Obedience as a virtue

Did the 'vow of obedience' appear with the first monastic Rule of Life? What of the wild, autonomous spirit of obedience among the hermits?

Oct 3 • 

The Passio Project

 and 

David Benjamin Blower

5

September 2025

Gains and losses in the first Rule of Life

Some things get lost in the first monastic Rule of Life; but the associated gains are pretty compelling.

Sep 9 • 

The Passio Project

 and 

David Benjamin Blower

3

August 2025

Organising the monastic community

The first monastic 'rule of life' appeared not that long after the original desert hermits. What do these first steps of formalisation show us?

Aug 27 • 

The Passio Project

 and 

David Benjamin Blower

7

Can the practice of pilgrimage sow seeds of peace in the world?

Participants in a Peace Pilgrimage choose to walk, often for several days, to the DSEi Arms Fair — in protest, and reflection, on the arms trade.

Aug 21 • 

The Passio Project

1

The troubled days of St Jerome

Or, the reassuring complexity of the 'Patron Saint of Difficult Personalities'

Aug 12 • 

The Passio Project

 and 

David Benjamin Blower

4

July 2025

Turning free competition into a joke

The undercurrent of hermits 'competing' to be the lowest and the least parodies the Roman world of power, prestige and privilege.

Jul 28 • 

The Passio Project

 and 

David Benjamin Blower

4

Seeds of Wisdom

Community gardener and Uni chaplain Samuel Ewell shares what plants have to teach us about the economy of gifts.

Jul 21 • 

The Passio Project

 and 

Samuel Ewell

6

On the absence of children

On the face of it, the most long-running anarchist commune in Western history had no investment in what it was building: the end was wired in.

Jul 8 • 

The Passio Project

 and 

David Benjamin Blower

3

Bodies, Bellies and Bibles

Artist and practical theologian Vanessa Chamberlin describes the work of putting our physical selves in the stories of scripture.

Jul 2 • 

The Passio Project

 and 

Vanessa Chamberlin

17

June 2025

Exorcising the male gaze

The hermits sought to overcome the sexual predations of patriarchy, but they left some difficult questions behind them

Jun 24 • 

The Passio Project

 and 

David Benjamin Blower

3

To be in solitude, together

The hermits show us the easily missed connection between personal spiritualities and the political economies they lean toward

Jun 2 • 

The Passio Project

 and 

David Benjamin Blower

4

May 2025

Expanding our ideas of hospitality

In her own words: Lydia Hiorns, from Shieldfield Art Works, on hospitality as a way of life.

May 27 • 

The Passio Project

3