Headcoverings 2 of 2

I wear headcoverings mostly just because I like them. One of the things I enjoy is that there is a sort of spiritual resonance/connotation, and I feel the energy/vibration of it when I wear a head covering. 

In my case, it isn't a statement — it's not an ideological declaration — but it exerts an undeniable influence on how I feel. It emanates peace for me, and is a reminder to live quietly and intentionally. It speaks to me of the slowness and simplicity I would like to characterise the path I choose to walk.

But it's not a partisan affiliation of any kind, religious or cultural. It's just me.

Here is how to make the kind I wear.

I make them from vintage kantha scarves sourced on eBay from India.

Here's one I made a hat from today. 

They are made from two sheets of Indian cotton stitched together, so this is the reverse side.

The hat is made to fit my own head, so the sizing for one you make will depend on your head size and how loose/tight you like it to be. You might need to experiment a bit. 

There's only two measurements you need — the first is from behind the lower part of your right ear up over your head to behind the lower part of your left ear. For me that's a little less than 20 inches. I have a M/L size head.

You'll also be sewing a channel for elastic, so you need to add on an inch or so to accommodate that.

The second measurement is the front to back (brow to back of head). For me that's about 15/16 inches plus an allowance for the channel I'll be sewing for the gathering elastic. So I cut at maybe 16.5 inches.

Here's the piece I cut from the kantha scarf to make my hat.

Next, you cut it into a sort of flattened D shape, like this.  

Then you use a steam iron to press the raw edge in. You can stitch that down if you're feeling industrious, or just leave it pressed like this.

Then fold and press again to make a channel for the elastic to thread through.

Stitch it down all the way round. 

The stitches will show through on the other side of course, but it won't matter, as you'll soon see.

Now you are ready to put in the elastic. This is how much I use.

Yes. I can never get over how short a piece it is! about 5 inches, just over.

You use a safety pin to thread elastic through the channel. 

The tail needs to be pinned in place so it doesn't just get pulled through.

The elastic gathering is what determines how loose/tight the hat will be, so you'd be wise in the first instance to pin before you sew. The elastic has to be sewed in place very firmly, because it's under such tension. You won't want to be unpicking that again. Pin first, then sew.

Then, when you are happy with the result, stitch the elastic in place really well at the 2 ends of the channel, both the protruding ends and where you can feel it inside the channel.

That's all. You're done.

You can see that though one side makes a contrast edging, it doesn't matter, that looks fine as a decorative detail. The hat is still reversible.

Here it is on.

Front.

Side.

Reversed.

Done. Hand-sewn, one and a half hours max. 

Headcoverings 1 of 2

 Headcoverings have been happy travelling companions for me over about 25 years.

At the point we came into the 21st century, I liked wearing a tied scarf. Here's a photo of what I wore back then.  

Here's a demonstration (outdoors on a breezy day!) by my daughter Hebe, who first showed me how to tie a scarf like this. You take a square headscarf, fold it in half into a triangle, position it as you wish on your head, tie the long ends at the nape of your neck, roll the long ends lengthwise, bring them up to cross over the top of your head like a crown, tuck each end round and round into the opposite one to secure them, then tuck in the loose bit left at the nape of your neck.

Though this wasn't hard, I wanted something easier.

Around 2008 or so, I got interested in the kapps the Amish wear. I had some, but they looked a bit like a costume in our neighbourhoods, so about 2010 I went on to making my own hats — quick and easy to slip on, and (slightly) less culturally weird for where I live.

I wore these for a while, sometimes with my hair longer sometimes shorter like this photo below which must have been around 2012. I adapted the hats to be larger and looser, moving away from the style that perches on the back of the head in favour of one that sits on the head like a normal hat.

The ones I made at that time were from old dishtowels that I over-dyed.

As time went on, I preferred to stay with the same simple style (if you ever watch my Campfire Church thinkabouts on my Youtube channel, you can see the evolution of hair and hats).

