Writing & Conversations
Some of the conversations that begin around Paisley Honey lead beyond the workshop and apiary. Here you’ll find writing I’ve contributed to other publications, alongside stories in which our work has found a place.
They touch on faith, craft, bees and the ways these meet in ordinary life. Where a reading link is available, it takes you to the original publication. Newsletter contributions are identified by their issue.
Why I’m Alive: Learning to Be of Service
Emei · Soul on Deck · A personal reflection
This piece began with a question from Matthew Stone, a coach and director at Emei: “Why are you alive?” His thoughtful encouragement helped me explore what service has come to mean in my own life—through caring, listening, prayer and the small acts that can make a little life feel immeasurably large.
The Small Lives Already Here
Calm with Catherine · A guest reflection
Written for Catherine Quehl-Engel’s readers, this reflection begins with ladybirds coming indoors and butterflies gathering at the less tidy edges of the garden. It explores how tending bees teaches me to pause, notice and consider what other lives need before intervening—and how that attention can become a beginning of prayer.
The Contemplative Ecology of a Working Bee
A Rocha Aotearoa New Zealand · A guest reflection
A reflection shared with A Rocha Aotearoa New Zealand on attention, restraint and care for creation. Drawing on life in our west-of-Scotland apiary, it considers the relationship between contemplative practice and the practical responsibility of tending a living world.
A Small Franciscan Landscape: Making Prayer Beads for the Season of Creation
The Franciscan Store · A guest reflection
Written for The Franciscan Store, which carries pieces from our Saint Francis collection, this reflection brings together beekeeping, the Season of Creation and the making of devotional objects. It explores the Tau cross, the wolf, doves and a small bee as invitations to prayer, peace and attentive care for creation.
A Rosary Is Made Twice
The Rhythm and the Beads · Rosary & Prayer Bead Society · A guest contribution
Brother Peter Prewandowski TSSF invited this reflection for the Rosary and Prayer Bead Society’s newsletter. It follows a rosary from its first making at the workbench to its second making through years of prayer, considering how careful craftsmanship, repetition and use give a familiar object its history and meaning.
Published in the Summer 2026 newsletter, pages 3–4, and circulated to readers in August.
Read the newsletter (PDF), pages 3–4 →
A Prayer You Can Hold
The Sacred Faith · A guest contribution
Luke J. Wilson invited this maker’s reflection on beads, Scripture and attention for The Sacred Faith. It considers how the weight and rhythm of prayer beads can help the hands support a life of prayer, with particular attention to slow, receptive reading of Scripture. Luke illustrated it with his own Paisley Honey prayer beads.
The Wisdom of Repetition
Matthew Stone · Learning Hub · A guest contribution
What making rosaries has taught me about attention and the inner life. Shared through Matthew Stone’s Learning Hub, this piece explores the quiet relationship between repeated work with the hands and the practice of returning our attention.
Prayer Made Tangible
Consecrate the Day · A guest contribution
Mary Ann Matthys welcomed this reflection to Consecrate the Day with a generous introduction to my work. Beginning with the loose beads, wire and cord on my workbench, it explores what handmade devotional objects can teach us about attention, intention, community and the sacred in ordinary life.
Something to Hold Onto
Mary Ann Matthys · Substack · A reflection by Mary Ann
Mary Ann wrote this piece following our correspondence about prayer beads and the people to whom she gives them. It grew out of a conversation about offering something tangible to accompany another person through a difficult time.
Honey from the Hive
Sibyl Dana Reynolds · Substack · A reflection by Sibyl
Author and maker Sibyl Dana Reynolds shares the story of our connection through Mary Ann Matthys. Her reflection brings together her family’s roots in Paisley’s textile mills, the bees woven into her novel Ink and Honey, and the unexpected kinship that can grow between people who make things.
Wilderness Wisdom Recap for Ash Wednesday & Lent
Calm with Catherine · A reflection by Catherine
In her reflection on Lent and wilderness spirituality, Catherine Quehl-Engel quotes and links to my essay, The Desert, the Bees, and the Soul. Her invitation to openness, tenderness and beginning again brings those words into another contemplative conversation.
Paisley Honey Marks Saint Francis’ Eighth Centenary
Episcopal News Service · September 2026 · A submitted press release
Shared through Episcopal News Service, this introduction to our Saint Francis collection explains the original Tau cross design, its birds and small bee, and the distinct prayer traditions behind the Anglican beads and Catholic rosaries. It places the work within the eighth-centenary year of Francis’s Transitus.
When Words Are Difficult: Using Prayer Beads to Give Shape to Prayer
Amanda Libbers · A guest reflection
Hosted on Amanda Libbers’s author website alongside her writing on family estrangement and reconciliation, this reflection considers how prayer beads can offer a gentle form for prayer when grief, uncertainty or waiting leave us with more feeling than words. It explores touch, breath and repetition as ways of remaining present without needing to resolve everything.