About The Abbot

Allow me to introduce myself…in the first-person, if you please.

I was born Aolfart Richard Abbot on St. Patrick’s Day around the middle of the last century, in the suburbs of Edinbugh, Scotland.

My father was a tradesman who married a lovely and feisty Portuguese immigrant. He had been an accomplished athlete who had once tied the world record in the hundred-yard dash originally set by the famous Jesse Owens. In 1948 he had made it to the Olympic trials, only to succumb to a pulled hamstring while warming up… and that was that.

Before I could talk, I was whisked off to America in my parents’ pursuit of a better life.

When I could talk, one of the first decisions I made was to jettison my archaic Gaelic name. Aolfart wouldn’t do in this brave new world. ‘Ricky’ would be a fitting colloquialization of my middle name. Later, ‘Rick’. Finally landing on ‘A. Richard’, with the faint one-letter nod to my Celtic heritage.

Attending Mass was not optional in my younger years, but by the time I should have been Confirmed the pace of our family’s life had shaved the slice of the pie allotted to formal religious pursuits to one very thin indeed, save for Easter and Christmas, of course.

At the wise and mature age of nineteen, I wed my high school sweetheart, Ann, who had already proved to be a competent and fitting spiritual guide, among myriad other favorable attributes. Now, surely, all would be eternal bliss. Hmmm. We produced three children before we figured out what was causing it, then a fourth with unabashed premeditation.

I followed my father’s lead as a tradesman, venturing into my sole practitionership at just twenty-one. Within a few years I was employer to some fifty craftsmen. I fancied myself enviably successful by all measures. Unless you count profits, that is. Many a dollar had found its way into my pocket, if only briefly. Sadly, many a dollar and a few pence more had found its way back out again. By age thirty my company ended in bankruptcy… and that was that.

With no money, no car and no prospects I joined Big Blue Life Insurance Company as a fledgling agent. I have managed to fledgle along for nearly four decades now with Big Blue. Truthfully the fledgling subsided within a few years, as I was somehow being transformed into a faithful and trusted financial advisor to many wonderful clients. In recent years I was asked, and gladly agreed, to assist Big Blue’s home office in expanding the tools and techniques I had fashioned for my practice to be tailored for use by their vast network of agents and advisors. It has been a privilege and a great honour.

Alongside the growth of my financial practice came the emergence of Lillyfield, a hundred-acre modern Celtic monastery on the island of Ile Royale off the northern coast of Nova Scotia wherein my young bride has matured into the abbess Anna, with me at her side as the abbot Richard. The abbot, A. Richard Abbot, to be precise. A rich abbot indeed.

Lillyfield is a ‘thin place’, one the Gaelic refer to as “Caol Ait” (pronounced “keel awtch”) literally, “a narrow place.” Historically, in these Celtic places the veil between the earthly realm and the spiritual realm is particularly thin, often lending to the mystical and the miraculous. That being that, daily life at Lillyfield can be, let’s just say…very interesting. It is from the heart of this thin place that my musings emanate, and it is my hope that in them you might find a nugget or two.