shirt etc. So I have a couple each of those, and quite a large number of t shirts. This means that I can build up a full wash before putting the washing machine on. I have several jumpers too as it takes quite a while to build up enough for a delicates wash. Sometimes having lots of the same can be more ecological. (I loved one of the minimalists who had a wardrobe full of identical white shirts. yep. with you on that one.)

3. This is the more aesthetic/philosophical one. I spent some time when my minimalism was at its peak trawling down to the charity shops to offload stuff - became something of an embarrassment! I like space. I like empty space. Then I began to find that my fondness for the "white shadows falling in empty space" became something of an obsession. That the empty space became as precious to me, filled as much space, as my things might have done previously. You sometimes write about how our longing for "things" can preoccupy & entrap us. Very true. But I was beginning to find that my longing for no-things was also preoccupying and entrapping me. There is a balance where the right-sort-of- things are in the right-sort-of- places & it all sort of clicks. It is simpler, less aspirational, less angst-provoking than minimalism, but it seems to work. At least, that is my experience.”

Now, that is food for thought.

The thing I personally have most of is clothes. The biggest challenge for me with their storage is accommodating the winter clothes. There is cold weather, and there is wet weather. Considering how many coats to own and what kind, how many changes of footwear and what kind – how many warm sweaters and what kind; this takes thought.

Owning the fewest possible possessions, within the strictures of practicality, is important to me. I turned over in my mind Rachel’s wise words, “longing for no-things was also preoccupying and entrapping”, and asked myself if this applied to my own circumstances. It’s all in the “why”, isn’t it? Why is it important to me to own as little as possible?

Here are some reasons (there may be others down in the unplumbed morass of my subconscious mind):

I like to live in the smallest possible space. I don’t know why. I just do. It pleases me and makes me happy. The smallest possible space, plus a fire, and air all around.

Empty rooms allow my soul to breathe and make me feel like dancing. I like seeing the light move through in the dance of the seasons and days, seeing the rhythm of the year in the changing light. It makes me happy. Empty rooms make me want to sing. Clutter, by contrast, frets at my soul. It feels appalling to me, exhausting. It is as though all the items present pluck and whine at me for attention. Cramming them in stuffed cupboards, drawers, sheds and underbed storage out of sight doesn’t work. I have to know that inside the cupboard, on the shelf, under the bed, in the shed, the same peace and order reign. When I was eighteen, I lived with some monks of the Community of the Glorious Ascension. Their founder wrote in their Rule of Life: “The priory should reflect the peace and order of Heaven.” To me, establishing peace and order is part of my prayer “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven”.

A large percentage of my professional occupation has connected with death and dying (this is still the case). I have become unusually sensitized to mortality and the significant benefits derived from staying loose to the things of this earth. Learning to let go is, I believe, a crucial component of happiness and peace. I have lost count of the number of people I’ve met who finally found wellbeing in the last six weeks of their lives, when they stopped thinking about obtaining and maintaining, and turned their thoughts toward God and their close relationships. The riches they found in so doing astonished them. I took note.

I have spent more time and energy than I would ideally have wished sorting out and ferrying around other people’s junk. Recycling, taking things to charity shops and to the dump, tidying, sorting and clearing, driving stuff around in my car, carrying heavy boxes and dealing with unwieldy things, responding to situations they hadn’t thought through and couldn’t manage. The macro-version of “eyes bigger than stomach”; a life vomiting the excess it had taken on board. It has become crystal clear to me that this is not a legacy I wish ever to leave any other person. And how do I know how many days I will be here? I might suddenly die tomorrow. I hope not actually, because I still have a few earthly matters to attend to that I am currently without the resources to complete. Once those are done, I’m happy to spend my life sitting in peace on the banks of the river, waiting quietly for my transport home. Selfish? Probably. I have been singularly unsuccessful at managing the vibrations of Earth. But I’m digressing. What I mean is, I want to die a quiet and unexceptional, unnoticed death in a clean and tidy environment, so those I leave behind can say – “Oh: there’s her sleeping bag and blanket, all clean; there are her jeans, her t-shirts, her sweaters. Here’s the kit she wore to take funerals. Here are her two smart jackets and skirts. Here are her boots and her sandals. Here’s her overcoat. Her earrings are in this box. Look – three mini-packing-cubes; what’s in there? Oh, her underwear, her socks, her scarves, hat and gloves. What’s in this box? Oh, her essential oils. What’s in this pouch? Her sewing kit. This one? Her data travellers, earphones and kindle-charger. And these are her books on this shelf. Do you want these? Me neither. One trip to Goodwill should do it.”

You are probably bored of reading by now. I’ll come back to this.

Bed-wearing finale

Well, the bed-wearing experimentation is now concluded.

I found that – as Buzzfloyd identified might be the case (see comment threads), clothes were inadequate insulation – they don’t provide the heat-trap air-spaces needed to stay warm at night. I looked up Bedouin solutions, and I'm not surprised they need a caravan of camels to get from place to place.

Also – and on the Facebook discussion threads my friend Rachel the hermit identified this – there was an issue about blankets coming apart and so me getting cold. One night the sheepskin and crocheted blanket got rucked up with each other and the whole thing was hard and uncomfortable.

But I still couldn’t countenance the thought of such bulky bedding to store, and wanted my space clear and plain.

So I dispensed with the sheepskins (they are normally occupied as seat pads on hard benches in the living rooms) . . .

. . . and with the too-small plaid blanket – repurposing it into making a fishing chair into an armchair in the living room (fishing chairs are comfy, portable and lend themselves to storing conveniently, but are visually hideous).

I incorporated a nice wooden chest from elsewhere (it was our Alice’s for a lot of years, then mine, then more recently it has stored the Badger’s sports gear, but that tucked into his t-shirt drawer okay), which still leaves enough floor space to lie down and sleep at night. 

The chest stores my shearling/velvet blanket, my crocheted blanket and my sleeping bag, and the cushion sits on the top. This gives the perfect combo for a good night’s sleep. My hot water bottle doesn’t go cold early, and I can just wear whatever thickness of night clothes the weather requires. Also it’s an easy bed kit to trundle between Komorebi and the big house or take camping or whatever. Nothing else needed. Excellent. Sorted.

I measured that little room of mine, by the way. Its dimensions are 5' 10" (that's 69 inches, or 175cm) by 8' 4" (that's 100 inches or 255cm). It looks quite spacious, doesn't it, once the storage is thought through and the possessions kept under stringent limits. Big and enough and small enough for peace and comfort.

I’ve been thinking about minimalism and simplicity and the difference between them, about possessions and making mental inventories and rationales thereof, and I’m planning to write about that to sort my thoughts out.

I’ve also been thinking about the channeling of personal energy – energy fields, boundaries, what nourishes energy and what saps it – and if I can get those thoughts into coherent order I’ll post about that too.

But I thought you might like to know about the bedding. Bed-wearing: it didn’t work. The sleeping bag arrangement would also allow for sleeping without clothes as strongly recommended by a couple of friends on one of the threads. I took note that this is a healthy thing to do.

I’d like to write about clothes too – because finding the right clothing is, in my experience, not easy. Once one has the right versatile and dignified comfy things that fit properly and don’t shout loudly or develop personal agendas more assertive than my own, they are to be treasured indeed.