Simon Parke

This book offers ten new commandments for coping with the stresses, strains and pressures of modern life. These ten new commandments are ten skilful attitudes for the attainment of your true self. 1. Be present2. Observe yourself3. Be nothing4. Flee attachment5. Transcend suffering6. Drop your illusions7. Prepare for truth8. Cease separation9. Know your soul10. Fear nothingThis handbook will set you on the path leading you back to who you really are. As Parke says, ‘When we become disconnected from who we are, however it happened, it is a long journey home. What follows is a consideration of that journey - the journey home to a beautiful life'.

Wake up your mind and soul with a mini meditation! Need a break from the mayhem of the modern world? Sometimes all you need is to give yourself permission to pause. You're not looking for easy answers or quick fixes; but you haven't given up on truth - truth that is deep enough to hold and transform the realities you live with every day. So why not try these simple steps? Simon Parke draws on his popular column in the Daily Mail to open you to wide doors of awareness and possibility. One-Minute Mystic gives meditations for those who like to pause , but who don't always know how to, or what to pause with. Just find a quiet place where you will not be disturbed, read through the meditation a few times, and allow its simple wisdom to inspire a shift within you. Wherever you are, and whatever your circumstances - it only takes a minute!

Is it Stormhaven's best kept secret? The Community of the Holy Fire is a convent by the sea with a leader who has plans. Abbess Hildegard wishes to turn the community into a beacon of 'Greenness' - a prophetic call to the world in the face of terrifying climate change.'Green is not a hobby for fanatics, ' she says. 'It is the warp and weft of all that is 'But time and tide wait for no one, and on the night of the Great Bonfire, the abbess is killed in a manner no one deserves. It is another case for D. I. Shah and Abbot Peter, as they attempt to find the murderer among the saints by the sea. Who could hate her so much - and why?'Let justice roll ' said the prophet Amos but the forces against it are strong and neither Shah nor the abbot will ever forget the Community of the Holy Fire, which some call, 'an inconvenient convent'.

'Daffodils freeze and shrubs cry in Stormhaven. They call it 'The Beast from the East' and the temperature's unholy; it crucifies all with cruel nails of ice; a Siberian chill piercing their bones. And there will be a further killing tonight - human, not plant; boy, not man.' So begins another case for Abbot Peter and D. I. Tamsin Shah, with the discovery of a young man's body at the seaside beauty spot of Splash Point. He drowns beneath a cold, uncaring moon; and as P. C. Banville observes, it proves a 'hungry death', not be sated by one unfortunate corpse. There must, and will, be more. The investigation will lead the Abbot and Shah into deep but different danger. And it's not just the killer they need worry about. Pray for the coming of spring.

First century Palestine is a region glued together by hate. The Roman invaders rule, the Jewish authorities collude while the enraged and desperate plot violent revolt. Pilate lives with his nightmares, Herod makes guilty hay, the balance of power is delicate - and the last thing anyone needs is Yeshua, a man with a mind and heart of his own. He's going to suggest a shocking alternative for his homeland. And this is his story, told through his eyes; and through those of two different women in his life, Miriam of Magdalene and Mary, his mother - different women with very different dreams. The result is much more than an historical novel. It is an epic account of the nature of love; of Yeshua as a human being, a carpenter compelled to preach - a man whose intellectual, physical and spiritual strength lead him into conflict with family, friends and authority; and finally, with death itself. It is not to be doubted a man called Yeshua lived and died. The more interesting question is whether he died and lived. And how he believed and loved along the way. It is 1st century Palestine and no one needs Yeshua. It is said he arrived there like a sword.

Julian of Norwich was the first woman in the world to write a book in English, and yet had largely disappeared from view until her rediscovery during the twentieth century. A fourteenth century anchoress in Norwich, she lived in a cell for forty years, surrounded by savage plague, political inequality and religious bigotry. Yet Julian gave the world one of its most famous calls to hope: 'All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.'Who was she? Why did she pray for a near-death experience and then choose containment in a cell? And how did she come to speak with such optimism? In The Secret Testament of Julian, she tells her own story, full of difficulty and joy. No plaster saint, but a flesh and blood woman who from the silence of her cell speaks with a strength that few today can equal. Let Julian tell her story.

