01 Dec November 2024 Digest

Welcome back to another month here at Mucknell Abbey, where the weather has, in common with much of the country, taken a decidely wintery turn these past couple of weeks. There’s still been plently going on, though, most notably some Estate work days – more on these below!

Estate Days

From the 11th to the 14th, we had another set of our regular Estate work days. This time, the focus was very much on getting various bits of the Estate tidied up a bit; in practice, this meant lots of bonfires. We also planted a few new trees opposite the Guest Wing, a mix of Copper Beech and Whitebeam. We had some of our hazel coppiced too; in a break from the pattern established in the rest of the week, the leftover from this was tractored up to the orchard, where Br. Adrian had lots of fun putting it through our woodchipper.

Here’s a few bonfire photos:

Some of the areas that were cleared – we took down an old willow fence, and Br. Adrian and Br. Ian also strimmed some of the rushes around the swales:

Clearing the hazel coppice:

Planting trees:

And finally some of the workforce at coffee time – including Scooby the dog!

A Wintery Welcome

As I mentioned above, we’ve had some snow and frost here recently, along with quite a lot of rain! The local birds, however, will not be going hungry as Br. Anthony has once again got the bird feeders out. It’s delightful to stand for a few moments (or longer) and watch the birds flitting to and fro.

I also got a couple of photos of the Kitchen Garden under a blanket of snow:

We still have a few things in the ground – some of the leeks, and also two or three beds of celeriac. We’re also enjoying produce from earlier in the year that has been either stored (squash, mostly) or frozen – beans, rhubarb, apples, plums and sweetcorn, along with others that I’ve doubtless forgotten!

First Professed Conference

I was fortunate to be able to attend the First Professed Conference, hosted this year by Fr. Charlie CR at the Community of the Resurrection in Mirfield. We read and discussed “A Philosopher Looks At The Religious Life” by Zena Hitz, which we all found to be an interesting and thought provoking engagement with the “why” of Religious Life – what on earth possesses people to follow this way of life? We also watched the film Ida, mentioned in Hitz’s book, and enjoyed an afternoon’s walk near Mirfield, which included some wonderful views of the town. Not all of the current sisters and brothers in First Profession were able to make it, but we managed to get a photo of those who were there on our final evening:

Books of the Year

As regular visitors to the monastery will be aware, we continue to follow the traditional practice of having reading at our meals. Following a request last year to bump the ‘Books of the Year’ up to November’s digest instead of December’s, the community have been busy voting. In no particular order, these are our top five meal books from the last year:

Shadowlands: A Journey Through Lost Britain, by Matthew Green

In the Stillness, Waiting: Christian Origins of the Prayer of the Heart, by Br Nicholas Worssam SSF

The Restless Republic: Britain Without a Crown. by Anna Keay

Rebels and Outcasts: A Journey Through Christian India, by Charlie Pye-Smith

The Anglo Saxons: A History of the Beginnings of England, by Marc Morris

Two Dinner Rocky!

Those of you with small children in your lives may have come across the children’s book Six Dinner Sid:

The book tells the story of a cat who has managed to persuade six different households that he is their cat, and accordingly scores himself six dinners a day! Rocky seems to be up to a similar trick – we were chatting to our neighbour, Dave, lately, who said that he seemed to have half-acquired a second black cat, who’s been turning up for meals here and there. When confronted, Rocky would neither confirm nor deny his presence for extra meals – he is, however, still showing up here twice a day (mostly) for breakfast and supper, and is full of affection when we do see him. He agreed to pose for a photo earlier this week:

And finally…

As we begin once again our journey through Advent, I’m grateful for the way in which the various liturgical cycles – daily, weekly, seasonal – have, over the years, come to ‘hold’ me as I journey deeper into God. I pray that we may all find in this time of expectant waiting a renewed sense of the presence of God holding us in every moment.