This summer just gone, I wanted to make some new ones, but I didn't have the right kind of fabric. I wanted something soft and vintagey — old dishtowels are just right, but we had a new washing machine and my housemates felt no enthusiasm for ruining it with clothes dye.

So then I decided to cut up a kantha shawl I'd had for some years. It's been used as a curtain and a table cloth and an altar cloth, but mostly it just sat around unused.

The great thing about kantha stoles/shawls/scarves is that they are double-sided, so you get two hats in one. Also they are made from vintage saris, so they are soft Indian cotton in the first place, made sublimely soft by much use and wear. You can get two or three hats out of one scarf, and as they are reversible that's in effect 6 hats. You don't have to be a mathematician to figure out that's a whole lot cheap than buying a head covering on Etsy.

Here's one I made this summer.

This is what it looks like from the side. 

In the next post I'm going to show you how to make them, because recently a lady approached me in the grocery store wanting to know where I got my hat from. So in case you like them too, I'm going to show you how. 

Spiritual Care of Dying and Bereaved people — re-issued

 Back in 1996 I wrote a book called Spiritual Care of Dying and Bereaved People, published by SPCK. It came out of the years I spent working on a volunteer basis at a hospice, where I was the Free-Church Chaplain.

At that time, there was great consternation about caring for AIDS patients in the terminal phase of illness, and LBTQ+ people had far less in the way of rights and recognition and social inclusion than they do today — all of which was reflected in some parts of that book.

By 2008, much had changed. I revised the book to leave out the sections I felt now had less relevance, but I also added in some other chapters. In the years that had passed since the first edition, I'd done some thinking about experiences of bereavement arising from other situations than a physical death, and thought that worth including. I had worked with hundreds of bereaved people crafting funeral ceremonies specifically for their needs and outlook on life (rather than expecting them to adapt to the ideology of their celebrant), and wanted to give some guidance outlines to encourage and assist people in crafting their own ceremonies. And I felt I'd acquired some insights worth sharing from accompanying my husband Bernard on his own Great Journey out of this world.

This new, expanded edition was published by BRF, and stayed in print for another ten years, until 2019.

Since then, second-hand copies have become scarce but the book is still very useful for people training for pastoral ministry, for those on death doula courses, for people wanting help with creating a funeral, and for those living through experiences of bereavement of one kind or another, or accompanying someone through the last phase of life.

So we decided to re-issue Spiritual Care of Dying and Bereaved People under our own imprint Humilis Hastings. This time it has not been revised or expanded. The content is the same as the BRF edition was. All we changed was the cover design. Our new edition features a picture I very much treasure — the pencil sketch my daughter Hebe drew of my husband Bernard on the morning he died.

If you have been finding it hard to source a copy of this book, you can get it here on UK Amazon, and here on Amazon dot com. We took the decision to go with paperback only, so there will be no e-book version.

The Wilderness Within You — Day 47 — Easter Day

He is risen.

The Wilderness Within You — Day 46 of Lent; Holy Saturday

The Wilderness Within You — the 45th day of Lent; Good Friday

The Wilderness Within You — Day 44 of Lent, Maundy Thursday

The Wilderness Within You — Day 43 of Lent, the Wednesday of Holy Week

The Wilderness Within You — reading for Day 42, Tuesday of Holy Week

The Wilderness Within You — our reading for the Monday of Holy Week

The Wilderness Within You — Day 40 of Lent — Palm Sunday

The Wilderness Within You — Day 39 of Lent, the Saturday of Week 6

The Wilderness Within You — Day 38 of Lent, the Friday of Week 6

The Wilderness Within You — reading for the 37th day of Lent, Thursday of Week 6

The Wilderness Within You — Day 36 of Lent, the Wednesday of Week 6

The Wilderness Within You — the 35th day of Lent, the Tuesday of Week 6

The Wilderness Within You — our reading for the 34th day of Lent, Monday of Week 6

The Wilderness Within You — our reading for Passion Sunday

The Wilderness Within You — our reading for the 32nd day of Lent, the Saturday of Week 5

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — our reading for the 31st day of Lent, the Friday of Week 5

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — reading for the 30th day of Lent, the Thursday of Week 5

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — reading for the 29th day of Lent, the Wednesday of Week 5

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — reading for the 28th day of Lent, the Tuesday of Week 5

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — reading for the 27th day of Lent, the Monday of Week 5

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — our reading for Laetare Sunday, the 26th day in Lent.