'What was it like in the desert, abbot' asks Rosemary. And, in a way, this book is his answer. In the first of the acclaimed Abbot Peter mysteries, Peter takes us to St James, a fragile community in the hot sands of Middle Egypt, peopled by those with nowhere else to take their creaking lives. There in the shadows of Mt Sinai Peter faces deception, delusion and death. The monastery is already threatened with closure, due to rationalisation. But when a harsh and unpredictable maniac comes to call, people's lives are under threat. Suddenly, ordered religious practice is disordered, leaving no one unaffected. As events come to a traumatic climax, all have to question their beliefs and make decisions about their lives ... including Abbot Peter.'It was interesting, ' replies the abbot to Rosemary. 'A slightly bloody retreat.' I think the book should be banned before it does the image of religion some serious damage. Ian Hislop, 'Private Eye', 'Have I Got News for You'. Genuinely funny, tenderly serious - a delightful small novel. Sara Maitland, author of A Book of SilenceIf you're after a surprising, disturbing, profound, witty magical mystery tour, then this book is for you. Simon Mayo, Radio Presenter, author.

The Stormhaven Etiquette Society, a secretive affair, unafraid to name and shame those who transgress Model Services, the town’s only brothel, a discreet but busy presence in Church Street Bybuckle Asylum, a desolate shell on the seafront that housed over seven hundred mental patients prior to ‘care in the community’ What brings these three together is a cold-blooded execution that both shocks and confounds. For lying dead in the empty asylum, tied to an old metal bed frame, is a pillar of the establishment. Or is she? Sleuthing couple DI Tamsin Shah and her remarkable cleric uncle join forces once again to solve a murder mystery that reveals dark secrets from Abbot Peter’s tempestuous student years. ‘Do we ever leave anything behind?’ he wonders as the killer swings the gun barrel towards him . . . ‘To a long list of much-loved detective pairings, which includes Holmes and Watson, Poirot and Hastings, and Morse and Lewis, we must now add Abbot Peter and Tamsin Shah’. Church Times

For fans of Historical Fiction. Are you looking to escape back to a time when many people thought they knew exactly what God wanted them to do? Enjoy some satisfying research and a transformation of an historical turning-point to lively effect. In this brilliantly atmospheric novel called ' The Soldier, the Gaoler, the Spy and her Lover', Simon Parke explores one of the most gripping tales in English history. He weaves together the four coinciding stories of Charles, including his extraordinary year-long imprisonment on the Isle of Wight. Robert Hammond, the poor man who found himself the king’s gaoler , Charles’ remarkable mistress (written out of the records), the super-spy Jane Whorwood and of course, the brilliant and depressed Oliver Cromwell, who is working through his own demons of religion, politics, love and death. January 30th 1649. England is not a country that wishes to execute its divinely-appointed king. Yet Charles 1 finds himself shivering on a scaffold in Whitehall, with the axe man by his side . . .

‘Excellence by the Sea’ is the strap line in Stormhaven Towers school’s publicity, but when, at the end of the summer term, the hard-drinking, hard-smoking new Headmaster, Jamie King, is found dead at the bottom of the town’s famous white cliffs, this excellence comes under savage scrutiny. Suicide is assumed at first – King wouldn’t be the first tormented soul to hit those unforgiving rocks. But unanswered questions remain. Forensics find no phone by the body and the head always had his mobile with him: ‘I wouldn’t want to be out when Eton ring!’ he used to joke. Then there is a second death at the school. With the pursuit of excellence exchanged for the pursuit of a killer who is both clever and efficient, the long dark corridors of Stormhaven Towers become an education in fear. Who will be next? Leading the investigation is the attractive and ambitious Inspector Tamsin Shah, accompanied, rather unexpectedly, by Abbot Peter, recently retired from the deserts of Middle Egypt. Known locally as ‘the odd couple’, they have worked on cases together before – surprising though that the Abbot should wish to become involved again. The ruthless Shah has brought danger to his seaside door, and through events at Stormhaven Towers, will do so again. Reviews of previous Abbot Peter mysteries, A Director’s Cut (2014), A Psychiatrist Screams (2013) and A Vicar Crucified (2013, all DLT): ‘A nicely plotted, swiftly paced yarn, full of teases . . . Parke evokes the creepiness of the setting marvellously. He has a stunning ear for the way people actually speak, with pages of uninterrupted dialogue flashing by with the speed of a radio play.’ Church Times ‘Highly original . . . very different from most detective stories.’ Clerical Detectives ‘An engrossing page-turning thriller, propelling the reader through its multiple twists and turns and keeping one guessing until the final unpredictable – yet satisfying – denouement.’ Irish Independent

