It is a strange feeling....

 ...when something with which you have been actively involved becomes the stuff of memoirs..

Keston College was an excellent institution run by Rev Michael Bourdeaux, which chronicled the plight of Christians and other religious believers under Communism. It did a most useful job, and highlighted some of the courageous men and women who spoke up for truth and human dignity  under a cruel regime and often suffered hideously in prisons or labour camps in the USSR  as a result.

Michael's new book telling the Keston story is a good read. As I got into it, I was fascinated to learn how the project began, and  then rather moved to reconnect with people  who over the years became part of the story.  It felt strange to come across, suddenly, a quotation from a letter in the Catholic Herald by some one called Joanna Nash, calling for more public action on behalf of persecuted Christians...

Memories...standing outside the Soviet Union in vigils of prayer...especially one Christmas Eve, when passers-by stopped to give us their support...

And one particular memory: meeting Irina Ratushinskaya, the poet who endured imprisonment for  her courageous writing. She told us of a strange prison experience: being in a bitterly cold punishment cell at night, in solitary confinement, unable to sleep...and suddenly having a  sensation of warmth, and a deep understanding: "Some out out there is praying for me at this moment."