Worth Pondering!
Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves; they will have no end of fun.
Blessed are those who can tell a mountain from a molehill; they will be saved a lot of bother.
Blessed are those who know how to relax without looking for excuses; they are on
Longing?
Posted on by James Woodward
Distraction serves a purpose. Like gargoyles guarding the roofline of a cathedral, distractions first serve to ward off those who lack proper motivation. In an age when people claim to be ‘spiritual, not religious’–not really knowing what they mean by either-lack of prope
Forgiveness?
Posted on by James Woodward
My suggestion is this: that what forgiveness looks like is an ongoing process, again and again, of learning to behave as if death were not, which will mean coming gradually to stand up against those whose being depends on death, and running the risk of being persecuted by them,
Heart and Head!
Posted on by James Woodward
Revelation is never a simple disclosure of information, but always received as a process of discovery.
Holiday Reading
Posted on by James Woodward
One of our wittiest political commentators, Simon Hoggart shares some of his funniest memories in these hilarious memoirs A Long Lunch. What really happened at the Lady Chatterley trial? What exactly did Enoch Powell say to Bill Haley? And just why did John Sergeant drive a fli
The Legacy of Brown?
Posted on by James Woodward
I think that one of my New Year resolutions will be to give up reading more news, views and reflections on what did or did not happen to the Blair/ Brown partnership during the New Labour Regime! I made an exception with Richards book as he is one of the few political comment
Epiphany Poetry
Posted on by James Woodward
The Journey of The Magi
T.S. Elliot
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.'
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
Epiphany
Posted on by James Woodward
In western Christian tradition, January 6 is celebrated as Epiphany. It goes by other names in various church traditions. In Hispanic and Latin culture, as well as some places in Europe, it is known as Three Kings’ Day (Span: el Dia de los Tres Reyes, la Fiesta de Reyes, or
not to the play, but to itself
Posted on by James Woodward
The poem of the mind in the act of finding
What will suffice.
It has to be living, to learn the speech of the place.
It has to construct a new stage. It has to be on that stage,
And, like an insatiable actor, slowly and
With meditation, speak words that in the ear,
In th
DON’T BE JUST A VISITOR TO THIS WORLD
Posted on by James Woodward
When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it's over, I don't want to wonder
If I have made of my life something particular, and real
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened
Adoration, Love and Hope
Posted on by James Woodward
Have you ever looked into the face of a tiny baby and wondered what will be in store for that child – how his or her life will unfold across the years?
There is an exquisite painting which hangs in the great museum of The Louvre, in Paris. It is called ‘The Adoration of th
The Digital Story of the Nativity?
Posted on by James Woodward
Follow this and think on.....!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkHNNPM7pJA&feature=related
watchful
Posted on by James Woodward
If you value yourself
watch that self,
carefully the wise should be watchful.
Self must govern self
Who else would do this work?
If the self is well controlled
you have found a good master.
It is your self that does wrong
it is your self that suffers
it is your s
Getting Ready for special time?
Posted on by James Woodward
Special days and auspicious times with implied or explicit religious significance appear to be a universal human phenomenon. This points to a basic human need for a different quality of time from the daily routine of our lives so that we may recognize and live out our full hu
a certain sort of seeing?
Posted on by James Woodward
I take it that contemplation is a certain sort of seeing.
I take it from Girard that we always learn to see through the eyes of another.
The desire of another directs our seeing and makes available to us what is to be seen.
In other words, there is no reality 'out there' to
How do we look after the vulnerable in our ‘Big Society’?
Posted on by James Woodward
This isnt going to be the easiest weeks for many people. What a strange and perplexing world we live in - a Big Society accepting the inevitability of cuts. The following research should give us all soem cause for concern.
Some councils in England fear budget pressures will hit
Being transformed in Advent
Posted on by James Woodward
As Christians we are called to enter into and attempt to transform the pain of our fragile world.
This subtle transformation is beautifully expressed by Simone Weil. ‘Two prisoners whose cells adjoin communicate with each other by knocking on the wall. The wall is the thing
The Woodward Effect?!
Posted on by James Woodward
The Woodward effect is a hypothesis proposed by James F. Woodward, a physicist at California State University, Fullerton, that energy-storing ions experience transient mass fluctuations when accelerated. While some have expressed doubt about this hypothesis, no respected theoreti
Beware of too much speech!
Posted on by James Woodward
But I wonder too whether the ambivalence about ordained ministry has something to do with the licence that the ordained person has to talk — to instruct, explain, exhort, even control. We have seen how wary the desert teachers could be about professional theologians and think