Cover art and works in progress

As I understand it, some people are visual thinkers and other people aren't.

If I'm honest, I'm not quite sure what this means.

Do the people who are visual thinkers think entirely in pictures? Or only partly? If they are thinking about something invisible, what do they see?

I think I am a visual thinker, in as much as I do think very visually. So I tried out feeding into my mind "Air" and "God" to see what came up. And I found that I saw those words written down in my mind's eye. I could see the words very large in Times New Roman type font. Dark grey with a white background, on a rectangular piece of paper (landscape not portrait).

My husband Tony is writing a novel — he has written two books, and both were stories in a way: one was the story of the time we walked the Camino pilgrimage route (Taking My God for a Walk), and the other was the story of his working life as a publisher of Christian books (They'll Never Read That). They are both easy to read like stories are, but of course he actually did this things, they aren't made up, so what he's writing at the moment is his first work of fiction — and he has at least two more planned, he never does things by halves!

So sometimes he talks to me about how he's writing his book — not what he's writing, it's death to a story to share that before it's told.

And the other day he was telling me how he plans and structures and creates and develops and adds twists und so weite, to create a scene — then he asked me about how I go about writing mine.

And all I could think of was that I just go to the place through my imagination, and I watch the people and listen to them, then I come out again and write down what they said and what they did.

So I suppose that's visual thinking, isn't ? 

But I noticed he said at one point yesterday that when he got stuck on resolving part of his story, a very minor character had stepped out of the shadows and fulfilled the rôle. So, is that visual thinking too, or just a visual metaphor — an image — for thinking that wasn't necessarily visual?

I'm going to have to ask Grace (my daughter) to read this and comment — she's very good at knowing about this sort of thing.

Anyway, I think I must be a visual thinker because I do see in my mind's eye pretty much everything I think about.

Let me give you an example. Before I wrote St Luke's Little Summer, I was finding it increasingly difficult to see the men at St Alcuins and the place. And I was sad, because I missed them. Then one day I saw something like the top of a rubbish bin (but sideways on like a picture frame) in my mind's eye, and it was perhaps 18 inches from side to side and made of beige plastic. A bit like one of these apertures would be if you looked straight down onto it.

And beige, and square. Floating in mid-air. And there was a tough, thick membrane stretched across the opening, not added on but part of it. And I was thinking about the men at St Alcuins and William in particular, and he had pushed his arm through this membrane — there must have been a space to do that at the centre, because it wasn't broken, and it stretched the membrane a bit to extend his arm through — and he said, "We are still here, but you can't see us any more." Which was part of how I knew the series was finishing.

That sounds like a dream, doesn't it, but it's how I think (though I don't mean it wasn't real, but it's how it arrived in my mind). Impressions come into my mind. Sometimes they are only words and then I see the words, or sometimes like that odd thing with the arm, they are visual and have words going with them. Is that visual thinking?

Anyway, what I was intending to tell you is that because my mind is very visual in its activities, I find the cover of a book is one of the most exciting parts about it.

I love the bit where it's time to ask our artists for the cover art, and then wait to see what they have made.

My last book in the Hawk & Dove series, The Light of One Lamp, has been written and edited and the text has gone off to Jonathan to be formatted — but he was away in Copenhagen when we sent it, so I believe he's expecting to work on it this week once he's properly back and got his breath. Then we have to proofread and amend any errors, then it'll be good to go.

But while Jonathan was in Denmark, the cover art came through. This was very good of our artists because they have a lot on at the moment. As well as their usual day to day work of letter-cutting at a stone masonry, their workshop at home is filled with queuing projects — two large statues of Our Lady in mid-transformation, a small herd of Gothic-looking reliquaries (very tall with loads of long pointy bits like gnarled stalagmites) that need repairing and gilding, a huge picture frame to be gilded, a taxidermied scene inside a case that needs cleaning and the background refreshing, and two busts of saints to be repainted. But they still managed to shoehorn in my book cover art.

What they sent through to me looks like this.

Which is perfect.

They still have to do the watercolour for the background coloration, and they say it's going to be blue and gold this time. I always trust their instincts which are pretty much flawless because they locate themselves in the Holy Spirit as well as being highly skilled and with a very good eye.

So all that's coming along well and I hope will all soon be ready to publish — though when it comes to publishing a book 'soon' doesn't mean 'tomorrow'. We do everything at warp speed, and it still feels like ages. But we can do in two months what would take 18 months in the world of traditional publishing. Anyway, I'll get back to you about it when it's all up and running, but I thought you might like to see the cover art, because I find it one of the most exciting parts.

I have no idea what my husband's cover art will be like — his book's about werewolves! He'll have a different artist, because my work aligns with the work of my artists, and I don't think his does particularly. I mean, they could draw you anything, but an artist's work has a spirit, doesn't it, a character, a personality, that has to sing in harmony with the story.

Songs for change

 So yesterday I was mulling over in my mind where we are headed as a society, and assessing how well our household has prepared for coming storms, according to the limited resources that are ours.

One thing that stands out for me is that, in the coming days, our deepest and most urgent need will be for one another, and the greatest contribution any one person will be able to bring is a trusting, peaceful and calm spirit — chilled out, cheerful and unafraid.

These considerations brought me back to the glorious Playing for Change Song Around the World videos, that exemplify this spirit of co-operation. Here are my favourites.

 

 

For me these songs make present to the imagination the power of ordinary people around the world to create a reality of harmony and hope, beauty unbowed and undaunted. Whatever happens to us, and however little we have, this can still be our North Star.

The two books I've written in the last year (but have been thinking about for ages), St Luke's Little Summer and The Light of One Lamp, are my own way of making present to the imagination this sense of strength through connection, the kindness by which we lift one another up, how we protect and nourish the dignity of the human spirit, and remain faithful in asserting that we are loved by God.

