Varden, Erik – The Bell Bookshop

Healing wounds

Emma — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Are we healed through our wounds or are our wounds themselves healed from some other source?

In this 2025 Lent Book, Erik Varden starts by examining the New Testament where it spells out why Christ’s wounds were efficacious for the healing of humankind. Indeed, why they were necessary for the purpose. This austere way of thinking is indispensable but it has never really satisfied the effective needs of believers or the intuitions of the heart.

Bob Dylan once said, tongue in cheek, ‘Pain sure does bring out the best in people.’ The philosopher Donald MacKinnon said, ‘Suffering never ennobled anyone.’ Suffering by nature poses questions people wrestle with today in many fields of life with counsellors, therapists, philosophers, and spiritual directors. But the conundrum remains and in this book Varden sets out to resolve it.

Entering the Twofold Mystery

Emma — Thu, 20 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Erik Varden published The Shattering of Loneliness in 2018. Now, with the world in the throes of uncertainty and turbulence, he helps us interpret the signs of the times, convinced that the perennial experience of monks and nuns has much to teach us. The principles of monasticism have become attractive to many, awakened as we are to the importance of integrity, the pursuit of peace, asceticism as a path to freedom, hospitality and contemplative seeing. After a deeply personal introduction, Varden invites us to consider what makes a monk. He then takes us on a pilgrimage through the Church’s year, drawing on Scripture, tradition and literary and religious figures of our time. Varden lets the reader discover the generous breadth and depth of a monk’s outlook on life. In so doing he provides inspiration, enjoyment and enlightenment in equal measure.