Salvaging The Sacred

Lucy Partington 'disappeared' in December 1973. In March 1994 her bones were unearthed at 25 Cromwell Street, Gloucester, where she had been raped, murdered and hidden for 20 years by Frederick and Rosemary West. This pamphlet first appeared as an article in the Guardian Weekend, May 1996, and is published in response to considerable interest when Lucy's sister Marian spoke about 'Salvaging the Sacred' at the 2003 Quaker Summer Gathering in Loughborough. In 1997 a grant by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust enabled Marian to continue her inner work of prayer, Chan Buddhist meditation and writing. This work is to find forgiveness at the deep interior level and externally to the world, to bring "something good" out of this situation, and to share some discoveries of how to create light out of this extreme darkness. Since 2001 she has shared her story with prisoners who have committed serious crimes, as part of the restorative Justice project in Bristol.