Silence and solitude point towards the unknown, that which is beyond our daily experience of the noise and busyness of the modern world.
In solitude one learns to be alone.
Without all the false faces one has acquired, or have had placed upon by others, without the ready-made roles that one habitually plays, one is then standing upon a basis of truth.
To be solitary is not to escape from real life but to be aware of the Mystery which is part of human life.
This is of course the occupation of a lifetime.
Eve Baker
The Fellowship is Christian in origin and still primarily is. It was founded in 1990 by Peter Edwards (1922 – 2020) to ‘provide something that organised religion is largely failing to provide, spirituality as opposed to organised religion. The Christian contemplative tradition goes back to ancient patient watchfulness, those who are truly seeking God without being surrounded by rules and regulations. There is no Fellowship rule of life or prayer. We all have to work out for ourselves how, in our daily circumstances, we will deliberately set aside time and space in which to wait upon God in prayer, in meditation, in reading, thought and worship. We each follow our personal path, but we can profit from our sharing of experience with others through the newsletter.’
Peter had felt called to be a priest and monk, but his Benedictine oblate master advised him enigmatically, ‘You will be a solitary living in the world.’ Marriage intervened, two sons born with serious disabilities and the death of one. This was followed by the death of his wife Mary when he was only 47. When he was age 68 Peter told himself, ‘The sense of being called to some form of the religious life refused to go away. I had to find a meaningful way of life, a halfway house between the cloister and the world.’ The FOS was born.
Eve Baker (1928 – 2012) was the original correspondent/editor of the newsletter for the next 14 years. In her 1995 book, Paths in Solitude, she observed that the capacity to be alone has been mostly lost in the modern world. She thought simplification of our lives is needed, learning to shed our so-called ‘need’ for trivial and transient gratifications and ambitions for what is truly essential in life.
The solitary then, although separated in a greater or lesser degree from everyday human society, is a point of reference for that society. The very existence of the solitary as one who stands outside the systems of values and rewards with which society supports and drives itself, calls into question these systems and as such enables people to free themselves from them. One can be solitary within the system by freely choosing a different philosophy to live by and by rejecting the values and reward such a system offers.
Eve Baker
Due to Eve’s old age and illness, in 2005 the Fellowship was on the brink of collapse. Eve had rejected those who had put themselves forward to take over. Instead, she wrote to Peter Edwards about ‘John Mullins, a layman, married with four children, a social worker, a lover of John of the Cross. On a hunch I asked him. He was astonished.’
John Mullins, an American resident in the UK since 1975, still working full time as a child protection social worker then, took on the editorship and correspondence ‘to keep it going’ until someone else came along. During his time, with his long Buddhist background, John gradually promoted multi-faith openness in the newsletters for those who, in the words of Peter Edwards, ‘are truly seeking God…without rules and regulations.’
After 20 years in which he did much more than just ‘keeping it going’, at age 75 John has handed over to Ronald Hermsen. They have been in deep correspondence for over 10 years. Ronald (b. 1962) is Dutch, living in The Netherlands. He is the father of three daughters, a professional translator of over 80 books and a spiritual author in his right.
