After some extremely hot days, when we feared that we would all end up as wet patches on the ground, the weather changed to rain. There is a cooling wind stirring the leaves of the trees. It is no longer an ordeal to walk outside.

During these hot days part of our work one Monday afternoon was to empty a library alcove in the Wing and transport the books into the Hall for eventual collection: they had been on loan. By Wednesday we had printed some forty photographic calendars, collated them, and punched the requisite holes. They really are rather attractive, taken with a second-hand Canon AV-1.

We also had a couple of singing lessons with the Reverend Peter G. and his wife Alison while they were on holiday here. Peter was an Anglican choir master before he was ordained, and is calm and teaches with gentle authority. Alison has the clear young voice of a choir boy. I had asked them if they would teach us the new Belmont Mass as an alternative version for when the new translation comes into force in Advent. This Mass is basically a chant, using the revised version of the Mass texts. They were peaceful and serene occasions, led by voice alone.

It is the archives now which are in dire need of attention. I was appointed archivist for the community in 1972. Even then the archives were not complete, with very little information about our Anglican beginnings other than a manuscript compiled many years later by Dame Paulina Bridges. Peter Anson, previously a monk of the Benedictine Community at Caldey, also tried to put material together and wrote several books about the Anglican days. The basic material went to the Downside Abbey Archives, where Dom Philip Jebb was the Congregational Annalist at the time we moved from Talacre Abbey to Chester in 1988.

Since then we have accumulated so many different papers, conferences, and correspondence on community and monastic topics that my heart fails me. I cannot ‘dump’ the material as it may well be of interest for future generations emerging from the age of computing, texting etc. - if they can still read English. If, however, the sun causes havoc to the world’s electrical system next year (2012), killing billions of people, perhaps all this will be burned up - and we with it. Sometimes one can be ridiculous worrying about cosmic events beyond our control: we need to accept what happens when it occurs. As the Stoic Philosopher Marcus Aurelius and others subsequently wrote, we can only live in the present moment. Of course we have memories, sometimes distorted, sometimes shining with a light they did not formerly have, which help us to see the blessing coming forth as the rays of the sun from behind clouds. This ‘shafting light’ is wonderful to see on a cloudy day.

6th August: Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Pope Paul VI died on this day in 1978. Another day of shafting light amid much sorrow.

The time has come to write the annual contribution to "Light for Our Path" for 2013. Yesterday I began on the new text:

 Suffering and distress

Hebrews 12:1- 4 "Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus"

These verses are both a hymn of praise and of encouragement. Our life is difficult because we are spiritual athletes, running for our lives. Athletes have to strip themselves from encumbrances, which are our sins, our lack of belief. Our sin and negligence trip us up, make us falter, stumble and become discouraged. Yet we are not alone; there is a cloud of witnesses around us, and certain clouds both reveal and conceal God himself. The heavenly host keep their eyes on us, while we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. He has already run this race of failure and disgrace, this fight with sin, and found it to be the gateway to heaven. Now running ahead of us, encouraging us even at the moment of apparently ignominious death, he shows us that sin can be conquered as long as we keep our eyes fixed on him. There is no easy way: the race will turn into a combat, when we can no longer see him but trust that he is there. " In the fight against sin, you have not yet had to keep fighting to the point of bloodshed." Through endless ages many have given their lives for the sake of others, for their faith, and are now with God.

14th August

The temperature dropped some 10 degrees Centigrade yesterday, accompanied by strong wind. Now the rain is lashing down, with raindrops sliding down the window panes. They remind me of a friend who died some years ago. Yet all that has happened during the last few years seems so far away, as though it was during another life time..... long, long ago.

Another dear friend, who enjoys feeding the birds in her garden, sent me this wonderful description: "The birds, before settling down for the night, pick-up the crumbs of the day. They go to the water bowls to drink, shake their feathers and then fly to their resting place." I absolutely love the phrase "pick-up the crumbs of the day". Lovely. That really describes what we do with our last thoughts and prayers, and love - we pick-up the crumbs of the day. Our whole life nourishes us, and nothing must be wasted.

The acts of criminal looting and violence by predominantly young people in our inner cities has caused much consternation and fear. These events were totally unprecedented as they were not protests but copy-cat acts of robbery and arson instigated through contact between gangs by mobile phone and the inter-net. And murder followed in Birmingham. The founder of Kids Company, which works with disturbed and excluded youngsters, indicated that there existed a completely ignored underclass. These youngsters do not feel included in mainstream society, have developed a ‘perverse morality’, and take drug dealers as their role models. They need to belong somewhere, and seem to have no contact with their fathers - hence the gang culture. (Taken from the editorial of The Tablet 13th August 2011.)