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — reading for the 25th day of Lent, the Saturday of Week 4.

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU, reading for the 24th day of Lent, the Friday of Week 4.

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — reading for the 23rd day of Lent, the Thursday of Week 4

The Wilderness Within You — reading for the 22nd day of Lent, the Wednesday of Week 4

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — our reading for the 21st day of Lent, the Tuesday of Week 4

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — the 20th day of Lent, the Monday of Week 4.

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — our reading for the 3rd Sunday (and the 19th day) in Lent.

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — our reading for the 18th day of Lent, the Saturday of Week 3

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — reading for the 17th day of Lent, the Friday of Week 3

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — the 16th day of Lent, Thursday of Week 3

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU reading for the 15th day of Lent, the Wednesday of Week 3

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — reading for the 14th day of Lent, the Tuesday of Week 3

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — reading for the 13th day of Lent, the Monday of Week 3

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — reading for the 2nd Sunday in Lent

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — reading for the 11th day of Lent, the Saturday of Week 2

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — reading for the 10th day of Lent, the Friday of Week 2

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — Reading for the 9th day of Lent, the Thursday of Week 2

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — reading for the 8th day of Lent, the Wednesday of Week 2

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU reading for the 7th day of Lent, the Tuesday of Week 2

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — reading for the 6th day of Lent, the Monday of Week 2

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — reading for the 1st Sunday (the 5th day) in Lent

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — Reading for the 4th day of Lent, the Saturday of Week 1.

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — reading for the 3rd day of Lent, the Friday of Week 1.

THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — the 2nd day of Lent, Thursday of Week 1.

Lent readings from THE WILDERNESS WITHIN YOU — Day 1 — Ash Wednsday

Friends, I'm making videos reading through my book The Wilderness Within You (published by Lion Hudson). I'll put one up every day through Lent. Here's the first, for today — Ash Wednesday.

If you want to have the text to read for yourself, the book is here on Amazon UK and here on Amazon US.

The Hijacked Conscience

 Debi Peck's book The Hijacked Conscience is now available on Amazon (here in the UK, here in the US and here in Australia, but it looks expensive in Australia so may be imported and a few days behind US Amazon; Kindle is reasonably priced and immediately accessible). There's a good chunk to read on "Look Inside" if you want to check it out.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book. As with all neurological and psychological phenomena, there are full-blown (florid) conditions and then there are tendencies. My intuitive mind suggests to me that anyone rooted in a religious faith community is likely to be affected by and familiar with what Debi is describing in The Hijacked Conscience, even if they have no sense of being limited or hampered by it. 

It should be recommended reading for all pastors in training and any lay person with a responsibility for pastor oversight within the faith community. It's an eye-opening read.

The Hijacked Conscience is published by SacraSage Press. Once you get to know Debi as you read her book, it will come as no surprise to you if I say she was very thorough, cautious, discerning and responsible in finding a publisher she trusted with her work. Dr Tom Oord is the man behind SacraSage, an honest and courageous theologian who has stood firm against considerable discouragement and opposition from fellow churchmen who did not share his views — so SacraSage is honourably motivated by a sense of mission, offering a platform to thinkers whose voice might otherwise go unheard; it's not just one more commercial product mill for the Christian marketplace. 

Only very rarely do I recommend a book, but this particular writer is one I think you would to well to read. Hers is a voice and a story worth hearing.

Debi Peck and Pen Wilcock in conversation

One of the loveliest things about writing a blog is the friends you make. People you would never otherwise have met appear in your life as kindred souls. 

