This shocking news report should move us all into some action: Reform of the pensions and benefits system is urgently needed to tackle pensioner poverty in the UK, which is among the worst in Europe, campaigners said today. The call for action came after European commission statistics showed that 30% of over-65s in the […]
Brooke Foss Westcott
Posted on by James Woodward
Today the Church commemorates Westcott. Here is a summary of some of the hihglights of his remarkably high achieving life and ministry. His work covers many of my own interests and places of significance ( The Delhi Brotherhood, Westcott House Cambridge where I was trained and, of course, Durham). He was born in Birmingham. […]
Its not what you know but who??
Posted on by James Woodward
When John Rae became headmaster of Westminster School in the early Seventies the IRA was regularly setting off devices around Parliament, 200 yards from the school. Neither he nor his 479 pupils seemed unduly concerned: “A housemaster tells me that a boarder returned to his house carrying a piece of exploded car,” he wrote […]
Seeing?
Posted on by James Woodward
amazement is the thing The point is the seeing, the grace beyond recognition, the ways of the bird rising, unnamed, unknown, beyond the range of language, beyond its noun. Eyes open on growing, flying, happening, and go on opening. Manifold, the world dawns on unrecognizing, realizing eyes. Amazement is the thing. Not love, […]
Mary Magdalene
Posted on by James Woodward
Mary Magdalene or Mary of Magdala is described, both in the canonical New Testament and in the New Testament apocrypha, as a devoted disciple of Jesus. She is considered by the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglican churches to be Saint Mary Magdalene, with a feast day of July 22. She is also commemorated […]
Margaret of Antioch
Posted on by James Woodward
Margaret the Virgin, also known as Margaret of Antioch , virgin and martyr, is celebrated by the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches on July 20. Her historical existence is dubious; she was declared apocryphal by Pope Gelasius I in 494, but devotion to her revived in the West with the Crusades. She was reputed […]
Space
Posted on by James Woodward
the gap between 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 patterns. They […]
O glistening sunlight
Posted on by James Woodward
O glistening sunlight, O iridescence, O unique shining, The wedding of the Godhead: O burning jewel. The clothes you wear are noble They fall straight and clear; Your friendship is with angels: A citizen of the sacred. Come, enter into the palace of the King. Hildegard of Bingen
John Keble
Posted on by James Woodward
John Keble (25 April 1792 – 29 March 1866) was an English churchman, one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement, and gave his name to Keble College, Oxford. He was born in Fairford, Gloucestershire where his father, the Rev. John Keble, was Vicar of Coln St. Aldwyns. He attended Corpus Christi College, Oxford and, […]
On the need for Perspective
Posted on by James Woodward
One of my favourite pastimes is looking at paintings. There are two great dangers when looking at paintings. The first danger is that of being too close to the picture. All we see then is the scrubbed brush work, layers of streaky paint, fragments of colour. We need to be at a distance before the […]
Benedict
Posted on by James Woodward
Born to the Roman nobility. Twin brother of Saint Scholastica. Studied in Rome, Italy, but was dismayed by the lack of discipline and the lackadasical attitude of his fellow students. Fled to the mountains near Subiaco, living as a hermit in a cave for three years; reported to have been fed by a raven. […]
Relational Aesthetics
Posted on by James Woodward
FOR EVIDENCE OF ART’S recent love affair with “interactivity” and “connectivity,” one need look no further than the pair of digital art surveys currently playing at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. For less literal proof, this book is captivating and challenging ! As a young critic in […]
Whitehall
Posted on by James Woodward
Whitehall is a monument to British constitutional history, a curious, unsatisfactory muddle of royalty, fleeting republicanism, imperialism and bureaucratic compromise. No wonder Prince Charles is a defender of architectural tradition. Like love and marriage, power and architecture go together, only much, much more. When Henry VIII took over his old tutor Thomas Wolsey’s mighty […]
Saying the Unsayable
Posted on by James Woodward
I have been offering some reflections on the exhibition that took place in Centenary Square last week here are some image to give you a glimpse of how it all worked….
Thomas More and John Fisher
Posted on by James Woodward
Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), also known as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, author, and statesman who in his lifetime gained a reputation as a leading Renaissance humanist scholar, and occupied many public offices, including Lord Chancellor(1529–1532). More coined the word “utopia”, a name he gave to the […]
I said to my soul
Posted on by James Woodward
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre, The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness, And we know that the hills […]
Compassion, attachments, love and connections
Posted on by James Woodward
Further pictures from the Saying the Unsayable exhibition. We had a very large number of images to choose from to illustrate this theme and interestingly many that focussed on not only the value of peer friendships, but family and across generational connections.
Change and Decay in all around I see?
Posted on by James Woodward
The world round us is in a constant process of change and movement. Familiar buildings come and go. Nothing that is built will last forever. These images give us a glimpse of the movement and change that is at the heart of the familiar – even solid constructions. I wonder what associations you have with […]
Saying the Unsayable: Being Alive, hope and death
Posted on by James Woodward
The images here depict those aspects of living, dying, death that would not ordinarily be available for us to capture in our everyday lives here in the West Midlands. This first image has no text but allows you to imagine what happened before the bodies reached this place and what might happen next […]
Saying the Unsayable
Posted on by James Woodward
Over the next few days I want to share with you some reflections and pictures from an exhibition that will run in Centenary Square Birmingham from the 2nd through to the 4th of July 2009. Here is some background: How the exhibition came about: The Images project In this project we have used intentionally 2 […]