On Friendship – The Letters of Bede Griffiths to Richard Rumbold 1943-1961

 

Edited by Adrian Rance

Published by Templegate (paperback 196 pp) May 2014 $20.00

With an introduction by Sr Pascaline Coff O.S.B.

This book tells much of the younger Bede Griffiths before he went to India; the man who was to emerge later as the khavi clad mystic and sage, loved all over the world.

“Bede Griffiths dedicated The Golden String to Richard Rumbold with the words, ‘To Richard, to whom this book owes its existence’.

Who was this Richard, and what was it that led Bede to dedicate his book to him? This volume of letters from Father Bede to Richard Rumbold answers both of these questions, as well as revealing a friendship of extraordinary depth between the two men.  The title deliberately echoes St Aelred of Rievaulx whose De Spiritale Amicitia, written at the height of the 12^th century flowering of European monasticism, influenced Father Bede profoundly.  Bede felt that this treatise on friendship within a monastic community, held a key to a proper understanding of friendship, love, sexual relations and love between people of the same sex.  All these themes emerge in these letters, providing insights into Bede’s thinking and spiritual growth, the echoes of which can be head, forty years later, in the talks and writings of the revered, khavi clad sage and sannyasi”.

(from the book cover)