Publications
LOVE ME HOME - A HEALING JOURNEY WITH THE HUMAN CHRIST
Love Me Home is an invitation for you to go on a journey with the wounded healer Jesus Christ. The book is rooted in my experience both during and after the 30-day Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. I explore themes of embodiment, trauma, recovery, truth, mercy and forgiveness. Very deliberatly, I put the book together as a piece of art in itself and offer a unique blending of personal narrative, scripture passages, poetry, art and theological reflection. I share about my own journey so you get an idea about the soil this book has grown from. But the book offers enough space for yourself and where you want to go with it - it is big! (216x250mm)
My poems are honest and earthy and - so I have been told - speak even to folk who normally find poetry difficult to engage with. The accessible language will spark your imagination, bringing to life Gospel scenes and acting as a bridge for you to encounter Christ in your own heart and to pray your own Psalms. The poems are complemented by creative pieces of art that emerged during my own journey, expressing both something of my pain and the healing I found, and a deep trust that God has made his home in our body, a lovely dwelling place. They invite you to find your own creative expressions as you navigate your inner landscape.
The book wants to encourage you to open up to your own wounding and to allow the story you carry in your body to be touched by the light and life of Jesus, the Christ, who seeks to love all of us home. Love Me Home is a hopeful and courageous book that wants to be taken slowly and meditatively. It will speak to you wherever you are at on your spiritual journey and especially if you have suffered emotional, spiritual, sexual or physical violence or abuse.
“This remarkable book reveals in prose, poetry and art, how light and new life emerge, through suffering and struggle, out of darkness and death. It takes this foundational tenet of faith to a very personal and profound level, making it vibrant and meaningful for every spiritual pilgrim, but especially for those working through their own experience of emotional, spiritual, sexual or physical trauma or abuse. Christine achieves this at great cost as she shares with raw honesty her journey through the Spiritual Exercises, which opened deep wounds and became the foundation of an equally deep healing process as she found her own story intimately and inextricably interwoven with the Gospel story.”
MARGARET SILF Author of Landmarks and The Wisdom Years
More details will follow as soon as the book is available to order.
Publications
Consecrated Celibacy - A Fresh Look at an Ancient Calling
Consecrated Celibacy - A Fresh Look at an Ancient Calling
Consecrated Celibacy - A Fresh Look at an Ancient Calling
You can order the book at Sacristy Press
or at Northumbria Community
In this book I explore the vocation to Consecrated Celibacy outside of traditional Religious Orders. As you might have discovered whilst browsing my website, I have made a commitment to that state in life in 2011. Since then, I have met an increasing number of men and women who feel called to this commitment, but who clearly sense that joining a traditional Monastery or Religious Order is not for them.
The book looks at how Scripture and Tradition affirm both this vocation, and - more generally - living as a single person in a Church culture that often emphasizes marriage and family. It provides insights into how the calling to Consecrated Celibacy might be discerned and lived out, making practical suggestions. It also addresses questions around sexuality in a wider context. This book will be a valuable resource for any single person, those discerning a calling to Consecrated Celibacy, Spiritual Directors, and New Monastic Communities who want to re-imagine 'the pathways of old' for our day and age.
"At a time when classical religious life is experiencing a worldwide paradigm shift and new monastic communities are emerging across the ecumenical spectrum, this thoughtful study of consecrated celibacy comes exactly at the right moment. Combining honesty and clear-sightedness, the book addresses a topic that is overdue for serious attention."
Gemma Simmonds, Religious Life Institute, Cambridge
You can watch an interview from the book launch on my blog
You can find a review about my book by
The Ven. Dr Lyle Dennen, Archdeacon Emeritus of Hackney (East London) in the Church Times.
A review from the evangelical stable can be found here
My Little Dandelion
Consecrated Celibacy - A Fresh Look at an Ancient Calling
Consecrated Celibacy - A Fresh Look at an Ancient Calling
My first publication from 2014 is an illustrated booklet of 13 meditative poems, called 'My Little Dandelion'. My German friend and artist, Ute Plank, did the drawings for the book and they complement the poems so beautifully.
If you want to see more of Ute Plank's art, visit her website https://www.uteplank.com/
This is a jewel of a collection of prayer poems, written by someone who has drawn deeply from her life experience of God as love, and who writes with authenticity, intimacy, and passion. There is a generosity and openness in Christine's writing, which is sensitively enriched by the beautiful drawings of Ute Plank, and helpful background notes on the context out of which each poem was birthed. They are poems to walk with, wrestle with, and be nourished by, which touch the soul in the areas that are beyond words, and are indeed prayers as well as poems.
Revd. Dr. Sue McWhinney, Priest in West Yorkshire
You can order a copy of the booklet from the Northumbria Community's online shop: