It's a mystery

As I continue to send out poems - and occasionally get some published (just got word on another haiku being accepted!) - I've gotten an inspiration.

I've always loved mystery stories, and often read ones involving priests, religious, and pious lay people - you know, the cozy, "clean" type of mysteries. Father Brown, Father Koesler, Father Dowling, Brother Cadfael, etc.  So why not create one of my own? It would be an outlet for my fiction side that's been stalled on that horror novel I never could finish in part because it got too dark.

I've even got an idea for a character and a setting.

My detective would be a former print/radio reporter who due to a broken marriage (wife ran off after an affair and now lives with one of his former friends) and ongoing depression sank into the depths of drink, and finally got pulled out though help (a priest or religious with a background in therapy/counseling?), and now, somewhat of a broken man, survives as the extern for a monastery of hermit monks who produce honey, jams and jellies, and maple syrup in the Finger Lakes region. He is the one who makes some deliveries, supervises shipping of products, runs errands, provides contact with the outside world, all the while continuing his process of healing and discernment. But then his contacts from his years as a reporter - including contacts with the police - get him involved in helping to a solve crimes.

Several saints are associated with beekeepers - St. Ambrose is the most commonly cited male patron saints of beekeepers. St. Ambrose Abbey?  St. Benedict is also sometimes cited.

A prayer over bees and beehives:

O Lord, God almighty, who hast created heaven and earth and every animal existing over them and in them for the use of men, and who hast commanded through the ministers of holy Church that candles made from the products of bees be lit in church during the carrying out of the sacred office in which the most holy Body and Blood of Jesus Christ thy Son is made present and is received; may thy holy blessing descend upon these bees and these hives, so that they may multiply, be fruitful and be preserved from all ills and that the fruits coming forth from them may be distributed for thy praise and that of thy Son and the holy Spirit and of the most blessed Virgin Mary.

Hmm.

Pax et bonum