6 Questions for Stephen Cherry

1. Why was it important to you to write Barefoot Ways?

Barefoot Ways was a sequel to Barefoot Prayers so its perhaps best to explain that that stemmed from some writing I did for my own pleasure and benefit. That was to try to write prayers on themes that I felt were a bit under-emphaisied in existing books of prayers and to write them in a relaxed, imaginative and poetic way. When I used these in public or shared them in writing they got a warm and appreciative response and I was delighted when I sent a collection to Philip Law at SPCK he was keen to publish them. They were shaped to work over the Lent and Easter periods and I soon felt that a Christmas collection would be worthwhile too. In fact ‘Barefoot Ways’ offers a poem a day from the beginning of December until the beginning of February so it is ‘Christmas’ in a fully expanded sense of Advent until Candlemas. In some ways I think Barefoot Ways is the better collection. It was a little less spontaneous, of course, but I found the challenge of writing something for every day across that period very invigorating and it required me to get into the spirituality of the season and yet avoid all the cliches that abound at that time.

2. How does your work as a dean and theologian influence your writing?

To be honest I think that the day job has big impact on my writing. I wrote Barefoot Prayers while in Durham when my work was diocesan and cathedral based and Barefoot Ways was started then and completed in this more academic and administrative role. So there’s more Durham than Cambridge in the ‘barefoot books’, if I can put it that way. As I pick up writing projects now they have a slightly more academic inclination but my main ambition as a writer is to write for the general reader, not just the specialist.

3. How do you stay motivated when writing feels challenging?

Writing is always challenging. It’s just that every now and then things begin to flow and that feels wonderful. Like everyone else I am motivated by deadlines and so I try to create plenty of them and stick to them as best I can. What I really want never to do is write for the sake of writing. I think it is fine to write fro your own benefit and to thereby clarify your thoughts or expand your imagination. And its also fine to write for the benefit of readers. Sometimes one can lead to the other. But I never want to write anything dull, cliched or flat. Better not to write, and certainly not to publish, if you don’t feel that the reader is going to benefit from it in some way, enjoy it and want to read the next page. It’s my gripe with theology. The writing is rarely delightful; it rarely does justice to the subject matter.

4. What are your favourite books to read during the holidays?

I’m such an eclectic reader that I find that hard to answer. Unlike many people I don’t feel a commitment to finish a book once I have started it. if its disappointing I will stop and start something else. So I look forward to the books that I will really want to finish. Having said that I feel that holidays are real opportunities for the imagination to stretch its wings so I’d be looking for engaging novels and some fresh poetry.

5. Which book have you been recommending to everyone lately?

One of my tutorial responsibilities at Kings is to help all our students improve their habits and skill so learning and to navigate the big intellectual transition from school to university. As part of that we get all our freshers to read the same book before arriving and then I organise a lecture on it before they discuss it together. We looked at Matthew Walker’s ‘Why We Sleep’ which is a ‘wake-up call’ (sorry about that pun) to e reality that very many important things happen while we sleep and that skimping on it is not perhaps as clever as we have been supposing.

6. What do you look forward to most in the new year?

Perhaps it’s unusual but I quite look forward to the unexpected. That’s why I like travel and also why I like intellectual enquiry and writing. For me the whole business is one of exploration. That’s not to say it is passive. I have come to think recently that Christianity is at a profound level the religion of creativity, and that shapes my approach – and is perhaps the subject of another book one day!