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A Pilgrim Way: New Celtic monasticism for everyday people
A Pilgrim Way introduces us to the Community of Aidan and Hilda which draws its inspiration from the Celtic saints, and sets out in a practical way how we can develop an authentic spirituality and framework in our everyday lives.
- GenresChristianSpirituality
252 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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46 people want to read
About the author
Ray Simpson
88 books15 followersRay Simpson is Founding Guardian of the international Community of Aidan and Hilda and the author of forty books on Celtic spirituality and other subjects.
Before that he was invited to plant a Fresh Expression at Bowthorpe, Norwich: 'One Family of Christians for one New Neighbourhood' sponsored by six denominations. He has linked early Celtic monastic villages with villages of God inspired by emerging new monastic churches.
He owns a house on UK's Holy Island of Lindisfarne, where the Community of Aidan and Hilda has its Retreat House, The Open Gate and Celtic Library, but is mainly based on the nearby mainland at Berwick-Upon-Tweed.
His big project is to make 'The Way' accessible to
all peoples through daily emails (enrol on www.waymarksoflife.com) and a year's app is being crowd funded.
Before that he was invited to plant a Fresh Expression at Bowthorpe, Norwich: 'One Family of Christians for one New Neighbourhood' sponsored by six denominations. He has linked early Celtic monastic villages with villages of God inspired by emerging new monastic churches.
He owns a house on UK's Holy Island of Lindisfarne, where the Community of Aidan and Hilda has its Retreat House, The Open Gate and Celtic Library, but is mainly based on the nearby mainland at Berwick-Upon-Tweed.
His big project is to make 'The Way' accessible to
all peoples through daily emails (enrol on www.waymarksoflife.com) and a year's app is being crowd funded.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 26, 2019
This is a book which focuses upon Celtic Spirituality. It looks at the previous traditions and their relevance for today focusing specifically upon The Community of Aidan & Hilda based on Lindisfarne. I would definitely recommend this book if you would like to learn more about Celtic Spirituality.
October 2, 2008
My mother brought this book back from a bookstall at the Rural School of Theology, and with my more-than-passing interest in monasticism these days, I pretty much started reading it then and there.
It’s about the Community of Aidan and Hilda, centred in Lindisfarne, and following a Way of Life, or a Rule. Most of the book explains the way the Rule works: their ten elements, as well as the three principles.
Sometimes the author, Ray Simpson, just seems kooky. He goes beyond mystic into some almost-pagan-seeming Celtic spirituality that I’m personally not comfortable with. Simpson (and the Community as a whole) clearly have attitudes on sexuality that I’m not comfortable with. (The three principles include ‘purity’, which he describes as being about sexuality, and that the only form of acceptable sexual expression is man-and-woman-in-church-sanctioned-marriage. Personally, I’d prefer to look at “purity” in not exclusively sexual terms, and talk about integrity instead.) Every so often there are words and phrases in the sections on interfaith communication etc that just… rang wrong. Patronising, maybe.
And yet, this book did for me what The Rock that is Higher didn’t. It opened out, challenging me without belittling me; making me think through things I didn’t agree with, without leaving me feeling humiliated. If it wasn’t for the fact that I actually take some of the opening passages of Benedict’s rule (particularly about hermits) quite seriously (it dovetails quite nicely with my approach to corporate worship – an approach I wish I didn’t have, but I *do* and I can’t just *stop* simply because it’s not convenient for me or may not be in the future), I’d take a great deal of this book, and the Rule within it, and see how I could adapt it to my own life.
The other thing this book did for me was to reignite my interest in the idea of community. I’ve got the outline of a major piece of work on that sitting in my GoogleDocs, and in amongst everything else I’m doing (do you ever get the feeling I do too much) I’d really like to start working on that, too. And it will be thanks to A Pilgrim Way that I’m feeling prodded back in that direction.
It’s about the Community of Aidan and Hilda, centred in Lindisfarne, and following a Way of Life, or a Rule. Most of the book explains the way the Rule works: their ten elements, as well as the three principles.
Sometimes the author, Ray Simpson, just seems kooky. He goes beyond mystic into some almost-pagan-seeming Celtic spirituality that I’m personally not comfortable with. Simpson (and the Community as a whole) clearly have attitudes on sexuality that I’m not comfortable with. (The three principles include ‘purity’, which he describes as being about sexuality, and that the only form of acceptable sexual expression is man-and-woman-in-church-sanctioned-marriage. Personally, I’d prefer to look at “purity” in not exclusively sexual terms, and talk about integrity instead.) Every so often there are words and phrases in the sections on interfaith communication etc that just… rang wrong. Patronising, maybe.
And yet, this book did for me what The Rock that is Higher didn’t. It opened out, challenging me without belittling me; making me think through things I didn’t agree with, without leaving me feeling humiliated. If it wasn’t for the fact that I actually take some of the opening passages of Benedict’s rule (particularly about hermits) quite seriously (it dovetails quite nicely with my approach to corporate worship – an approach I wish I didn’t have, but I *do* and I can’t just *stop* simply because it’s not convenient for me or may not be in the future), I’d take a great deal of this book, and the Rule within it, and see how I could adapt it to my own life.
The other thing this book did for me was to reignite my interest in the idea of community. I’ve got the outline of a major piece of work on that sitting in my GoogleDocs, and in amongst everything else I’m doing (do you ever get the feeling I do too much) I’d really like to start working on that, too. And it will be thanks to A Pilgrim Way that I’m feeling prodded back in that direction.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews