Paul Overend, Magazine Editor and member of the Cardiff Group, reviews Spirit of Britain Series by Robert Van de Weyer (O Books, 2002, pp.64, £5.99, 3 titles to date:
Heart of England - ISBN1903816254; West Country - ISBN 1903816262; London ISBN - 1903816122) The author of this delightful series of books, Robert Van de Weyer, is well known both as an author and for his long association with the Little Gidding Community, the Society of Christ the Sower, of which he was a founding and leading figure.
In 1625 Nicholas Farrer and his family withdrew to a derelict manor house at Little Gidding, in Huntingdonshire. Exchanging the vanities of the world for life of piety, temperance and learning, he was joined by his brother and sister and their families and by his mother. William Laud ordained him deacon the year after he arrived, and together the family kept a community life of prayer, using The Book of Common Prayer, and engaged in a life of charitable works in the locality. After his death in 1637, the community was broken up in 1646 by the Puritans, who were suspicious of it and referred to it as the Arminian Nunnery, fearing it promoted the return of Romish practices into England. The place featured in T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets.
The Little Gidding Community took over the former buildings of Farrer’s family at Little Gidding and fifteen members and their children lived there. Some members of the same community lived elsewhere, such as at the nearby village of Leighton Bromswold, four miles south of Little Gidding. This was where the poet George Herbert was incumbent, who was a friend of Nicholas Ferrar. Until the Community, a charitable trust, was dissolved in 1997, they were a quietly innovative ecumenical religious order for married and single people, and hospitable to guests like me, who privately considered joining them for a time after a visit in 1994.
Robert Van de Weyer clearly has a long-standing interest ina life of prayer and has written on spiritual matters for many sof 55 September 2002 years, with at least 46 publications (and those are just the ones listed as still in print). He confesses to having become more radical since ‘The Call to Heresy’ of 1989, which was a favourite of mine as it called for a reappraisal of the contributions Arius, Pelagius, Donatus, and Origen,. He has certainly developed an interest in other spiritual traditions. He now leads a church near Cambridge, ‘dedicated to the unity of religions’.
This series, which is superbly produced in full colour throughout by John Hunt's O Books, guides the pilgrim, and takes the reader at home, round places of ‘spiritual interest’ and, very practically, gives details of opening times. There are proposed routes, though places can be visited independently.
Each book gives lovely pictures of, and a good deal of introductory information about, people and places. From the stones and tribes of Arbor Low to the house and life of William Law, the books cover locations as various aS pre-Christian sites, ancient monastic sites, surviving churches, and other religious places, mosques and temples, such as the Jain Temple in Leicester, which is the largest Jain place of worship in Europe, clad in carved white marble. A delightful read and a delightful price, this series introduces us to places around England. I hope there may be ones for Wales and Scotland in the future.
Also for reading: 366 Readings from Islam, by Robert Van De Weyer, ed. (Pilgrim Press / United Church Press; pp.384, ISBN: 0829813861) ‘A volume from Pilgrim Press Global Spirit Library, this contains essential Islamic readings ranging from the Koran to the Sufi mystics.