What Maria asked the brothers of St Alcuin

Maria sent me a question to ask the brothers at St Alcuins Abbey — she didn't mind who I asked, but wanted to know who their favourite saint was, and why. I know Brother Conradus has a particular devotion to Our Lady, but I didn't get as far as the kitchen to ask him about that.

*        *        *

The big double doors of St Alcuin’s gatehouse stand open much of the time, so carts and people on horseback can easily come and go; Brother Martin is always there in the porter’s lodge to greet and help anyone who arrives. To be fair, he’s also there to find out what they want — he’s a kind of living barrier, a human alternative to a gate, but a nice one, courteous and cheerful — at the same time as he represents the Benedictine principle of hospitality, making people welcome.

When the big doors are shut, the little postern door is left unbolted before sundown. Anyone who enters can come in and find Brother Martin and ask for who they need to see.

This seems as good a place to start as any. So I ask him, “Brother Martin, who is your favourite saint?”

It surprises me that he looks a bit embarrassed. “I find it hard to admit this," he confesses, "but St Martin of Tours is — my namesake. It seems rather self-centred. But he has a special place in my bin my heart for who he was, not just because I bear his name.”

I do know about St Martin of Tours, of course; I know he became a bishop but wasn't keen to be one. In fact he hid in the goose pen when they came to make him bishop — that level of not keen. But the thing he’s really famous for is cutting his cloak in half on a cold day, giving one half to a shivering beggar and keeping the other half for himself. That — dividing his cloak — turns out to be what specially endears him to Brother Martin (St Alcuin’s porter).

“I like that he was practical,” he explains. “It’s always felt like a particularly helpful pattern to follow. Because he could have given away the whole cloak, so the beggar was warm and he was half-frozen and caught a cold and got chilblains. Settling for half feels more realistic to me.”

I suggest to him that some people might think half a cloak is no use to anyone, so that far from being realistic he actually ensured that neither he nor the beggar had anything that could be of ongoing use to anybody. For a moment Brother Martin looks a bit put out, and then he says, “Oh! No, no. I see what you mean. You’re thinking the cloak would have been like ours, shaped across the shoulders, with a hood and a clasp. Oh, no, no no. St Martin was a Roman soldier. He wore a sagum, like a big blanket made of wool with the lanolin still in it to keep out the weather. It was just a simple rectangle that fastened on the shoulder with what they called a fiblula. Not a fibula, that’s a bone in your leg. A fiblula is a cloak pin like the Vikings had. So when he gave half his cloak away, they both had enough to manage, something to keep them warm. Not half a hood and something that would only serve for one side of you.” Then he looks at me, and begins to laugh. “You’re pulling my leg, aren't you! You knew that!”

Well, knew is overstating it, but yes, I guessed.

“I just liked that he was generous but not daft,” says Brother Martin. “He was sensible about it.”

The checker isn’t far from the gatehouse at St Alcuins, so I go there next.

“Oh, hello Little Ghost,” says Brother Cormac. “We haven’t seen you in an age. Well, I haven’t anyway. All well in the 21st century?”

I tell him it’s not really, and ask him to pray for us. He certainly knows what I’m talking about, because England wasn’t all peace and harmony in 1326 either, and he promises they will indeed hold us in their prayers. And I thank him and explain about Maria wondering who his favourite saint might be. I hazard a guess at Francis of Assisi, because I know what a soft spot Brother Cormac has for animals.

“I tend to feel that Francis — the Italian one — is the sole property of our prior,” he says. “It means a lot to him that he was given the same name. So, no, not him. I mean, he was a wonderful individual obviously, and had a kind of wholeheartedness that I certainly admire. But my favourite saint is St Melangell.”

As it happens I have an icon painting of Melangell that I can show you when I’ve finished writing this down, so I do know who he’s talking about, but I ask him to explain because you might not have heard of her. She lived in the 7th century and she's the patron saint of small creatures.

“She was an Irish woman,” he says (and I didn’t know that), “who crossed the sea to live in Wales as a hermit. A royal hunting party came after a hare in a valley there, and it took refuge with Melangell, hid under her cloak. She stood firm, and had no intention of giving up that hare. Prince Brochwel, who was the one doing the hunting, was actually rather charmed by her, not annoyed at all. He thought she was brave, and he could sense how holy she was. So he gave her the entire valley for her own, and she started an abbey there. What I treasure is not so much Prince Brochwel’s opinion, but what the hare thought of her. It recognised her as a safe place. And I honour that. I wish I could be the same. I have a special devotion to her, because she managed to be what I aspire to, but it’s out of my reach. I wish all living creatures could be safe from violence. She made something come true that I care about.”

Then he asks me about Maria, and I tell him a bit about her, and where she lives, and how her country is at war. He listens soberly, and then he says, "Oh! That Maria! Yes I know who you mean. Please tell her I will pray for her, that she will have courage, and peace, and be as safe under the protection of Jesus as the hare hidden under Melangell’s cloak."

And then they all have to go into Vespers, so I leave them to it and come back here, thinking how odd it is that both the men I asked chose as their favourite saint somebody who — in different ways — shared the warmth and shelter and refuge of their cloak.

[Icon painting of St Melangell by Alice Wilcock]

Orlando Gibbons

 I love the music of Orlando Gibbons.

This morning I've had — insistently — on my mind this hymn set to one of his melodies.

There were treasures in that pandemic lockdown time, and that socially distanced recording in Bath Abbey is one of them.

In case you don't know the words of that hymn, here they are:

Jesu, grant me this, I pray,

ever in thy heart to stay;

let me evermore abide

hidden in thy wounded side.

If the world or Satan lay

tempting snares about my way,

I am safe when I abide

in thy heart and wounded side.

If the flesh, more dangerous still,

tempt my soul to deeds of ill,

naught I fear when I abide

in thy heart and wounded side.

