What makes a young, Cambridge educated woman first join a religious order and then, if that were not demanding enough, seek a hermit vocation, literally on the edge of the world with only a simple hut as protection against Atlantic winds and storms? This title tells the author's story.

Verena Schiller

A Simplified Life

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Prologue

One - Fork in the Road

Two - A Strange Land

Three - Wilderness – a Place of Strengthening

Four - Outer Landscape – Inner Landscape

Five - A Rich Inheritance

Six - Desert Spirituality and the Quest for Holiness

Seven - Grey – the Colour of Hope

Eight - Coincidence of Opposites

Nine - The Island – Bardsey / Ynys Enlli

Ten - The Wicklow Hills Beckon

Eleven - That Other Island – Skellig Michael

Twelve - Transplanting

Epilogue

Selected Reading

Selected Poets

Acknowledgements of Sources

What makes a young, Cambridge educated woman first join a religious order and then, if that were not demanding enough, seek a hermit vocation, literally on the edge of the world with only a simple hut as protection against Atlantic winds and storms? This title tells the author''s story.

Today, as increasing numbers of people try to make sense of their lives in the face of unexpected or unlooked for change, this direct and compelling memoir by someone who has voluntarily embraced a life of radical simplicity and solitude is a real message for our times. What makes a young, Cambridge educated woman first join a religious order and then, if that were not demanding enough, seek a hermit vocation, literally on the edge of the world with only a simple hut as protection against Atlantic winds and storms? Here the author tells her story. For more than forty years Sr Verena lived a solitary life at the tip of the Lleyn Peninsula, looking out across the sea to Bardsey, Wales' island of saints, and has only recently - with increasing age - moved nearer human habitation in the parish where R S Thomas was priest. For her, this narrow straitened place became a mirror of the whole of creation and the material poverty of her life became a means to 'having nothing yet possessing all things' in the words of St Paul. Over the decades, countless people have beaten a path to her door seeking spiritual counsel and direction for their own busy lives and her account speaks directly to those who may be facing an enforced simplicity leading them into something profoundly positive and life giving.

'There is much spiritual wisdom to be found here, complemented by frequent and helpful poetry quotations.' -- Philip Clements-Jewery

VERENA SCHILLER is an Anglican religious sister, a member of the Community of the Holy Name, though living as a solitary.

'There is much spiritual wisdom to be found here, complemented by frequent and helpful poetry quotations.'

\["For seekers of peace and spiritual guidance", "Offers insight into embracing radical simplicity", "You will find inspiration for your own journey of faith"\]

This memoir invites you to explore the beauty of solitude and simplicity.

The Good Book Stall

If you have ever wondered about the life of a hermit – why on earth anyone would choose it and how it works out in practice – A Simplified Life provides an in-depth psychological and spiritual exploration of one nun’s experience, spanning a quarter of a century, living alone in a wooden hut on a remote peninsula in Wales. After twenty-four years in a religious community, Verena felt called by God to a life of solitude and prayer. She deals honestly with all the difficulties, dangers and potential pitfalls as well as the rewards, weighing all the arguments against such a life alongside the long tradition of hermits from the earliest days of Christianity.   
The book encompasses poetry, history, and accounts of her rare pilgrimages to holy isles in Wales and Ireland, along with practical details of her day-to-day life and relations with the local community. After twenty-five years, advancing age brought that phase of her life to a natural end and she moved into a cottage in the village and found a new framework for prayer and contemplation. A deep and thoughtful book by a deep and thoughtful woman.

Simplified Life

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Simplified Life

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What makes a young, Cambridge educated woman first join a religious order and then, if that were not demanding enough, seek a hermit vocation, literally on the edge of the world with only a simple hut as protection against Atlantic winds and storms? This title tells the author''s story.

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