Finding God in a Goldfinch

Title: To Hell’s Mouth and Back: Pilgrimage, Suffering and Hope

Author: Trystan Owain Hughes.

Publisher: BRF Ministries 2025

Price: £9.99

Hell’s Mouth is the English name of the beach at the end of the Llyn Peninsula from which you can see the holy island of Bardsey. As a teenage surfer, Hughes used to spend holidays there. As a mature cleric (he is the Provincial Director of Ministerial Development) and father, he decided to spend some of his clergy sabbatical walking the North Welsh Pilgrim’s Way from Basingwerk Abbey to Bardsey. He did this despite having a knee injury and making the journey in a lot of pain with a stick and a limp.

At the triumphal conclusion of this journey, however, he had a recurrence of his disabling back problems and had to spend months immobile and entirely dependent on the kindness of family and friends. He came to see this time of pain as a second pilgrimage, challenging and reinforcing the experience of God he had on his long walk.

This book is a very open account of what Hughes learned through those two journeys. He isolates six themes of pilgrimage - suffering, wonder, signs, company, dependence and hope – and discusses what each pilgrimage showed him of these.

His style is conversational and easy to read. He draws deeply on the resources of popular culture - films music and television programmes - as well as his reading of philosophers, theologians, scientists and celebrities. Occasional phrases are capable of touching the reader very deeply. “Pain”, he writes, “has the relentless power to unravel a person, thought by thought”.

Because of its six themes this book could be used for a Lenten study – indeed it is Archbishop Cherry Vann’s official Lent Book for this year - and there are questions for discussion provided to help with this. I found it worth reading both personally and professionally and I was struck by how much his style, source material and willingness to engage with the non-rational mark him out as being part of a new generation of spiritual writing.

Hughes is able to speak unashamedly about talking to squirrels as he walked and finding God’s presence in a goldfinch. He gently criticises the way scientific materialism and individualism have damaged us and made our world view too small. The book is, therefore, not going to be to the taste of some but could be useful in linking with those who would categorise themselves as spiritual but not necessarily religious, or who enjoy walking the pilgrim routes, and draw them into discussion too.

Canon Rhiannon Johnson