Welcome, and the idea behind this site

We are two friends who have made a discovery: the value of becoming (or moving towards becoming) spiritually feral. It is well known that for all its benefits, organised religion can have a domesticating and taming effect on its followers.

We think many other people are making a similar exploration, some while remaining inside institutional churches, some having already left them, and some who are coming from the position of ‘spiritual but not religious’. 
 
This exploration can be a lonely business, so we hope to offer here a safe place where fellow travellers can share encouragement, experience and resources. Welcome, if our exploration sounds like yours.

We want this website to be a cooperative venture involving like-minded explorers, so in that spirit, we welcome your comments (negative as well as positive). Is the site helpful? Are there other areas that it might cover? Do you know of relevant resources we should link to? Have you any suggestions? Please send them.

We have no idea where all this going. We don’t have a plan, but we’re committed to a process. We've created this website to explore the idea, and we'd like your help.

Henry Morgan  (Worcester)
Hugh Valentine  (London)
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LATEST POSTS material below
Joseph the Worker and Church indifference to selling our labour
Hugh on a cubist Last Supper that rejects conventional piety
Henry - A Spiritual Odyssey and A Spirtual Conversation
Paul on One True God
Hugh on Feral as corrective (the tranquillizing effects of organised religion)
Henry on The Calling of Jesus
Reflections on the painting Flight into Egypt by Henry Ossawa TannerArt
Come away and rest for a while, Sister Regula
In a country parish at Christmas, Keith Griffin
Happy Christmas, by Henry
The Horsforth Shed, by Pete
Simburg's wounded Angel
In defence of angels
Faith = trust - Henry
Church is everywhere
Marginal Thoughts, Helen Loder SSM
Jesus died for God, not for us
Pete, in our latest 'feral story' asks is being domesticated so bad?
Paul - more church than church
Henry reflecting on the role of Judas
Henry reflects on this website, seven months on
Perhaps the feralty is to be found in the listening and looking?
Incarnations - Henry
Feral as corrective (the tranquillizing effects of organised religion)
Listening to the flowers
Into my arms
Feral death celebrations Tooting Common
Henry on Gaia exhibition
Henry on Charlie Mackesy
Mike on Warmth and wildness
A feral reflects on Christmas
Andrew: undomesticated exchange
Henry has added a 'PS' to his story
Tony Williamson
Bill's Story
Becky's Story
Keith's Story
Hugh on JSB
Henry:  A feral reflects on the Cross
A DEFINITION
"Spirituality.... has to do with the sense of the divine presence and living in the light of that presence. There are two basic aspects, therefore: knowing and being known by God, on the one hand; and responding, with the whole of life, on the other.... Spirituality has to do with life under God…"  Stephen Barton (The Spirituality of the Gospels)
 
Feral spirituality is concerned with life under God beyond an institutional religious framework. It assumes that every human being knows enough of God, because God has revealed something of God's self to them, to be able to trust their natural intuitive response to God.
 
There is at least a hint of feral spirituality in everyone.  For some it becomes stronger than a hint. It may be a calling that they hold comfortably alongside involvement in institutional religion; it may be one they struggle to balance with institutional belonging; it may be one that leads them to leave institutional religion; or it may be one that they have come to without any previous religious involvement.  We are each on a spiritual journey and the part that feral spirituality plays in our lives will grow as we grow.   To do so, and to flourish, it needs nourishment and support.