Someone of whom that has been true for me is Debi Peck. We have been talking about writing on and off via email since the end of 2019, and then came a surprising and rather wonderful coincidence last year. Debi wrote to me because she was finishing off a manuscript for publication on the topic of Religious Scrupulosity, a form of OCD. She asked if she could use a quotation from one of my books, and sent me her manuscript to read. I absolutely devoured it! But the odd thing was, at the exact same time I had been sketching out the same OCD problem experienced by one of the young monks of St Alcuins Abbey, in the manuscript I'd been working on — Brother Cyril's Book. 

Realising that Debi knows pretty much everything there is to know about this form of OCD, I asked her in turn if she'd read through my manuscript to check I hadn't got anything ludicrously wrong.

And now here we are; both these books — my Brother Cyril's Book and Debi's The Hi-jacked Conscience — publish this month. Mine was out this week, Debi's will be out with SacraSage Press in just a few days. I wholeheartedly recommend you to read it; she has written a very, very good book indeed. In a day or two when it's published and launched, I'll put up a post with links so you know where to find it — but in the meantime I thought you might like to keep company with Debi and me through a recent email conversation we had:

 

 

PEN: Debi, the first word that comes to mind when I'm reading your book, The Hijacked Conscience — which is absolutely brilliant — is "brave". 

I can see you have had to be so brave to work and study and struggle your way free from the confines of Religious Scrupulosity Obsessive Compulsive disorder and become the person you are today. But I also think writing this book was a brave thing to do. You have been very honest and open in telling your story, and I think that cannot have been easy. Is that right? Did it take a lot of courage to write your book?

DEBI: I was thinking about courage just this morning, and specifically, the kinds of courage it took to write my book. Writing about the deeply personal aspects of Scrupulosity, those things that have filled me with deep shame throughout my life, took a great deal of courage. The knowledge that my friends, family, and strangers will be reading about the darkest times in my life and knowing that afterward, I will need to look them in the eye, knowing they know my deepest struggles requires me to move forward with courage. Writing the book, however, was only a small part of my choice to be brave. Believing enough in myself and in the goal of my book to help others required me to send my manuscript to publishers and then bravely wait (sometimes not so bravely!) to hear back from them. Asking people — a couple who I knew, but the rest strangers — to review my book and potentially endorse it was one of the bravest things I had to do. It is a true mark of the distance I've come in my healing to be able to do that. Sharing my book with you, a real-life author who has written some of my most beloved books, was brave, too. But, look what I found in the process — a dear sister-in-community!

One of the things I have most loved about your whole The Hawk and The Dove series is the courage you write into the stories. The courage of those in places of authority ministering through their brokenness and not despite it, helped write into my own heart the desire to minister Christ to others not from a place of strength, but from a place of vulnerability. The courage it took for each of the brothers to face their own brokenness and need for Christ's healing showed me the way to my own brave venture of healing.Was this something you, yourself, experienced, or where did you come up with that model for your books?

PEN: Well, something I've tried to do in writing fiction, is to start at a place in my heart where some issue of faith or relationship is unresolved, and explore it with the people I write about. When I start to write, I don't know where the community (of St Alcuins) will take me, but I have confidence in their path, so I walk along it.

For me, a particular hurdle to overcome has been writing about the central importance of a living connection with Jesus. In the world of Christian fiction — and indeed I see it in the church generally — there's a trend towards speaking only about the outside of the way of faith. So, people in church are comfortable talking about "my faith" or "why I come to church", but rarely do I find them talking about being with Jesus. This might be more a British than American thing, maybe? It's like they find it embarrassing. Among Christian fiction writers and publishers, there's a distaste — even contempt — for what's called "confessional" fiction; you know, where people hear the gospel and see the light and their lives are transformed. The preference is for characters who are flawed and "real". In the UK, a good example of this is the TV series The Vicar of Dibley, where the central character's inner world is all about fancying men and eating chocolate and telling jokes. So the faith part is simply that she is a vicar. It has taken courage for me to stick with what I believe is honestly the root of hope and healing and transformation — knowing Jesus personally, meeting him, staying close to him. In my stories, a theme runs through about specifically and explicitly inviting Jesus to come in, and about the difference that makes. I was scared that would make my stories unpublishable, and that they would be sneered at as too confessional; but for me, without that artery of connection with Jesus, everything else falls apart. I suppose it's the main thing in my life; I haven't really got anything else to write about.

