Abeyance Downloads & RevenueAbeyance · App Store

Abeyance — a state of being held open, undecided — offers one line a day, drawn from scripture, philosophy and contemplative traditions across East and West, or written new "in dialogue with" a thinker whose own words are still in copyright. It never tries to resolve anything. It sits alongside what hasn't resolved.

Lines come from Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian and Stoic sources, in named public-domain translations, alongside original aphorisms in the same register. A tradition-emphasis preference lets you lean the mix more secular or more rooted in tradition — the same on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.

The line arrives once a day, at a time you can't predict. Browse an archive of past days, favourite the ones that stay with you, and share any line. A widget keeps today's line on your Home Screen and Lock Screen. On iPhone and iPad, choose your own colours for the light look and for the dark — Night, Parchment, Dusk, Forest, Deep sea, Ember, Linen, Sage or Dawn — and when each applies. Choose the typeface too: the default serif, or Atkinson Hyperlegible, designed for low vision.

Write a private reflection on any day's line — never required, never public, never sent anywhere. A quiet dot for each day shows only whether you wrote something, nothing more. On supported devices, an entirely on-device, optional feature can notice a recurring thread across your reflections and offer one new line back in the app's own voice — never addressed to you by name, never advice.

On the same supported devices, an imagined voice can offer a short reply to "give me a word." Which voice depends on the day's line: an Abba or Amma of the desert tradition, a Stoic, a Zen teacher or a Taoist — each a composite figure, never a real person and never real spiritual direction. Or ask nothing at all: sit with a candle in the empty cave — on any device — and write whatever comes, kept alongside your other reflections. Entirely on-device, optional, and every asking stands alone.

A page of phone numbers and services for your country — "If you need help" — is one tap away, and written by hand: it never uses AI.

No accounts. No analytics. Nothing leaves your device without asking first. If something goes wrong, you decide whether to send a short technical report — never automatically.

Abeyance is a one-time purchase, with no subscriptions or in-app purchases. It was made to help fund the ongoing restoration of St Peters, Kirby Bellars — a Grade I listed medieval church in Leicestershire, England, still in active worship. The church's own page has more ways to help, including giving directly.