Death will come one day to me;

Jesu, cast me not from thee:

dying let me still abide

in thy heart and wounded side.

It was translated from the Latin in the Victorian era by an English cleric called Sir Henry William Baker, from the original 17th century Latin hymn Dignare me, O Jesu, rogo te found in German collections at Köln.

It's usually sung (as it in the video from Bath Abbey) to Orlando Gibbons' Song 13, otherwise known as Simplicity Song.

I think you can see the influence of William Byrd in that song — another composer whose music I love. I had Byrd's 3-part Mass in separate videos on my YouTube channel, and I've made a public playlist of it in case you'd like to listen to the whole thing, here. The recordings on that playlist were made all on one day in 1977 at York University's Lyons Concert Hall. I think it was Victor Lewis Smith who did the recording for them. The three voices are of Michael Guilding (tenor), Roger Wilcock (bass-baritone) and John Williams (counter-tenor). They were at that time all part of our inter-denominational St Martins Lane Community living off Micklegate in York, with Ampleforth's Fr. Fabian Cowper as our chaplain. The recording was made for Roger Wilcock's project on chant, submitted towards his bachelor's degree in music.

Orlando Gibbons' Simplicity Song is also one of the settings for W.H.Vanstone's hymn Morning Glory, Starlit Sky, which you can read here (it's under copyright so I can't reproduce the words in this post). I love that hymn, and graciously received permission to include a verse from it in the front matter of one of my Hawk & Dove novels. I can't find a recording of it set to Simplicity Song online, except there is this unlisted (again because of copyright on the words) recording of my family singing it at home (Roger Wilcock on the piano, and Grace, Hebe, Alice and me singing). Our voices were a bit crocked, because we'd been singing all afternoon! Roger on the piano is who was singing the bass line of the William Byrd 3-part Mass I linked for you, but fifty years later.

Another of Orlando Gibbons' compositions that I love is This is the Record of John. The 'John' in the song is, of course, John the Baptist; it's a setting of an extract from John's gospel — John 1.19-42.

Right, you're probably worn out with all these links! I'll leave you in peace.

x Pen

The Light of One Lamp

 St Luke's Little Summer, the Hawk & Dove story that was published just at the beginning of this month, is really one of a pair. They are both part of the Hawk & Dove stories in the usual way, but in these two books I particularly wanted to address some of the spiritual discipleship issues arising out of the very challenging times we're passing through.

I think these issues broadly fall into two subject areas. The first is about holding our light steady in times of turbulence — trusting in God's provision for occasions when we are out of our depth, worried or afraid. For such times we need to understand how to initiate and develop a steady practice, so we are not tossed about on the stormy waves. It also helps for us to understand that we can in effect create our own world: we don't have to live in the one served up by social media and the daily news. It's about realising (making real, bringing into reality) that we are made in the image of God, and God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit — Creator, Redeemer, Sustainer.

So we can create (by our initiatives and decisions) the reality we want to see in the world, because we are made in the image of God who is Creator. Then we can sustain that reality to establish and grow it on, because we are made in the image of God who is the Sustainer. But there's an important third aspect/possibility that arises from the Incarnation of God in Jesus. Because Jesus is our Redeemer, we also have the capacity to forgive and redeem by virtue of being made in the image of God. That means when things go awry, we have an innate corrective power — we have the capacity not only to initiate and establish, but also to correct and put right what has gone adrift.

This is activated in us by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all flesh at Pentecost, after Jesus took all humanity up to heaven and rooted us there at the ascension. All we have to do is ask him, turn to him, put our trust in him, and his power is enabled in our core being. Until we ask, it is there (because we are made in the image of God), but not activated (because God made us free). He respects our boundaries.

So the book we recently published, St Luke's Little Summer, is about these things, the dynamic flow of power that allows us to envision and initiate something new by our choices, hold it steady by our discipline and practice, and correct for mistakes and disasters by the constant power of renewal within us (the risen Christ who makes us more than conquerors).

But there's a second issue very potent in present times — the matter of polarity and antagonism. The world seems everywhere to be dividing into oppositional factors; and, as you know, Jesus prayed that we would all be one, so it isn't him doing it!

Wherever I look, I see people of conviction and good faith at loggerheads with one another, unable to see each other's point of view, and severing friendship connections for the sake of antagonistic ideological stances. We can do better than this.

So I have written a second story into this time of fights and arguments, about the discipleship qualities necessary for us to hold the line and maintain unity. It's all the usual things of forbearance, kindness, humility and the willingness to apologise and put things right, but if you have a story about it then it's easier to get it into your imagination — and your imagination is the compost in which ideas can put down roots and grow.

Because I wanted them both out for this Now moment, I wrote the second book absolutely lickety-split to get them both out together. I've been working on it with my best focus for the last few months. And now it's written and been edited, and gone to Jonathan for formatting; but he's just off for a week in Denmark, so he'll work on it when he gets back. The cover copy is ready, all that's yet to come in is the cover art, and the artists assure me it's next on their list, they're stretching the paper for the background colour wash this weekend.

Once the text and cover have gone to Jonathan then come back, Tony and I have to proofread at this end, and then the proofs will have to be corrected before uploading for publication. 

I'm hoping that by the end of May we'll have this next Hawk & Dove story ready for you.

It's called The Light of One Lamp, and it will be the last Hawk & Dove book of all — the conclusion of thirty-six years' worth of writing this series of novels!

I'll let you know when it's done. Meanwhile don't forget to review St Luke's Little Summer on Amazon if you can manage to do that.

x Pen

Clothing

 What determines your choice of clothing?

Tell me about it; I'm interested.

I think it's different for different people.

For me there are five determinants.

