Author: James Woodward

Hidden Hands : The Lives of Manuscripts and Their Makers by Mary Wellesley ( RiverRun 2021)   At Sarum College we have offered an MA in Christian Spirituality for many years – it continues to attract a wide variety of people supported as they are by our brilliant teaching team. We have recently appointed Dr […]

On Reading A Life-Long Springtime: The Life and Teaching of Fr George Congreve SSJE by Luke Miller (Sacristy Press 2022) Alfred Hope Patten and the Shrine of our Lady of Walsingham by Michael Yelton (Sacristy Press 2022)   I remember my first encounter with Walsingham. As a sixth form student I spent the May Bank holiday […]

I first came across Ruth at St George’s, Windsor, when she came one year on a clergy conference. It was an intensive 10 days of learning, reflecting and getting to know the ups and downs of ministry across the church. I was getting ready for the consultation and walking between buildings in the castle when […]

The situation in Ukraine makes us feel so helpless. What can we do? Add this to our weariness and anxiety about the pandemic, climate change and the economy and we are left wondering what the future looks like for us and future generations. These images of warfare haunt us: damaged buildings; families struck dead as […]

  I wonder where you consider home to be? And if you are a long way away from that place do you ever feel homesick? That strange longing for the places, the people, the language and particularities that formed you ? Home for me is the north-east – so I should add that I was […]

The Three Ages of Man or Reading a Song is a 1500-1501 is a painting by  Giorgione which is presently displayed in the Galleria Palatina in Florence. It has stimulated some further thoughts especially around a recurring comment that has found expression in recent conversations about the future of the Church in these post pandemic days. We know […]

I wonder if you pray how do you go about this activity either for public worship or private devotion? In the middle of a recent conversation, I was invited by another person to pray with them. This often happens – I am a priest ! I willingly agreed but in the moment of pause wondered […]

Global Images of Christ: Challenging Perceptions at Chester Cathedral The latest exhibition at Chester Cathedral due to end this month (October 2021) is a diverse, innovative and challenging invitation to the ways in which we represent Christ. In this black history month were taken into a deeper intentional examination of our limitations and prejudices as […]

I first encountered this book through a conversation with a colleague at Sarum College about pastoral supervision.I was aware of Nancy Kline and her transformative Book Time to Think. My first encounter with her thinking was through Christopher Spence with whom she produced A Hundred Principles of Love. Both Christopher and Andrew Henderson profoundly shaped […]

This is a short, readable, challenging and deeply transformative book. The author is Rt Revd Dr Alastair Redfern, who chairs the Clewer Initiative, and the Sarum College Trustees, and is a theological educator of significant skill and generativity. Organised into four parts, the book explores the theme of slavery and salvation within our Scriptural and […]

I cannot now remember when I first encountered a piece of art by Frost. I do remember the vibrancy of the colour and the freedom of the form. Here – I sensed – was energy and life. His pictures of the sea and boats inspired by Cornwall remain iconic images of British modern art. This […]

This is an appealing and fluent book with a story and a purpose. I read it in one siting on a train from Durham to London and as I passed through York (just under half way through the book) I felt a deep sense of gratitude for the 98th Archbishop of York and this book. […]

Most of us live ordinary lives making the best of time and circumstance. We do our best. We sometimes fail. We deal with whatever the days of work bring. We dream. We hope. We cry. We wonder about roads not taken. We (mostly) do our best. We look forward to holidays and try to keep in […]

I have recently invested in a Kindle as part of an aspiration to travel a bit more lightly. The conversion will take some time but here is the first marker – this memoir is the first that I have read on the ‘neat’ and ‘light’ tablet. A great start helped by an amazing story vividly […]