The week has been quite busy but also interesting. One visiting friend was greatly relieved to discover that her hyper-sensitivity to sound and movement actually has a name: Misophonia. I think most of us have it to some degree.

"People who have misophonia are most commonly annoyed, or even enraged, by the sound of other people eating, breathing, coughing, or other ordinary sounds. They are not normally annoyed by sounds that they themselves make .... Often people are also annoyed by other people’s repetitive movements, such as leg-tapping, nail-biting ...."

There is no known cure ... other than trying not to notice the movements or listening to uncouth sounds of eating! There is a lovely story about a monk sitting next to the same person in refectory year after year until his patience finally snapped. They were ‘silently’ drinking soup when he emptied his bowl over the other monk’s head saying "I have sat next to you for seventeen years and I can’t bear the slurping any longer!" Actually, I think one gets used to the sounds, or learns to ignore them.

It has been damp and humid for some days, and on Friday we picked the first-fruits of a plum tree given to us a couple of years ago, and the first tomatoes. They were really wonderful.

A large golden slug was moving across the path when I went out to feed the birds. It seemed to have tiny feathers or scales at the rear end, which looked quite attractive. I then saw that it was fine grass emerging from darkness into light....

19th August

A visiting friend noticed the beauty of our road, with golden leaves falling silently on the grass edges. It seems that autumn has begun, with the plums harvested, the damsons swelling on the bough, and our small apple trees bowing under the weight of the fruit. Perhaps it will be Spring by the time we get to December? Some bushes are flowering for the second time this year, and there are wallflower blooms amid the seed-cases.

We have been generously blessed by friends and parishioners who have been sharing their harvest with us. A sack of potatoes, accompanied by cabbages, was quietly given. The potatoes are extremely good and have lasted us some three weeks. Then followed some apple ‘fallers’, which we enjoyed lightly cooked. Then came the washing bowls of damsons, and their boiling on the hob. They required a lot of sugar, and when that ran out, we used a tin of golden syrup..... These were followed by fresh plums....

Some close friends came to visit us for the first time since the death of their beloved husband, father and grandfather. Barry loved staying in Emmaus, and joining us at prayer. Now the closely knit family continues to make adjustments to his ‘absence’, although the time will come when they will sense his presence within them. They live in Solihull, close to the area of both rioting and murder in Birmingham. ... It was a tearful time, both of thankfulness and of loss.

This has been a hard week in some ways, but also a time of grace. One morning I felt so wretched that I went out into the garden to be alone. I sat on a stone close to the Crucifix, and fought back tears. Just then I felt a small body press against my knees: Brunie had followed me out, and so had Goldie. I only realised this when they touched me. Their silent companionship was a healing balm.

The community have been very positive about the theological discussions - and questions - we have been asked to consider. The only real issue - for me - is whether more writing, however holy, is going to be effective in the present climate of our society? I think the monastery as a place of retreat and prayer is more important than words. It must be the example of a whole life, don’t you think?

The book of talks by Rabbi Hugo Gryn: "Three Minutes of Hope", edited by his daughter Naomi after his death, is wonderful. I would have liked to have met him, even though he was a chain-smoker! He actually gave a talk about the artist Chagall a few days before Chagall died, aged 98 in March 1985 .... I have been reading a very long biography about Chagall at another time of day. I was impressed by Chagall’s Jewish themes, especially of his imaginative paintings of his small Russian home town of Vitebsk. In fact, he may have been the first to portray ‘The Fiddler on the Roof’...seen by some as a wandering Jew, often a free-floating figure in the landscape. Rabbi Gryn saw the floating figure not as a wandering Jew, ‘the man without a home, tossed into the air, to fall down somewhere’ but as the prophet Elijah who is always present in the world and will eventually announce the Messianic Age, and redemption from all pain and suffering. Amen. This is the first time I have truly appreciated the spiritual writings of a contemporary Rabbi. He died on 18th August 1996. May he be blessed.

Tuesday 23rd

The Oblate Day yesterday was very good indeed. Conference time was entertaining as we discussed the doing of "impossible things" in the monastic life. The community members added verbal illustrations in when we spoke of times past. We laughed quite a lot!

The heart-warming smiles of the people who join us for Mass (our parishioners, so to speak) are a true joy. Their unspoken sadness and grief also reaches us as we pray together, and sometimes there is the strong awareness that they are actually part of us in Christ. That is truly wonderful..... we are all one.