Firstly, my body is hypermobile, so I always wear soft, stretchy clothes. If I wear tailored woven garments, they are stronger than my body is. If I wear heavy clothes — like thick jumpers in cotton or wool — they are too heavy. If I wear shoes in thick leather, they hurt my ankles and give me blisters. So everything has to be soft and elastic, because that's what my body is — my skin, joints, blood vessels, muscles. I'm quite strong but very floppy; I look for the same in clothes. The fabrics have to be soft to the touch, not at all scratchy or rough. I mostly have polyester sweaters/hoodies, either knitted or fleece, and cotton t-shirts (or polo shirts) underneath.

For the same reason I always wear Birkenstock shoes, because my feet and ankles are soft and collapse-y. I buy them secondhand because Birkenstock shoes changed. They became heavier and very unyielding. My feet don't wear shoes in, it's more the other way round. So I look for the old sort on eBay. I have a small collection (three pairs) that I hope will live longer than I do.

Secondly, I like clothes that are modest, that enclose my body and make a kind of shelter to live in, and keep myself private and peaceful living inside the clothes. In consequence I tend to buy tops about 2 sizes larger than what measurements would suggest. I am not ashamed of my body but I don't want people to look at it. I don't want it to catch anyone's attention. I prefer to be a kind of ambulant mind. I always wear long sleeves and high necks, and either long trousers or long skirts.

Thirdly, there are some colours I'm always drawn to. For tops I best like mid-deep blue, or warm orangey/brick reds. I have a couple of beige or grey or black tops, but I don't like them so much. I buy my clothes second-hand on eBay, so I have to choose from what there is available once the essential criteria (soft, stretchy, modest) are satisfied, and that means sometimes having a colour I like less. Bright colours make me feel very tired; I think they must have some kind of vibration or resonance — I'm better with soft/deep colours. The photo below is one of the sorts of red I can wear, almost orange, but I prefer a brownish brick red really. It just depends what there is on eBay.

I like this colour better, but it's thick jacket not a top.

Fourthly, I don't usually wear patterned clothes: solid colours or checks. I do have one floral skirt that I made, and one floral dress. 

Fifthly, I have to consider shoes in buying the bottom half of my clothing. In the winter I wear warm socks and Birkenstock lace-up shoes, and I have massive feet —UK11, EU45 for shoes, UK10, EU44 for sandals. That limits the types of clothes I can wear, unless I want to look unbelievably weird; and I don't like drawing attention to myself.  

I like skirts, but they look dreadful with my shoes and socks, okay with sandals and bare feet in the summer. So through the winter I mostly wear the kind of trousers that are jogging bottoms or sweatpants or whatever you know them as — soft, warm, thick, stretchy, and a relaxed shape. I have several pairs of trousers. One is straight-legged, Lands End in their Serious Sweats range that I got on eBay. Really comfy. Dark blue and very faded, which I like. My other pairs of trousers are from Sainsburys (their Tu clothing), in a barrel leg style. Two black pairs I got from eBay (both being sold together), and a green pair also from eBay. But I have three pairs (one grey, two black) that I bought new because Tu clothes are almost as cheap as eBay prices. That's a lot of trousers. Three of them (black, Tu) are shorter than the others, as is often the case with barrel leg style, but I don't like them as much. I don't like having loads of clothes, so I'll probably send them to the charity shop at some point.

So, in the winter I have Birkis and warm socks, baggy sweatpants, and a long-sleeved cotton t-shirt or polo shirt (all my tops have long sleeves), then with a roll-neck sweater or hoodie on top, then a fleece gilet over that, or a fleece jacket if it's very cold. I don't have any full-length coats except a voluminous packable rain mac, which I almost never wear even if it's raining because the swishy sound gets in my ears and I hate it.

In the summer I mostly wear skirts (I make my skirts, shop ones are always too skimpy) with a polo shirt and sandals.

Standard undies are useless for me, too tight-fitting and uncomfy. Under trousers I wear Patra silk short johns (fab, I love them) and under skirts I wear cropped PJ jersey bottoms. I can't stand proper bras so I wear what are accurately described as comfort bras — stretchy pull-on things that are for modesty, not to create a body shape. I have three vests (underwear) that I occasionally wear when it's really cold, but mostly I add extra outer layers rather than extra under layers.

I wear fingerless gloves in cold weather. I have a couple of knitted hats and quite a lot of kantha cotton ones I made myself (see here and here). I like wearing hats; they kind of enclose my mind and keep it peaceful.

And yes, if you were wondering by now, I am what is known as neurodivergent (not keen on the term). My whole family is.

I always wear earrings, but rarely any other jewellery, not even a wedding ring. My hands change size from moment to moment (because of the hypermobility) so I've had rings fall off when I've been buying frozen peas — there's no point.

How about you? What are your criteria?

Shepherds

 We moved house numerous times when I was a child. My mother had a specific goal in mind. A farmer's daughter, born in 1927, raised in a Yorkshire village, she came of a family that was traditional in its thinking — shrewd, capable, intelligent, but not sophisticated. Her father was what they call a self-made man; born in poverty and determined to get out of it, which he did, with astounding success. Born poor, he died rich. The ladder he climbed was held steady by his wife, my grandmother, the daughter of educated and relatively intellectual people full of political and spiritual ideas — and equally as capable of making something out of nothing and building a life from small beginnings.

Because of the traditional thinking aspect of things, my mother — one of 3 sisters, 2 being married and one unmarried, and also with an older brother — inherited some of this wealth, but a relatively small portion, because my grandfather saw men as the protectors of women, so he left most of what he had to his son, and smaller portions to his married daughters than his unmarried daughter. I could keep you here all day on how that turned out, but maybe better not. Let us just say that the reality of people's lives does not always correspond with our imagined version.

Even so, my mother did inherit some money from her various relatives at various times. She always and only put it towards one thing — no holidays, no expensive celebrations, no treats — property investment.