When I read The Hijacked Conscience, I found it especially exciting that here was someone making the same journey — someone who had got trapped and tangled and oppressed by the rigidity and mind control of religion, but instead of leaving it had gone down within to discover for herself the living wellspring of the presence of Jesus. I see you know for yourself his company, his voice, his strength. Religion is not all a bad thing, it can be a framework for justice and integrity, but it can also be used as a channel for power games and controlling people through fear. Like an external form of OCD! Taking refuge in religion is, to my mind, a dangerous game. I believe it's necessary to go beyond, to find for oneself the living Jesus; in making that connection is where the healing is, and the freedom. Once a person has that, it makes any context — including church — potentially a place of welcome and redemption. 

You write about both the direct help of Jesus and the effect on you of different religious contexts — what made things better, what made things worse. And of course The Hijacked Conscience is intended to both help individuals make headway in their own brave struggle, and help church pastors identify and appropriately respond to the Religious Scrupulosity form of OCD. You point out that this kind of OCD is often wrongly understood as a moral or spiritual issue, so the person seeks help from their pastor rather than finding a counsellor, and The Hijacked Conscience is written to build a bridge connecting the therapeutic and pastoral approaches. 

Can you say a bit about how, for you, the spiritual strength of connecting with Jesus and being part of the faith community balances with the practical wisdom of counselling and psychological insight?

DEBI: It is definitely not just a British thing not to talk about Jesus! I've often remarked that Christians seldom actually talk about the Christ whose name they carry. I, myself, have struggled with this. American culture (and perhaps British, too?) has so emphasized the "personal" aspect of our faith that we are afraid we will offend others if we mention Jesus. Even among Christians, there is an embarrassment in talking about the deeper life of faith. I think there is such a separation in people's thinking between their faith and their "real life." People talk about their "secular job", "secular entertainment", etc., as if they add Jesus to their life like a commodity instead of Jesus being the center from which all of their life then becomes sacred. I talk in my book about how I struggled with the concept of "Christ in you" because it felt like the responsibility for keeping Him there rested completely on me, and I knew I could never be good enough to have Him stay there. I was the center of that relationship. (Yes, Scripture talks about Christ being in us, but for me, it wasn't a helpful picture.) When I started focusing more on being "In Christ," my life changed. He became the center and the source. In Christ, I am a new creation. There is security and belonging for me in Christ. That has made all the difference for me.

On the topic of the importance of combining the different aspects of a deep connection with Jesus, being in religious community, and the usefulness of counselling, you ask an important question. For so long, faith communities and mental health professionals were pitted against each other. In my own life, pastors and other religious leaders often said that professional counseling wasn't necessary because if I just prayed harder, or really trusted God, I wouldn't be depressed or have mental illness. Mental health professionals, on the other hand, were often cynical about God or the church. However, I have come to believe that there is help and healing from both places. Often, pastors are not trained to deal with the effects of trauma, and can, indeed, cause further harm. Likewise, it is a wise counselor who recognizes that a person's faith can be an incredible vehicle for healing. I think you and I would both argue that finding that deep connection with Jesus is the source of healing. Both pastors and mental health professionals can work together, each bringing their strengths to the mix. 

