Welcome to the website of Jamie Howison – priest, author, speaker – where you’ll find information on my books, podcasts, and other resources for along the way.
Listen to a recent podcast on the book – Jamie Howison – A Kind of Solitude – in the Crackers and Grape Juice series, published on May 24, 2021.
A Kind of Solitude: How Pacing the Cage with an Icon and the Book of Common Prayer Restored My Soul
Six months into a deep personal crisis occasioned by the unexpected end of his marriage, Jamie Howison travelled halfway across the continent to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to engage in a unique and intense five-week contemplative retreat observed in the context of the chapel community of the University of King’s College. Immersed in the liturgies of the Canadian Book of Common Prayer, mentored in the writing an Orthodox icon of Christ Pantocrator, challenged to confront the hard truths behind his brokenness, and laid bare by the hours of silence and solitude, Howison discovered something of the power of the ancient spiritual traditions in the restoration a 21st century soul. A Kind of Solitude tells that story.
In A Kind of Solitude, Jamie Howison invites us onto an unfamiliar but beautiful healing path of his own agitated Way of the Cross. Are you as done as I am with the rah-rah ‘gospel’ of triumphalist platitudes and ready for some real and raw good news? Jamie is a man who’s limped through the sorrow of Gethsemane, known the dying gasps of Golgotha and beheld the Easter sunrise of resurrection life. Follow him on this tender retreat and I’m sure, like me, you’ll breathe your own sighs of solace and hope. – Bradley Jersak, Dean of Theology & Culture, St. Stephen’s University, NB and author, IN: Incarnation & Inclusion, Abba & Lamb
Read an article on the book by John Longhurst, published in the weekend edition of the Winnipeg Free Press on Saturday June 26, 2021 by clicking here.
Read a review of A Kind of Solitude by The Rev’d Theo Robinson, published in the June 2021 edition of The Rupert’s Land News by clicking here.
How to purchase a copy of A Kind of Solitude
· Print copies are now available for purchase directly from the publisher , and on Amazon.ca and Amazon.com
· An attractively priced Kindle edition is also available on Amazon.
· If you are in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and are interested in purchasing this book directly from the author, please do be in touch.
· Within Canada a copy can also be sent to you for $13, including postage. To put this in motion, please do be in touch.
This brief memoir of a time set apart for spiritual and emotional healing is a loving appreciation of the abiding power of the Church’s ancient spiritual traditions to sustain and nourish our souls — and of the hospitality of a community which seeks to be formed by that tradition, so as to be able to “bear one another’s burdens”, as Christ has done for us all. Lisa Wang, Adjunct Faculty, Trinity College Faculty of Divinity, Toronto
Jamie Howison writes reverently, personally, and beautifully about the restoration of his own shattered soul after having submitted to the care of a wise spiritual director who knows and trusts the medicinal qualities of ancient spiritual practices and traditions. If you are inclined to suspect there may be medicinal properties to such practices, this book should convince you once and for all. – Steve Bell, Recording artist and author
Jamie Howison 