In consequence, and as her adult life was synchronous with the property boom, she moved our family up the property ladder until we lived in a 13th century cottage with five acres, including a river running through the garden and a protective slope of woodland encircling it. And there, as well as hens, we kept sheep.

My mother had a byre constructed in the field below the wood and across the river, so her sheep would have somewhere to shelter at night and in bad weather. Every night as dusk fell, she would go out after she'd watered the flowers and the vegetables and the greenhouse, across the bridge that we'd built over the river (just a plank when we arrived!) and call to her sheep, "Are you all right, boys?" (They weren't all male, but never mind that). And the sheep would all call back to her.

In the morning, as soon as she was up and dressed, she'd go out to check on the sheep. In the summer, especially when they were in the orchard — because you have to move them from place to place and let the ground rest, so they don't get worms and the grass replenishes — she looked them over carefully for blow-fly, checked how they were walking to make sure none of them had foot-rot. She raised them as orphan lambs under an infra-red lamp in our barn, and if any were especially frail she bedded them down in the kitchen beside the Rayburn stove to keep warm.

They knew her voice, and they followed her when she called them (rattling a bucket of sheep nuts helped as well). She'd bottle-fed them from babyhood, and they trusted her. She was their shepherd.

I am thinking back to those times, because there has never been a time in my life when I wanted a pastor more. Present-day clergy do not know how to pastor the flock. 

When I was a girl growing up, the rector would come once a year to our home for a pastoral visit. But every day he was at the church to say Matins and Evensong, so I could go and join in, just be there alongside, become a friend. It was how he made himself pastorally available.

In the days when I was a church pastor — a Methodist minister — I followed what all my colleagues and predecessors did: the morning for desk work (sermons, correspondence, preparation for meetings etc), the afternoons for visiting, and the evenings for meetings.

I expected to visit everyone in my congregation routinely at least twice a year. Then, if they were sick or in trouble or in hospital, I always went to see them. If they were dying, I was there with them (unless it was sudden and unexpected). I listened to them, knew them, knew their homes and heard their stories. I went to their home groups on a regular basis. And when I preached in church it was as a pastor — understanding that sheep are gathered by the voice of a shepherd they know trust. You cannot build trust without spending time with people, walking alongside them not only as a crowd but as individuals.

This was the norm: not all the ministers did that, but many did; and if you were in trouble they would help you. But it seems to have faded out and disappeared. By about twenty years ago, it had gone. I saw the last remnants of it when my husband Bernard was dying, and there were still true shepherds among the clergy who cared for us and came to find us, and prayed with us.

In my present marriage, my husband has been very ill more than once. Each time, no one came. I was emailed by our then pastor who said he hoped Tony would soon be better. Yes, he had pneumonia too badly for it to be safe to admit him to hospital; I hoped so too! And Tony wasn't an occasional attender, he was a church warden.

In the churches I've tried recently, there was one pastor who actually drove me out, and a couple who did me the courtesy of letting me exist, it being of no concern to them if I was in their church or not. And you know what? It's of no concern to me, either. 

When I was a student at York university in the 1970s, Father Fabian Cowper, an Ampleforth monk, was the Catholic chaplain. Fabian lived in the Catholic chaplaincy alongside a motley crew of Catholic students, and we loved him. He was there. You could talk to him. He was quiet and unobtrusive, but so full of loving-kindness. He took for his study the cupboard under the stairs on the middle floor of the house, so everyone who came and went inevitably passed him as he sat there working at his desk in that little cubbyhole. So it was easy to just pause and say hi. This was how he kept an eye on everyone. He didn't interfere, but he made himself accessible. The theology group he ran at More House (the chaplaincy) was one of the most inspiring and formative things I've ever known. Fabian was a shepherd. He knew how to care for the flock.

It wasn't just Fabian, either. David Watson was the incumbent at St Michael-le-Belfrey in York when we lived there. I never met him, but my (first) husband did. He had some questions he wanted to ask him about the faith, so David invited him round to talk it through. You ever met a present-day clergyman who does that?

Most of my life has been spent solving problems and making the money stretch and looking after people and creating opportunities for people to explore and discover the Gospel.

I have reached a place where I am tired and discouraged and lonely, and most of my human contact is online. I am conserving and watering and feeding the little plant of hope in my soul, but it's looking very sickly. I never needed a pastor more than I do now. But I think they are extinct. All we have now is clergymen. There's a difference.

Amazon thoughts, and book reviews

 Thank you so much to friends who have found their way to my new book St Luke's Little Summer. 

I hope you're enjoying the story. I don't write them like the advice I've occasionally come across from professional writers — about creation of characters and building a narrative and developing a plot and adding a plot twist and all that sort of thing. It's more like what C.S.Lewis talked about, going through the wardrobe into Narnia; finding my inside world and spending time there, and then writing it down. So when I finish a book, I usually can't remember what I've written and I don't know if it's any good. But I just put it where people can find it if they want to, mainly because it's the only thing I have, and all of us are supposed to offer something, aren't we?

So Amazon reviews are helpful to me because it gives me a sense of what people have found/seen in what I have written. It helps me know if the story landed, and where and how.

The other reason Amazon reviews are important is that Amazon... well, it's a good name for it really. The Amazons were pugilistic, strong, muscular, strategic, almost invincible, and not very interested in personal relationship. Not much room for nuance.

My experience has been that Amazon (like traditional publishers) sees a book as product; I would say, not even as a product, just product — grist to a heartless mill. It is — again, like traditional publishers — Mammonesque. The last traditional publisher I worked with developed an approach where the criteria for taking on a book was that it would make £27,000, and they meant quickly not slowly, and that was several years ago (prices have risen; I expect you've noticed). Any lower sales predictions and they weren't interested, no matter what the book said, not even if it was beautiful and wise and opened the imagination to hope. Not that, just the £27k. I concluded their path and mine had diverged, picked up my work and went my own way.

