If you have ever wondered about the life of a hermit – why on earth anyone would choose it and how it works out in practice – A Simplified Life provides an in-depth psychological and spiritual exploration of one nun’s experience, spanning a quarter of a century, living alone in a wooden hut on a remote peninsula in Wales. After twenty-four years in a religious community, Verena felt called by God to a life of solitude and prayer. She deals honestly with all the difficulties, dangers and potential pitfalls as well as the rewards, weighing all the arguments against such a life alongside the long tradition of hermits from the earliest days of Christianity. The book encompasses poetry, history, and accounts of her rare pilgrimages to holy isles in Wales and Ireland, along with practical details of her day-to-day life and relations with the local community. After twenty-five years, advancing age brought that phase of her life to a natural end and she moved into a cottage in the village and found a new framework for prayer and contemplation. A deep and thoughtful book by a deep and thoughtful woman.