‘My concern when I wrote Crossing was to offer a way for those who do not live in monasteries to access something of what is a daily experience among us supposed religious specialists. I hoped that the reader would find that we monastics – so often the shadowy medieval figures of media-gothic – are in reality fellow-seekers, apprentices training among the tools of a spiritual workshop …. Monastic practices are not a panacea for the ills of modern society, and it would be naïve to suggest that they can be. The point is rather that Christian monastic practices came into being at least in part as a response to the tidal currents of our hearts, set swirling by our busy lives, whichever century we live them in.’