But there has to be a means to make a story available to be read, a mechanism, and of course mechanisms don't have hearts as such. Amazon is good for people like me, because it offers the possibility of people anywhere being able to have the thing you're offering. For instance, every now and then a home-ed program in Colorado asks me to send them 160 books. I'm just a person in England living in a house that looks a lot like like this —

🏠

— and doesn't even have a garage. How the heck would I generate 160 books and send them to Colorado? But Amazon can do this with no trouble at all. And it means that 80 new families (because they ask for 80 copies of the first two titles in the series) get to read about Father Peregrine, and how brave he was and full of faith and willing to do his best because he belonged to Jesus. So the deal is that I have the heart and they have the mechanism. 

Now, you cannot serve God and Mammon, you have to choose. We know this because Jesus said it. So right at the beginning when I started writing stories for publication, I had to give that some thought. What I decided was that I wouldn't do marketing as such. I wouldn't ever try to promote myself. I would only ever just be a person who goes through the wardrobe into Narnia and comes out with the story of whatever was there. So I put into my stories my best hope and what I believe and how I think it all works and what feels like it might help with whatever's happening in the world, and then I just make it available.

Something I like a lot about Amazon is that their publishing program is just a mechanism. I can put what I like through it. That means I can choose the covers. Our book covers are created by Jonathan, who was the covers man for Lion Hudson, he's really good. But the art for the covers is by my daughters Hebe and Alice. Here they are working on another project for a church.

When I worked with a traditional publisher, the covers were considered a marketing exercise, and I had no say in them. They often used stock images or were created by some kind of electronic method.

My covers for the Hawk & the Dove books are hand-drawn by Alice and Hebe to convey what I tell them is at the heart of the book. And the lettering on the front is also hand-drawn by them, because they are calligraphers as well. If you look at the lettering on the front of St Luke's Little Summer you can see that one m is not exactly identical to another m — or one t has a longer tail to the crosspiece than in the adjacent t. That's because they are individually drawn.

Alice and Hebe love the living earth and they love God. Alice is one of few people I know who has seen an angel. They have a cat who is dearly loved and whose wellbeing they set above their own. They have grown and they tend the most beautiful garden, seeking out native plants from organic sources. 

That's why the sketchy flowers on the cover of St Luke's Little Summer look believable, and the cat looks like a real cat.

I couldn't have had that with a traditional publisher. 

So Amazon offers a wonderful mechanism for making true work of the soul available to people. And they let us set the price to make it affordable, and we put the stories onto Kindle Unlimited which works out cheapest of all for people.

Not only that, but with a traditional publisher it goes like this. All their staff have to pay their mortgages and buy their groceries and raise their families and run their cars out of the money the books make. So they give the person who wrote the book a royalty of about 10% from each book sold. And they give massive discounts (typically 60%) to bookshops. So if you buy a book in a bookshop you can estimate the author will have earned 10% of 40% of the cover price — which will be as high as they think you will pay. 

If you buy a book of mine on Amazon, you can know this — the cover artists were only paid anything because I insist; Jonathan works on each book for hours for remuneration that would hardly feed a mouse let alone a whole publishing department; my editor is the man I married after working with him as my publisher for twenty years and he never charges me anything at all; we keep the prices as low as we can; Amazon does take a cut but I earn loads more from each book than with a traditional publisher; half of the profits from my stories in our Humilis Hastings imprint go to the Carthusian brothers in West Sussex (here).

But (there's always a 'but', isn't there) because Amazon is essentially heartless and sees everything sold through it merely as product, their main driver is customer satisfaction.

One of the Hawk & Dove books had lots of reviews in the original edition with the traditional publisher, but when we got the rights back, and republished it under our own Humilis Hastings imprint, it didn't have any new readers for a while, and therefore no reviews to the new edition. Then someone left a one-star review, but with no comment so we didn't know why — didn't they like the story, or did the postie lose the parcel, or what? Amazon pulled the book; took it out of publication. No amount of correspondence with their robots could let us get to the bottom of what the problem was: all we could access was redirection to a page with every possible customer satisfaction problem a book might have. So we just changed the ISBN and republished it, this time sending out a plea to any friends who'd read it to come along and leave a review. And their reviews have kept it safe so it's still available to this day (that was The Hour Before Dawn).

I'm telling you all this so that you know how very important your reviews are on Amazon. If, when you read St Luke's Little Summer, you have anything you'd like to say about it at all, I'll be most thankful if you go and leave an Amazon review. To have a mix of paperback reviews and ebook reviews would be the best of all. 

And be honest in what you say, because honesty is a beautiful thing and because the Lord sees.

Four accessibilities

 At an earlier point in my life I was a Methodist minister.

My first pastorate was a kind of hit-the-ground-running situation while I was still training. At that time I was the free-church chaplain for our hospice, and involved in a prison chaplaincy run by another Methodist minister in our Circuit, and I was a Local Preacher (a prerequisite for training for presbyteral ministry in the Methodist Church) and the Circuit tutor for all the new Local Preachers. I had a particular interest in inclusive church, and what that might mean. At that time I was also writing books and raising a family — my five children were aged between five and twelve.

During this time, the Methodist Church had a motion brought to Conference (its national governing body) that all people who were 'actively' homosexual, and all people who spoke up for them, should be debarred from lay or ordained office and church membership. Looking back, I think it was good that happened, because it was such an extreme position that it acted as the catalyst for change in the Methodist Church. The President of Conference that year (Revd Brian Beck) prevented antagonism escalating into schism by adroitly channelling it into being a pastoral issue (rather than a matter of governance) and so set the frame for slow and consultative exploration of that whole area of morality and social structure. 

But it didn't look like a good thing at the time. I panicked because. if it had gone through, I — an ordinand and Local Preacher — would have found myself no longer even a church member. I am personally heterosexual, but I certainly wanted to speak up for homosexual brothers and sisters.

