Pilsdon Community
The
lifestyle of Pilsdon, to our knowledge, is unique, although we have some similarities
to other vow-based communities. But we believe that we are the only one that
is directly based on the precedents and model set by Nicholas Ferrar. The
impact this has on our spiritual life is outlined in 'A Christian Community'.
Little Gidding was the first Anglican Community to be developed after Henry
VIII's dissolution of monasteries. Its leading characteristic was that it
was based round families as opposed to celibate monks or nuns.
Nicholas Ferrar was born in London and educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge .
He was elected to Parliament in 1624 but retired - at the age of thirty-three
- to Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire in 1625, where with his mother, brother
and sister and their families he organised a small community centred on a
manor house, small farm and a little church. With other families and their
children, they lived a life of corporate simplicity set within a framework
of daily prayers, meals, work and recreation. Nicholas Ferrar guided this
community for twelve years and it continued for another twenty years after
his death. Throughout this period a constant stream of guests and visitors
came to Little Gidding, finding there the 'spirit of joy and serene peace'.
The depth and feeling that Nicholas and his family committed themselves to
in establishing and maintaining the Little Gidding Community is expressed
in a letter to his niece that he wrote in 1631:
I purpose and hope by God's grace to be to you not as a master but as a partner and fellow student.
Shortly before his death, when he handed over the leadership of the Community to his brother John, saying:
It is the right,
good, old way you are in: keep in it.
So it is on the Little Gidding Community that Pilsdon's 'style of living' has emerged.
The Present Day...
A recent visitor
to the Pilsdon Community gives her impression:
It is midday and the Eucharist is being
celebrated in the church at Pilsdon. A handful of folk are seated on straw
bales around a central, octagonal altar. Most have come, at the summoning
bell, from the garden, farm, workshop or kitchen and are wearing working clothes.
Nothing distinguishes the presiding priest other than his position at the
altar. He has been working on the farm all morning, and is dressed in army
fatigues and walking boots. The altar flowers were picked in the garden; the
bread that is shared was baked in the kitchen; the cup was fashioned in the
pottery. After the dismissal, everyone files through the garden towards the
house to a lunch of vegetable pasta, apples and cream, all produced on the
premises. Life at Pilsdon revolves around eating, working and for those who
so choose, praying together. All these are interrelated, and all are intimately
associated with the land.
In its fifty year life Pilsdon has offered home and comfort, work and a close-knit
life to many hundreds of people. Each day, twenty five or so people sit at
table together in an atmosphere removed from the emotional pressures of normal
life. Experience has shown that by sharing in the life of the community for
weeks, months or years, healing takes place and artificial barriers of class
and race break down as men and women work and relax together in the spirit
of equality.