Mike McClenahan

We have been here at Hetton Hall, the mother house of the Northumbria Community, for five days. We traveled from Bath to London and north to Berwick Upon Tweed, the last stop before the border of Scotland. A volunteer staff picked us up and brought us to the house where we met the couple who serve as priest and overseer of the community. Amy and I were given a tour of the house and shown our room, which is Brendan named after the Celtic saint Brendan the Navigator. The hall is an old farm house, some if it built in the 14th century as a military tower. It has bedrooms and shared bathrooms for twenty people, a well stocked library, reading room, bookstore, a large dining room, garden and kitchen. It is surrounded by farmland with wheat and ranches where cattle graze. A store is many miles away, so we are fairly isolated. It has rained off and on until last night when we finished our walk and saw the sun shine brightly through the clouds. A new mother hous...