I should make clear that I am dismayed by what that area of inclusion has now turned into — trans life experience morphing into first a tribal identity and then an agenda and then an ideology with downward seepage into the lives of young children, both in terms of conceptual influence and on to puberty blockers and then surgery. It starts even with pre-schoolers and I am not comfortable with any of that. But back in the timeframe I'm talking about, what I wanted to support (still do) was full inclusion on the same basis as heterosexual Christians for homosexuals who were happy to make the same commitment to permanent, stable, faithful, sacramental partnerships. 

So battle royal broke out in our church — it was on the Evangelical end of the spectrum, and the inclusion of homosexual members was unthinkable to many of our people. About a third of the membership left, and the minister found it all too much and moved on, leaving a church membership torn apart and now with no leader. So the Methodist Church let me add being its minister to my list of things to do.

Into the painful gap left by the very able departing members — nearly all our musicians, and several had been church leaders of one kind or another — stepped a posse of profoundly disabled people who attended that church. As I was given the leadership, I was free to preach and teach and promote an emphasis on inclusive church. We looked at ways to make our church family-friendly and disability-friendly, with ramps and a disabled toilet and a hearing loop, and armchairs for those who couldn't sit on a regular pew, and a big area with toys and books and beanbags for kiddies.

The church grew, in a variety of ways I won't go into or it would make this post go on for ever, along the lines of a set of principles I had in mind, that I thought of as the four accessibilities:

• Accessibility of the building
• Accessibility of the worship
• Financial accessibility
• Social accessibility

What that meant was as follows:

Accessibility of the building is familiar to us now (not so much then). We looked at what we could do to make it a welcoming space for people with various disabilities (eg wheelchair-dependent, or hearing impaired), and for children, and people with cognitive disorders (some of our people could only crawl and couldn't sit up straight) — we did what we could to make it a place that felt welcoming and friendly to everyone. Bottom line: people won't come if they can't get in.

Accessibility of the worship meant presenting high-quality theology in a form that all ages and abilities could relate to. Many of our members with disabilities were brought to church by care home staff, who brought sweets to eat and magazines to read, to keep themselves occupied while the church service went on. My goal as preacher Sunday by Sunday was to get to the place where the care workers forgot to not listen, and put down their magazines and stopped eating. We also involved a whole raft of theatre people and musicians from our town who had no church affiliation. They came to help out with the music; they stayed because they felt at home.  We placed a strong emphasis on the music ministry, because in the stories of the Old Testament, at important times like parting the Red Sea or going into battle, the band always went in first. And we placed a strong emphasis on repetition; we stuck to a relatively small repertoire of songs, we would take our time (weeks or months) over developing a spiritual teaching, and we always had a sung form of the Lords Prayer (the traditional words not the new form) to embed it by familiarity. We did other things too, like a strong emphasis on story. And I had a belief that if people don't enjoy it they won't come back; so we had a good time.

Financial accessibility meant that both rich and poor could come to church on an equal basis. There were no fundraisers to catch you out or embarrass you. Whoever you were, you could just come. Twice a year we put on a community project of some kind — a pantomime or a tea dance with strawberries-and-cream teas or the performance (all hands on deck) of a kind of oratorio type thing, with dance as well as songs and readings etc, which I and my children's father had written. We had faith teas (potluck suppers). Everything was free. I believe in the grace/gift economy. We were able to pay our bills. The membership grew. No one was ashamed or embarrassed or left out because they couldn't afford to join in.

Social accessibility meant that we kept everything simple so no one felt left out. Nothing was fancy or pretentious. We had all sorts in that church, from intellectuals and professional people right down to street drinkers still clutching their cans of beer (removed at the door on the way in). In those days I always used to preach in bare feet, and that, too, meant what we did wasn't elegant and out of reach.

It was an exciting and joyous stretch of ministry. I have happy memories of it. We had a wide spectrum of music — everything from Parry's I was glad to old choruses from Youth Praise. I specially remember the Sunday we sang the Hallelujah chorus from Handel's Messiah. Our choir was a motley bunch of old ladies, not very good, but we were augmented by a crowd of music theatre performers who had sort of made it their church. It was splendid. It was glorious. And as the last Hallelujah rang out, I caught the eye of one of the old ladies in the choir, just bowled over by being part of something so triumphant and magnificent. And then in the silence at the end of it, one of our learning disabled men said loudly, "Well, ain't that nice!" It certainly  was.

All so long ago now, but I will never forget it, and I still believe in those four accessibilities.

Personal resources in financially challenging times

 Because of how things are rolling at the moment — political ideologies, geo-political tensions, etc — there is a constant undercurrent of uncertainty about food security, energy security and supplies.

When government wants to alter our way of living, the first method is usually to apply financial pressure, mixed in with information pointing us in a particular direction. So I assume we can expect that the cost of living will further increase with a particular squeeze on the more nutritious foods.

This in turn means that we have to adjust downwards to stay solvent.

Since the whole of my life from childhood to the present day has been characterised by having a small disposable income, I thought it might help to share some of the approach I've found useful.

The first thing is to stay out of, or get free of, debt. This is an often overlooked New Testament principle, arising from the teaching of Jesus and of St Paul. The New Testament recognises that freedom is essential in determining, and putting into action, life choices, and recommends believers to protect that freedom by staying free of debt and being cautious about commitments and entanglements. 

After that, the next step is to evaluate one's resources. These broadly fall into three categories — time, energy and money. Most people are not rich in all three, but recognising that they are equally valuable helps in forming a strategy. If an example is useful, think of my mother. She chose to be a stay-at-home mother, and my father's income was low. So we were not money-rich. But she had plenty of energy, and because she stayed home to raise her family, she had not sold her time, she still had it. She used her time and energy to grow our food — vegetables, fruit, hens for eggs, and later sheep as well (obtained cheaply by taking on orphaned lambs and growing them on). This may not apply to you in an urban setting, it's just an instance of identifying which of the 3 resources you have, and putting them to good use.

