Publications
They say everyone's got a book inside them. I reckon I've got between five and seven, which I hope to complete before AI makes all creative endeavour, if not humanity itself, redundant. Three have already been published (though I'd like to bring out revised editions) and there are a couple more in the pipeline.
My subject areas include Christian spirituality, meditation and contemplative prayer, and religion and culture.
About the Author
I didn’t grow up going to church, though there was daily chapel at boarding school, and I did get confirmed. But by the age of fourteen, I was an avowed atheist, like most rebellious teenagers. That said, I was always interested in the ‘big questions’, and I found myself strongly drawn towards the teachings of Buddhism. Through deeper engagement with the religious traditions of India during my late twenties, I unexpectedly started thinking about the Christian tradition in a new light. Having made a firm commitment to follow the spiritual path, wherever it might lead, I started going to church in my early thirties.
Initially, I wondered whether I might have a vocation to the religious life. I visited and stayed in various communities, including a Buddhist monastery in New Zealand and an Ashram in India. I became an Oblate of the Anglican Benedictine community of Elmore Abbey in 1998, and in 2004 spent six weeks at Worth Abbey for the making of the BBC television documentary The Monastery. In 2008 I was ordained in the Church of England.
Ever since I got interested in philosophy and religion I also wanted to be a writer. As a graduate student I started publishing the occasional article, and in 2009 published my first book, Tantalus and the Pelican. This was followed by The Wilderness Within in 2014 and Just Meditation in 2020.
Future projects include a book about Christianity as a spiritual path, provisionally titled A Tale of Two Gardens, which is due to be published by Canterbury Press in 2026.