Hello everyone. I wanted to drop you a little note to apologise for the lack of Sunday Pilgrimage postings these past few weeks; but also to update you on what I plan and expect for my work at the Abbey over the next few months.

I’ve been quite ill for the last couple of weeks. It’s nothing fatal (I’ve checked) and it seems to be improving now, but I’ve been down with something that has exhausted me. There has been a lot of sleeping and fuzzy-headedness and general lack of energy. Today, the sun is shining outside, I’ve just had a good cup of coffee and I’m in an old cottage in Northern Ireland surrounded by ancient trees which I’m about to go and greet for the day. So all is well, really.

But my unplanned time off has made something clear to me, which is that I have too much on my shoulders at the moment. I am writing a book (The Book of Wild Saints, to be published in 2027) and gearing up for a big publicity push for another one (Against the Machine, appearing this September). I’m also writing weekly entries and longer pieces on this Substack, and all of that is in addition to the business of being a husband and father, and co-stewarding three acres of land in the busiest month of the year, when everything grows at triple speed.

This kind of over-commitment is entirely typical, and also entirely my fault. Getting over-ambitious with my time and energy is the story of my life. I tend to want to do a hundred things at once, and I used to be able to manage it, but I’m a young man no longer. One of these days I’m going to have to learn to pace myself. It looks like that day might have arrived. Perhaps God knocked me over for a reason.

Anyway, being forced to slow down has helped me to think about how to pace myself, and I want to let you know about the conclusion I’ve come to. It’s not that I’m going to stop writing on this Substack: rather the opposite, in fact. I have a series of treats lined up in the run-up to my book, as well as my ongoing series on the wild saints, which will continue to roll out. In order to do those things, though, I’ve concluded that I can’t manage a pilgrimage instalment every week on top of everything else. So from now on, the Sunday Pilgrimage will appear bi-weekly instead of weekly. There are a few other things I plan to do to free up some time and space, but they don’t affect my writing here. I simply wanted to explain myself, because I feel some obligation to those who have subscribed to my writing.

It’s sunny outside the window, as I say, and I’ve not done my morning prayers yet. I should probably pray before drinking coffee, but it’s easy to make excuses. I don’t need an excuse to go out into the sun, though. It’s beautiful outside: a huge chestnut tree piled with cones of blossom is waiting outside the window. It’s the May Day weekend. I remember as a schoolboy in Middlesex being forced to dance the Maypole at school. It embarrassed me then, but I look back on it with nostalgia now. I expect there’s a lesson there, but I will need to slow down to learn it.

I’m going out into the sun now. Thank you for reading. Words will appear here again when I’m fully back on my feet, which I hope will be very soon. Blessings to you all this Paschal season.

Paul