Sometimes we can lose touch with ourselves so much that we spend our days going through the motions, without really experiencing our lives. In today's world, we expend so much energy looking forward, rushing on to the next thing, or looking backwards, stressing and worrying about our perceived mistakes, that we rarely still ourselves and our minds enough to be truly in the present moment. In One-Minute Mindfulness, Simon Parke uses stories and simple thoughts to help us see how we can return to the present moment and remain there. This subtle change can be startlingly healing, bringing peace into every area of our lives, allowing us to live freely and fully and to honour what is true for each of us. Both inspiring and practical, this book is for anyone who wants to come home to themselves. This updated edition includes a new introduction and fresh insights for a new generation of mindfulness seekers.

A book of short meditations for use wherever you find yourself - on the bus, at the doctors, in your bedroom or by the pool. The third in Simon's One Minute trilogy, it's an invitation, in your busy life, to Pause. Read. Live. For truth-seekers who value awareness in their life...but don't have all day.

Abbot Peter has recently swapped his failing leadership of a remote monastery in the Sinai desert for retirement in the bleak and stormy English seaside town of Stormhaven. When the charismatic local vicar is discovered dead – crucified, naked, to a cross on the vestry wall – Abbot Peter is invited to act as a Special Witness investigator. He is assigned to work alongside Detective Inspector Tamsin Shah – young, pretty, brash, unsentimental and, by a peculiar quirk of fate, a niece that Abbot Peter never knew he had. A cast of suspects to the murder of Rev. Adam Fontaine is quickly revealed from within the church’s own community – including the formidable flower-arranger, the egotistical bishop, the compassionate curate, the irascible youth worker and the frustrated treasurer. Nine people were at the meeting that immediately preceded the vicar’s shocking death. Could the mystical nine-point Enneagram revered by the father he never knew help Abbot Peter uncover the murderer? More deaths will follow before he discovers the answer.

The Enneagram is a time-honoured way of understanding personality types and human behavior. It is both ancient and modern. Developed over 1500 years by Sufi and Christian mystics, it was revised and extensively expanded in the 20th century by the disciplines and insights of Western psychology. It identifies nine types of personality, nine ways of being, describes how they interrelate and is widely used today as a perceptive guide to self-understanding. In this original and thought-provoking book 'Enneagram' unveils her insights in the form of letters to and from enquirers. These finely-drawn portraits of the nine faces of humanity will not only give you a deeper understanding of who you are, but will also guide you through the complex inner world of others.

We all grow up somewhere. No two families are the same, but everyone experiences them in some way. What everyone doesn't do, however, is consider the effect of these experiences on the person they become. This lack of awareness can have significant consequences in their future relationships in the world. Forsaking the family, full of story and illustration, starts by considering the surprising approach of Jesus to his own family - in turns, rude, dismissive and warm. His family values would hardly be applauded today. The book then reflects on how we perceive, understand and grow from our family experiences. In his search for freedom, Jesus sought always the truth - even in the family, and even at the expense of people's feelings. He celebrated the good in family, but would not collude in manipulative and negative behaviour from his nearest and dearest. To what extent are we able to live in honest relationships? How free can we be in relating? Perhaps sometimes, you have to leave the family to find it. This is a book for those who want to come home.

What does solitude mean to you? Albert Einstein once said: 'I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity.' In his latest book Simon Parke, author of The Beautiful Life and One-Minute Mindfulness describes solitude as the active path to inner silence and takes us on an enthralling journey there. In a world of haste and distraction he commends the way of stillness and withdrawal where we can 'recover the power of alone'. 'It's a journey to our selves and a place we can call our own,' he says. 'It's here, away from the crowd that we reconnect with our inner knowing - so different to our outer knowing.' A capacity for silence is what distinguishes us as humans, yet many of us fear to go there. But there is nothing to fear in solitude and everything to gain. If you want to be still but wonder how, this book is the perfect friend.

