… 6 June: Day 594

Things are changing – aren’t they always!?

Today in 1841, Marian Rebecca Hughes made private vows before Edward Bouverie Pusey – the first woman to take religious vows in the Anglican church since the Reformation. So maybe today’s festival should be “All Saints of Anglican Religious Life”?

Wulfric of Haselbury was an anchorite, recluse, solitary priest. Know for his healing and insight. He lived the life of a solitary next to St Michael and All Angels Church in Haselbury Plucknett, Somerset. I am encouraged that while he worked well with the vicar, he was never “licensed” to this life by his bishop. He was, in the original sense, a house ascetic. He said Mass in his inner cell and spoke to people in his outer cell.

Sometimes, to be honest, God moves and I am not ready for it. I felt the need to surrender above all the desire to be heard and trusted: to be the person with the answers. Or, to put it differently, the desire to be loved by people. I need to desire to be friends with people (rather than using them for my own ends).

Today is Day 594 in The Anchorage. Circumstances mean my “solitary life” is going to be more defined. And I am not ready. “Maybe tomorrow, Lord!!!”