James Woodward | James Woodward

Writing Methods in Theological Reflection

Posted on 10 November 201523 December 2016 by James Woodward

Writing Methods in Theological Reflection Heather Walton, London: SCM Press, 2014 Most readers of this journal will be book collectors. They are necessary tools of our trade as teachers, seekers after wisdom, researchers and writers. Having recently moved house the task of downsizing a library is certainly a demanding judgement. For example it was relatively […]

Between Dark and Daylight by Joan Chittister

Posted on 10 September 201523 December 2016 by James Woodward

Between Dark and Daylight by Joan Chittister I am busy at the moment embarking upon a major exercise of downsizing in preparation for my move to Sarum. This must include books! The process is illuminating. What do we attach ourselves to? All this ‘stuff’ faces me with the paradoxes and contradictions of living and even […]

The Quest for meaning in later life

Posted on 10 August 2015 by James Woodward

P. G. Coleman, D. Koleva and J. Bornat, eds., Ageing, Ritual and Social Change: Comparing the Secular and Religious in Eastern and Western Europe. Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2013. Pp. xviii, 283. Pb. £19.99. ISBN 978-1-4094-5215-7. This volume is a compelling and authoritative contribution to the literature that seeks to understand our quest […]

CONFUCIUS AT SEVENTY

Posted on 17 July 2015 by James Woodward

“At fifteen I was committed to learning. At thirty I took my rightful position. At forty, I was no longer totally perplexed. At fifty, I began to understand the unfolding of my true nature. At sixty, I was in harmony with contradictions and ambivalence. A seventy, at long last, I may follow my heart’s […]

Looking your Age??

Posted on 13 July 2015 by James Woodward

DO YOU LOOK YOUR AGE? Last month my wife and I were on a Road Scholar trip in Europe and we were having dinner with a Japanese woman. We got to talking about age and she asked how old I was. “Seventy” I replied, thinking of Gloria Steinem’s apt phrase, “This is how 70 […]

We need each other

Posted on 10 July 2015 by James Woodward

The truth is that we shall only understand the balance of severity and confidence, of the strenuous and the relaxed, in the context of the common life. Every believer must have an urgent concern for the relation of the neighbour to Christ, a desire and willingness to be the means by which Christ’s relation with […]

The Look

Posted on 4 July 2015 by James Woodward

the look “The World is not something to look at, it is something to be in.” Mark Rudman I look and look. Looking’s a way of being: one becomes, sometimes, a pair of eyes walking. Walking wherever looking takes one. The eyes dig and burrow into the world. They touch fanfare, howl, madrigal, clamor. […]

What is Age?

Posted on 3 July 2015 by James Woodward

“Age puzzles me. I thought it was a quiet time. My seventies were interesting and fairly serene, but my eighties are passionate. I grow more intense as I age… We who are old know that age is more than a disability. It is an intense and varied experience, almost beyond our capacity at […]

A prayer of Lancelot Andrewes

Posted on 28 June 2015 by James Woodward

A prayer of Lancelot Andrewes Guard Thou my soul, Strengthen my body, elevate my senses, direct my course, order my habits, shape my character, bless my actions, fulfil my prayers, inspire holy thoughts, pardon the past, correct the present, prevent the future …… AMEN

The Windows

Posted on 27 June 2015 by James Woodward

The Windows Lord, how can man preach thy eternall word? He is a brittle crazie glasse: Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford This glorious and transcendent place, To be a window, through thy grace. But when thou dost anneal in glasse thy storie, Making thy life to […]

Seeing beyond the immediate: listening and learning alongside older people

Posted on 24 June 2015 by James Woodward

From 1998 through to 2009, I had the privilege of working with many hundreds of older people in an Almshouse charity. We lived together in rather splendid seventeenth-century buildings which were surprisingly adaptable for modern use. I remember meeting one frail older woman on her admission for care into our community. This move was for […]

understanding people ?

Posted on 17 June 2015 by James Woodward

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Affinity Consider this man in the field beneath, Gaitered with mud, lost in his own breath, Without joy, without sorrow,… Without children, without wife, Stumbling insensitively from furrow to furrow, A vague somnambulist; but hold your tears, For his name also is written in the Book of Life. Ransack your brainbox, pull out the drawers […]

Glass

Posted on 10 June 2015 by James Woodward

glass It is like the light coming through blue stained glass, Yet not quite like it, For the blueness is not transparent, Only translucent. Her soul’s light shines through, But her soul cannot be seen. It is something elusive, whimsical, tender, wanton, childlike, wise And noble. Joyce Kilmer

Sarum College Bookshop : Book of the Month

Posted on 9 June 2015 by James Woodward

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‘Between Dark and Daylight’ by Joan Chittister I am busy at the moment embarking upon a major exercise of downsizing in preparation for my move to Sarum. This must include books! The process is illuminating. What do we attach ourselves to? All this ‘stuff’ faces me with the paradoxes and contradictions of living and […]

Praying for Peace

Posted on 8 June 2015 by James Woodward

and listening to the voices …… Erich Fried When we were the persecuted I was one of you How can I remain one when you become the persecutors? Your longing was to become like other nations who murdered you Now you have become like them You have outlived those who were […]

Trinity

Posted on 31 May 2015 by James Woodward

St Augustine wrote of God in his ‘Confessions’: “You, my God, are supreme… You are the most hidden from us and yet the most present amongst us, the most beautiful and yet the most strong, ever enduring and yet we cannot comprehend you. You are unchangeable and yet you change all things. You are never […]

Miro on Ageing

Posted on 30 May 2015 by James Woodward

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS AN OLD MAN When artist Joan Miro was 24 years old, he predicted that he would do his best work in old age. The exhibition, “Joan Miro: Instinct and Imagination,” documents the work he did in his 70’s and 80’s. In keeping with the idea of positive aging, Miro described […]

empty hands

Posted on 28 May 2015 by James Woodward

they go there with empty hands What do they do, The singers, tale writers, dancers, painters, Shapers, makers? They go there with empty hands, into The gap between. They come back with things in their hands. They go silent and come back with words, with tunes. They go into confusion and come back with […]

Compassion ?

Posted on 25 May 2015 by James Woodward

compassion A friend told me of visiting the Dalai Lama in India and asking him for a succinct definition of compassion. She prefaced her question by describing how heart-stricken she’d felt when, earlier that day, she’d seen a man in the street beating a mangy stray dog with a stick. “Compassion,” the Dalai […]

Tulip

Posted on 21 May 2015 by James Woodward

tulip Perhaps the tulip knows about impermanence and that is why, on a green stem it carries a wine cup in the wilderness Hafiz, (re)transl. Tom Davis

Author: James Woodward