The Monthly Salon: June

News and conversation

Welcome, readers, to the June Salon. The Abbey continues to be mostly a place of quiet contemplation at present, rather than rambunctious chatter from me. I have been busy completing The Book of Wild Saints, at the same time as I navigate my ongoing recovery from a major burnout last year. I am a lot better, though still not fully recovered. The exciting news, though, is that the book is done! Woo hoo. I sent it off to the publisher last week, and now I nervously await their response.

I deeply appreciate all those of you who continue as paid subscribers despite my lack of ‘content’ here at present. A writer can’t be on output all the time, which is a drawback of this kind of ‘platform’ for which readers pay a monthly fee. Quite rightly, a lot of people don’t want to pay for nothing, and yet if a writer just pumps out ‘content’ for the sake of it, he or she will soon be dead from the neck up. These days, in any case, an AI can do this job much better than we ever can, and it will provide all the accompanying pictures and films too.

I’ve long thought of writing in the same way I think of gardening. It’s a seasonal process. You need to manure the soil and prepare it in order to have a flourishing, fecund summer of words. Then you need a fallow period. Plants don’t grow in the winter. I’ve been wintering for the last six months or so. Ticking over. Keeping an eye on the green manure. You can’t do anything creative without rest.

Fairly soon, though, I am going to be back here with some news of what I plan to do next. As a writer, and as a journeying Christian, I have been sitting here by the figurative fire for some time, waiting for the next phase of things to begin. You can’t rush either journey. But recently I’ve started to get a sense of what I need to do next, and how it will translate into words, some of which will be appearing here. It’s a dim, vague thing at present. I may have to make the journey by walking. But I am starting to feel I have some sense of what the journey might be. Watch this space.

Recently too, I have been working on a new project outside of the digital sphere. A counter-Machine initiative, you might call it. This is something significant for me, I’m excited about it, and I am sure it is going to interest my readers here too. There will be more news about this soon as well. I am off on a family holiday next week, but when I return, in early July, I will be making some of these mysteries manifest for you all. Thank you for hanging around while my compost heap rots down. I really do appreciate it.

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The film at the top of this page was sent to me by Reader Thomas Small, who I met at the recent British Saints Convention in Walsingham (which I shall forthwith be referring to as ‘SaintCon’, just because it seems right.) Thomas is helping out with an effort by his Orthodox parish in York, which currently has nowhere to lay its head, to buy an ancient, eleventh-century church building for their services. York plays an important part in the Christian story, and not just the story of England. It was in York, I only recently discovered, that Constantine I, Rome’s first Christian ruler, declared himself Emperor. Nothing that dramatic will be happening this time I imagine, but the Orthodox Christians of York have six months to raise the money they need, so it’s all hands on deck. You can find out more - and help out if you can - here.

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Later this year, as I have mentioned before, I will be heading to Florida for the first time ever, where I’ll be involved in a different kind of fundraising event, for my friend John Heer’s First Things Foundation. There will be feasting. Two places remain, and you can grab them here.

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Finally, just a reminder that the funky new edition of my novel The Wake is now available for pre-order. If you don’t get one now, will you find yourself lying awake at night long into the future, and regretting your decision? Is it worth the risk?

That’s enough from me, I think. The floor is now yours. What would you like to talk about, debate, ask or say? The Monthly Salon is where you set the agenda. Please feel free to kick things off.