Not to be forgotten, though, is the absolute importance of community. I think that is the one most often lacking in our lives. The "rugged individualism" of the American culture often leaves people thinking they can make it on their own. In reality, we need each other. I tend to think that much "talk therapy" could actually be better accomplished in community. Being able to share our stories without fear of judgment is what makes counselling so powerful. In reality, that should be able to be accomplished within our communities, but so often, communities have instead become unsafe places. What makes me love your books so much is the life-in-community of St. Alcuin's. John Wesley taught that "there is no holiness but social holiness." Community offers us the chance to live out a holy life. You write so passionately about community, Pen. How has your experience with community affected how you write about it?

PEN: Ah. Now you have put your finger on something. I find this a little embarrassing to answer, because I can't say what is true without showing my own relational inadequacies and failures. The honest truth is that I found my way to St Alcuins through the portal of my own loneliness — writing not out of something that was there, but out of the desperate yearning for something that was not. It was a belonging and a connection my heart longed for and could not find anywhere; but this is what I have found — that in the centre of the human heart there is a way in, a secret door, and if we can find that then it opens to healing and to hope. I stumbled across the community at St Alcuins at a time when I was quite desperately lonely, and it has been the aching absence of anything quite like it that has sent me back again and again to seek their company. And when I go there — why, there they are. 

Now, although I feel as if I could go on talking with you forever and ever, a blog post must come to an end. I think we'll do this again one day, shall we? I have so enjoyed sitting here talking with you. Thank you, thank you ...

So friends, please look out for Debi's new book The Hijacked Conscience — I'll post details for you in a few days when it's properly out, and I absolutely recommend it to you; eye-opening, fascinating, a story of courage and healing, sane and strong, full of hope.

 

Brother Cyril's Book (Volume 2 of The Hawk & the Dove second series)

 Friends, here is the second of the two books I wrote last summer, now available to buy on Amazon (here in the UK and here in the US, or see the Amazon store for your own region).

Like This Brother of Yours, this new book follows the path of what I'm calling gentle fiction. These last few years have been, for so many of us, a harrowing time — overshadowed by illness, fear and bereavement. "Dread" might not be too strong a term for the taste of it in our mouths, and many of us are left struggling with damaged health, working through trauma, and daunted by the path ahead. What we absolutely do not need in these times is gritty fiction full of tension and  threat. 

In addition, some of us have retreated online to the extent that how we relate with text has changed somewhat — following the thread is harder, lengthy texts feel like a steeper climb than once they did.

Then of course there are some for whom wrestling the story out of written texts was always a challenge; illness or neurological specifics made it hard to do.

For all these reasons, Brother Cyril's Book is written in short chapters subdivided into sections, following unfolding themes but not plot-driven. So if it suits you to read a small bit at a time, to pick it up and travel a little way along with it then put it down, it's easy to do that and come back to it later. And while I hope there is enough in the story to engage your interest, there is neither tension nor threat.

It's not yet clear to me how successful this approach will be, but I have always believed in writing the book I'd like to read, and that's what I've done.

Thank you for reading my work. Thank you for the kindness and generosity you have shown me in taking the trouble to get in touch and let me know you have enjoyed the stories and been helped by them. I cannot tell you how much it means to me.

Because the consecrated life is the inspiration for the Hawk & Dove stories, I have chosen to send half of any proceeds from my writing to the Carthusian house in West Sussex; the other half will pay for the publication of Book 3 when I've finished writing it.

Waving to you, my friends. Than you for being there. Blessed be.

The Carthusians of Sussex in England need our help

 In general, as you know, I like to walk in the way of grace economy — giving not selling, helping where I can. I like events and services to be inclusive and free, and I prefer to offer money and marketing and opportunism as little prominence in my life as I can manage. Not only is this because of the gospel simplicity that I first saw in St Francis fifty years ago, but also because it is a path that leads to joy.

There are some ways money comes into my life — I buy groceries, firewood, clothing, books, and natural medicines if I am ill. Occasionally we need something for the household. But I try to live as quietly and simply as I can; and if there's anything I don't need, I give it away.