You may not have a garden as we did in my childhood, but if you have time and energy you can learn about wild food and forage it. In the town where I live, there is enough wild fruit (blackberries, and self-seeded apples or unwanted pears/apples dropped on the ground from people who have trees), and greens (dandelions, nettles, ramsens and tri-cornered leek or whitebells), and mushrooms, that given the time and the energy I could cover my fruit/veg requirements without money. Plus in the summer people put out on their garden walls unwanted produce from their gardens (zucchini/courgettes especially).

People have started fly-tipping a lot, for reasons I won't go into here, but it's allowed me to scavenge a fair few non-food items like furniture and household items. 

So the triad of time, money and energy is important to consider and evaluate how it applies to you.

The next thing is to recognise that relying on capital is dangerous, in that it creates a false sense of security. It goes faster than you think, and then what? So it's important to place an emphasis on income rather than capital — and reduced expenditure is in a sense a form of income, because the less you rely on money the less it matters how much you have of either capital or income, and the freer you become — less subject to coercion by others.

A good use of capital at the present time (in my opinion) is to create a bulwark — so, to clear debts, and then to create some prepper resources like solar panels or a power station (eg a Bluetti or Jackery, like people who live in RVs have) or plant a garden, or get in a sensible (not massive, don't go mad) stock of supplements/meds, toiletries, tinned foods etc, so you are covered for power outages and supply disruptions. 

Then there's another important thing — adjustment of expectations.

We have adjusted up to a very consumerist society, where leisure and making a purchase are almost inextricably linked. Gone are the days when all hospitality required was a pack of cards and the makings of a cup of tea, or a piano in the living room. Going for a walk together is not most people's idea of a jaunt.

As the cost of living rises, it's helpful to adjust down our expectations rather than increasing our debts. This adjustment isn't quick to do, because habits are so ingrained we don't notice we have them. The objective is to ensure that income covers outgoings and leaves something over to set aside for inevitable unforeseen costs.

Our decisions (life choices) develop our habits, and our habits develop our expectations, and our expectations drive our costs.

So to adjust down for reduced circumstances, it's imperative to begin noticing our habits (carefully track and review expenditure), and then interrupt this cycle. 

Here are some of my life choices:

YES to 

• certain supplements for protecting and repairing my health
• high quality food
• food sourced from British farms, bought directly as much as possible to protect national food security from our short-sighted government
• church collection, Christmas and birthday gifts for my children and grandchildren, support for my Carthusian friends

NO to

• holidays
• meals out
• subscriptions — gym, journals, online Substack etc

SOMETIMES (monthly financial limit) to

• 2nd-hand clothes from eBay
• books
• a coffee in town
• ticket to a concert where family members are performing

I track all expenditure and we save monthly amounts to cover annual or occasional costs like car servicing, boiler servicing, house insurance, automobile recovery, window-cleaner, etc. I have two separate ledgers, one for my personal expenditure and one for household expenditure. We (me and my husband) put a monthly amount into a household account to cover all outgoings and generate a modest surplus to cover occasional unbudgeted bills as they come up.

So the life choices are made on the basis of how much money is available, on the Mr Micawber principle (see footnote below).

From our life choices our habits develop, so the life choice is our point of intervention/alteration/adjustment. It's normal and human to need some fun, something to cheer us up, something to look forward to.

As consumerism (a life choice) has gradually increased (and become a habit), many of us have developed the expectation/assumption that 'fun' equals 'a purchase'. But it need not. The task is to redefine 'fun'. 

So, if 'fun' means going out somewhere, that can be a walk in the woods or by the sea, or a coffee with a neighbour, or a game of cards or watching a movie on the TV together — rather than a takeaway meal or a cinema trip or a visit to the garden centre (with associated purchases) or a stately home (with entrance fee).

At first, this is hard (and lonely, while others are still taking the money route). The expectations we have developed from our habits mean we reflexively turn to occupations with associated costs. By not joining in with a family meal out this last week, not buying anyone Easter eggs or cards, not going to the garden centre for some plants for the garden, and not renewing my choir membership, I think I have saved at least £150. And that's just one week.

Those were not easy choices and involved some heart-searching and conversation. But it is by making such choices that new habits are formed and affordable expectations developed, keeping one financially safe as costs of living rise.

The choices I made instead, were to visit with different family members with whom I chatted and watched a movie on telly, to just make Easter about going to church not buying chocolate, to get new plants by taking cuttings from friends' established plants, and to sing hymns by myself at home (singing with family round the piano would be even better, and I do request that sometimes but they do have busy lives).

There comes a point where a collapsing economy takes us past what our personal strategies can cover. Even so, if we are used to adjusting down, making choices that develop new habits that shape different expectations, then we will have laid down a track to follow in even the toughest times.

I hope all that may be food for thought, and I'd be most interested to read anyone's related observations in the comments. 

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FOOTNOTE

The Mr. Micawber principle, from Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, defines financial success as spending slightly less than one's income, and misery as spending slightly more. It highlights that living within your means leads to happiness, while debt leads to misery. The principle emphasises that small financial actions have significant consequences over time. 

Core Components of the Micawber Principle: 

• The Formula: "Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six [19s 6d], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds and six [20s 6d], result misery".
• Significance: It is considered a foundational principle of personal finance, focusing on discipline and managing the gap between income and expenses.
• Source: Named after Wilkins Micawber, a character known for extreme optimism, who often says "something will turn up". 

Key Takeaways: 

• Discipline: The principle warns that if you continually spend more than you earn, you will face financial ruin.
• Proactive Management: It suggests that financial success is built on small, consistent, and positive financial choices.