Sometimes we can lose touch with ourselves so much that we don't even know we have done so, until suddenly we realise with a start that we have just been going through the motions, without really experiencing our lives. The simple fact is that in today's world, we spend so much time looking forward, rushing on to the next thing, or looking backwards, stressing and worrying about our perceived mistakes, that we rarely still ourselves and our minds enough to be truly in the present moment. In "One-Minute Mindfulness", Simon Parke uses stories and simple thoughts to help us see through clear eyes how we can return to the present moment and remain there. This subtle change can be startlingly healing, bringing peace into every area of our lives, allowing us to live freely and fully, and to honour what is true for each of us. Both inspiring and practical, this book is for anyone who wants to come home to themselves.

The day I was appointed Chair of the shop union was the same day the Pope was elected. There the similarities end, however. For while his elevation took place beneath the fine art of the Sistine Chapel, with the mysterious white smoke rising, mine took place in the cold store, with nothing more mysterious than the bacon delivery and yesterday's waste... A vicar for twenty years, Simon Parke trades in his dog collar for a job on the tills in his local supermarket. Among the vegetable aisles and dairy produce he unpacks the meaning of life with his fellow workers, a colourful bunch. Sonny the security guard hates conflict; shelf-filler Winston knows he is destined for something better; and voluptuous Faith is generous with her wares - but sadly not with Simon. You don't have to be off your trolley to work there, but it helps... From checkout charlies to banana rage, from short-changed lows to cold store highs, Shelf Life is a pick-n-mix of wit and wisdom for anyone who loves life and hopes for more - no matter where they find themselves.

'The Imitation of Christ' first appeared 1418. It was published anonymously but spread quickly around Europe. A Latin manuscript from 1441 exists, but there was a German translation as early as 1434. A French translation appeared in 1447, a Spanish edition in 1482, and an Italian one in 1488. The first English translation appeared in 1503, which was just Book 4, but the other three books followed in the same year and a complete translation appeared in 1556. In 1663, an Arabic edition was printed in Rome, and in 1837, a Hebrew version printed in Frankfurt. It has since been translated into many languages, and has won for itself a variety of celebrity admirers. John Wesley and John Newton were men of the Evangelical wing of the Church yet both named this Catholic manual as important in their conversion, while General Gordon took it into battle with him. Thomas More, St Francis Xavier and Dr Johnson were other famous devotees. The work is comprised of four books, though they are not all found in all manuscripts, and neither are they always in the same order. This makes little practical difference to the reader, however. This manual of devotion is pitched at a challenging level of Christian experience, but does not offer an ordered journey. Like a merry-go-round, the same themes are visited again and again throughout the books; Thomas is a teacher who believes in repetition. Book 4 is unique in that it has a specific subject, the Eucharist, and explores our attitudes towards the bread and wine. But even here, the author weaves in themes familiar from the other three books: human worthlessness, the need for humility, advice on temptation and adversity, disdain for the attractions of the world, contempt for scholarship, sorrow for sin, forgiveness of perceived injustice, submission to God in all things and ardour for union with the life of Jesus in his death and resurrection. There is a manic-depressive feel to much of the writing, which can be disturbing for the modern reader. Although Thomas calls Christians to an equanimity that is neither too happy when things go well or too sad when things go badly, the author's own mood tends to be either one of extreme despair and self-hate or an ecstatic happiness at the sweetness of God and the joy to be found in him. To an extent, this mirrors the character of the God he describes who both loves us unendingly whilst also preparing eternal punishment for the unfaithful. Kempis offers no resolution to this paradox; but sensed in all he writes is the fire of personal dismantlement through which humans must walk in the cause of their spiritual development. Here is a radical and disturbing self-help book, penned for the 14th century monk. Thomas writes as a monk for monks, but clearly his passion and insights spill well beyond the cloistered world of the monastery. One writer called it 'The diary of a soul on its way to perfection,' which captures well the author's spiritual ambition both for himself and others. As he himself says in the second book, 'Disdain that which is superficial, dedicate yourself to your inner being and you shall see that the Kingdom of God grows inside you.' St Augustine was patron of Thomas' monastery and it was he who famously said, 'Oh God, you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their place in you.' The restless Thomas a Kempis could not have agreed more.