Because of these preferences of mine, I don't like bothering people for money. If I write a new book, I let it be known because they are written to be read, to make a difference — but I absolutely will not get into the marketing thing, catching people's attention, drawing them in, looking to promote myself and increase sales. It is not what I feel called to do. I have chosen the quiet way, and that's how I live. I write because I want to share the thoughts in my heart, and to make the Lord Jesus known and loved. Only that.

So I always feel queasy about asking people for money — and this is not for me, it is for our brothers of St Hughs, a Carthusian house in Sussex.

Do you know about the Carthusians? If you don't, I recommend to you the documentary Into Great Silence, which is my all-time favourite film. It gives you a window into Carthusian life.

The Carthusian order was started by St Bruno at Chartreuse in the 11th century. They are unusual in that they are hermits who live in community. So each one has a dwelling with a workspace and a small patch of garden, these dwellings all built around a central green space in a square of which one side is a church. Here's an example of what I mean:

The Carthusian way has continued its quiet flow of silence and contemplative prayer, unchanged since the 11th century. I cannot tell you how moving and beautiful that is to me. It is a tap root of hope and strength, faithfully anchoring the Light. Put simply, it is a gift of God to us. It is what we need.

At the time of the Reformation, the Carthusians experienced the most horrific persecution. Because of their faith, some of them were hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn, others were chained (standing up) to a dungeon wall; and then left there, until they died. When I consider this, my mind reels in horror. These quiet, faithful, patient, courageous men, who died in this manner because they would not renounce what they believed. How could we ever atone for what we, in the brand new Church of England, did to them?

Where I live, in Sussex, England, there is Carthusian house at Horsham (where my husband grew up), St Hughs Charterhouse. It is the only post-Reformation house of Carthusians in England. The last one.

The Carthusian way has great simplicity, you might even say it is austere. If you are someone who knows and loves my Hawk & Dove books, you might remember that Père Guillaume became a Carthusian when his conversations with Abbot Peregrine made an impact on his thinking. There is nothing extravagant about these brothers of ours, but they do have buildings to maintain — and the building at St Hughs is in need of repair. They have an absolutely massive bill of two million pounds to repair the roof, and their guesthouse doesn't meet health and safety requirements; they have to find £350k to bring it up to standard; presumably there could be insurance problems for them if anything bad happened while it is sub-standard.

They just do not have the means to meet these bills.

So I am telling you about their situation. Am I asking you to send them money? Not necessarily — perhaps you are so strapped for cash right now that you hardly know where to turn, can't pay your own bills. If that sounds like you, then will you pray for them? They so need help.

But, if you have anything you could spare to help them out, their donations page is here.

If you are someone who knows and loves the brothers of St Alcuins from my Hawk & Dove novels, perhaps you might like to imagine yourself walking up the hill from the village, and knocking at the small postern door in the big abbey gateway. Brother Martin the porter will hear, and let you in. If you tell him you have a small gift for the brothers, he will show you the way to the checker in the abbey court. There you will find Brother Cormac, and you can tell him you've brought a gift for the community — and why you love them, and why you wanted to give them something. Imagine Brother Cormac. See him in your mind. Find your way to what he says to you. Give him your little bag of coins, then make your farewell and go in through the west door of the church that opens into the abbey court. Spend a little while sitting quietly in its spacious peace and light. Then walk back across the court past the checker — oh, look, there's Father Francis greeting you with a nod and a smile as you go by — out through the gatehouse and back down the hill to the village.

Make your gift be your story, your pathway. This Carthusian house in Sussex offers us the amazing chance to reach out and touch, make a difference to, a living and breathing community giving us an unbroken link from the days of St Alcuins Abbey. 

If you are able to help them at St Hughs — it doesn't matter how little you can manage, even a tiny bit — when you send your donation will you tell them I sent you their way? Because their choices and their faithfulness and the prayer in which their lives are steeped mean so much to me. I love them for it. In these dark and tumultuous times, just as they did in the turmoil of the Reformation, they are steadily holding the light for us to see the way. I feel we owe them so much. Perhaps together we can help safeguard their vision and protect their path.

Thank you, my friends. Blessed be.