To Hell's Mouth and Back: Pilgrimage, suffering and hope

After a gruelling 140-mile pilgrimage walking across the rugged terrain of North Wales, Trystan Owain Hughes finds himself facing another, very different pilgrimage as he recovers from a serious injury sustained on the walk.

In To Hell’s Mouth and Back he explores his experience of suffering, considering how God can redeem and transform pain and disability, and examines how common experiences of pilgrimage are echoed in the challenges of our life journeys. Along the way, the reader is led to consider the journeys we all face, as we search for God’s presence and hope in our joys and pains.

‘Weaving together his experience of walking an ancient pilgrim’s way in his beloved North Wales and his experience of serious injury, Trystan Owain Hughes describes in this compelling book how we can learn to see God at work in our lives, even in the darkest of times. Through vivid narrative and honest reflection, peppered with references to poetry and novels as well as scripture, he draws us to reflect on our own journeys and pilgrimages, both seen and unseen. With questions for reflection at the end of each chapter, this is a wonderful and enriching book for both individuals and study groups to engage with.’ Cherry Vann, Archbishop of Wales

‘In this moving and beautifully paced book, we are invited to share different kinds of pilgrimage – not only pilgrimage to holy places, but the journey into the pervasive divine presence and gift in the world, and the journey into what it is to live as a vulnerable and suffering body. God is the magnetic centre for all these journeys. This is a wonderful book of reflection, lament and celebration.’ Rowan Williams, theologian and former Archbishop of Canterbury

‘Not just a story of a walk, but of a life. Trystan’s book is poignant, challenging and excruciatingly honest. It reminds us that hope can outshine the deepest despair.’ Rob Parsons, OBE, author and speaker

‘Through telling the story of his own journeying, Trystan Owain Hughes has produced a doggedly honest, deeply insightful, and rich spiritual resource for our own journeys through this life. The book takes the Welsh landscape, beautiful and terrible in equal measure, and uses it to draw a landscape of the human soul, providing prayerful and practical landmarks to remind us that it is Christ's landscape and he journeys with us.’ Joanna Collicutt, Karl Jaspers lecturer in psychology and spirituality at Ripon College, Cuddesdon

‘This invitation to join Trystan Owain Hughes on the Pilgrim’s Way is a powerful window into the gift and depth of pilgrimage. The combination of his vulnerability and attentiveness to wisdom, from St Augustine to Depeche Mode, make him a life-giving theologian and a hopeful human being. I will certainly return to this book.’ Paul Davies, Bishop of Dorking

‘A powerful, beautifully written evocation of two “pilgrimages”: the first undertaken by choice, along the pilgrim pathways of Wales; the second imposed by circumstances, as pain comes to dominate the writer’s life. His searing honesty encourages us to discover hope in the midst of struggle and share his hard-won realisation that “opening ourselves to God’s light and love can transform all our journeys”.’ Dee Dyas, director of the Centre for Pilgrimage Studies, University of York

‘This is a powerful and moving book, honest and unflinching in its depiction of the author’s experience of two types of “pilgrimage”. Exploring outwards from his personal journeys, Trystan draws on his own wisdom and that of many others to encourage deeper reflection on the challenges and rewards of pilgrimage.’ Sally Welch, writer and pilgrim

‘This is a beautiful book in which Trystan Owain Hughes uses a well- trodden pilgrim path to explore with tenderness and honesty the deep and unanswerable questions of suffering. The insights he gains from this journey of the soul are both comforting and challenging, but above all reveal the precious and robust hope that is at the heart of Christ’s kingdom.’ Michael Mitton, writer, speaker, spiritual director

‘Gentle and profound, this book is a must-read for all who are mired in suffering.’ Tanya Marlow, author and campaigner

The Church Times 30.01.26. Review by Philip Walsh

THE book To Hell’s Mouth and Back was not supposed to exist. Trystan Owain Hughes began a sabbatical by taking on the 140-mile Pilgrims’ Way to the saint-haunted Ynys Enlli (Bardsey Island) at the tip of north Wales, across the turbulent strait whose English name is Hell’s Mouth.

He had recovered from major back injury and, despite persistent knee pain, completed his pilgrimage. What he did not expect was a severe spinal relapse as soon as he got home. Instead of further planned travels, his second journey proved to be the painful journey from injury to recovery, through depression and anxiety, never extending much further than his sofa.

To Hell’s Mouth and Back is about both journeys, but it is neither a pilgrimage travelogue nor the diary of an illness. Instead, the author builds his book around 'six experiences that could be said to define such sacred travels: suffering, wonder, signs, company, dependence and hope'. Each chapter reflects on his experience of one of these, firstly on his walk, and then on his sofa, leading into theological reflection that is simply expressed but searching: 'On the cross, we are taught something that human parents also instinctively know — that sacrifice, suffering and love are all intertwined.'

There is also a third section, which opens out the theme to the reader’s experience: 'as you read, consider the journey you are on right now' — a journey perhaps of illness or vocation, of work or education, of faith or family life.

Hughes pays tribute to the various people who shared parts of his journeys; and frequent reference to favourite writers — from Kierkegaard to Jane Goodall via Michael J. Fox — makes us at least as aware of his intellectual companions. Occasional citation overload is a small price to pay for being introduced to the conversation partners of the author’s thinking.

This attractive and unusual book aims at a general Christian readership, but digs deep. As well as the usual brief questions ending each chapter, it includes a short guide for those wanting to think further, as individuals or as a group, and makes a good choice as the Archbishop of Wales’s recommendation for Lent.

The Revd Philip Welsh is a retired priest in the diocese of London