Faced with impending climate crisis and the significant and irreparable damage being done to the earth, Christians are looking for inspiration and potential sources of hope. In this book, Ray Simpson, Founding Guardian of the Community of Aidan and Hilda, explores some of the key concepts of the Celtic tradition — and some of the criticisms leveled against it. He shows how the Celtic affirmation of creation and of equality and love among human beings hold the key not only for the future of...

An inspiring but practical resource for preparing for one’s death, including moving stories, thought-provoking quotations and comforting prayers and hymns, as well as how to prepare a will and make funeral arrangements.In a world where nothing is certain except death and taxes (Benjamin Franklin), preparing for one’s own death is something that everyone will face. Ray Simpson eases the burden in this heartening and helpful book. Prayers, songs, poems, quotations and Bible readings ...

Monk in the Market Place … and the Simpsons is a memoir like no other. Ray Simpson, Founding Guardian of the international new monastic Community of Aidan and Hilda, recalls the story of a unique life in which he has followed faithfully a calling to live monastically beyond the traditional enclosures of monastery or shrine.Ray’s unputdownable account charts human pain and God-incidents in his childhood and college, baptisms of fire in industrial heartlands and multi-racial London, ...

The Holy Island of Lindisfarne is often called "the holiest place in England" because of all the saints who have lived there. St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert, two popular Celtic saints, are buried there. For more than 1,300 years pilgrims have made their way to this island, which now hosts half a million visitors a year. A Holy Island Prayer Book, with prayers for morning, midday, and night, follows the rhythms and seasons of the natural and Christian year as observed on Holy Island.

A myth is reviving in the USA, which recent research validates, that Saint Brendan voyaged over three thousand miles from Ireland to America to evangelize it, but when the Indians near the Mississippi welcomed him, he realized Jesus was already there. In humility he returned home. In contrast, USA missions have taken a colonial approach to evangelizing Native American tribes, requiring converts to rubbish their culture and accept white culture as Christian. This book discerns the Creator's...

Seventh-century Ireland is becoming a land of saints, scholars, and spiritual foster mothers as well as warriors. The boy Aidan, a descendant of Saint Brigid, is formed by all of these as well as by a pilgrimage, aborted by an Arab uprising, on which he meets a follower of the Prophet Muhammad. He is transferred to Iona, the mother-house of Saint Columba's family of monasteries, where his character is forged. Aidan becomes guest-master to challenging visitors, one of whom conducts a myster...

False ways litter the world. Even the great religions have become prisoners of colonial frameworks or of a selfishness that betrays their essence. As a result, our planet faces climate catastrophes, nuclear holocausts, and internet surveillance that makes us prisoners of unseen predators. There is a Way, however, whose time has come. It is ingrained in the psyche of humanity. It resonates with Perennial Wisdom, with Chinese who understand it as Tao, with the Buddhist Eightfold Path, the Fi...

After every conflict, historians gather to describe the heroic exploits stemming from that action. For Victoria Cross winners, such histories are ordinarily detailed and numerous, but there are some exceptions.In the forty years since the Vietnam War, not one book of note has commemorated the heroism of one of Australia's greatest soldiers: Ray Simpson, VC, DCM.An intensley brave soldier and never-say-die character, Simpson served in World War II, Korea, and Malaya, as well...

Ray Galton and Alan Simpson are two of the most influential and celebrated television scriptwriters of our time. Praised for inventing the sitcom, their own seminal creations are still standing the test of time with modern audiences - Hancock's Half Hour and Steptoe and Son are two of the most successful sitcoms ever made. This book is a charming tribute to their career in comedy, written in collaboration with Galton and Simpson themselves and with exclusive access to the...

A fascinating collection of rare and remastered radio & TV material starring Tony HancockThis third treasury of rare archive material presents another four newly restored radio episodes of Hancock’s Half Hour: ‘The 13th of the Series’ (1957), ‘The Male Suffragettes’ (1958), ‘The Sleepless Night’ (1958) and ‘The Last Bus Home’ (1959). Starring once again alongside Tony Hancock are Sid James, Bill Kerr, Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams.Three furth...

A fascinating collection of rare and remastered radio & TV material starring Tony HancockThis second treasury of rare archive material is spearheaded by four newly-restored radio episodes of Hancock’s Half Hour, all from 1956: ‘The New Secretary’, ‘Anna and the King of Siam’, ‘The Stolen Petrol’ and ‘The Expresso Bar’. Starring alongside Tony Hancock are Sid James, Bill Kerr, Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams.A number of fascinating extracts from...

A fascinating collection of rare and remastered radio & TV material starring Tony HancockIn this fourth treasury of rare archive material, our irrepressible hero forms an association to save Fred’s Pie Stall, in a newly restored 1959 radio episode of Hancock’s Half Hour. From the BBC TV series comes The Italian Maid (1959) in which Tony and Sid are bowled over by the lovely Silvano.Two 1952 editions of Calling All Forces line up alongside a 1953 edition of ...