Matthew 3 The Proclamation of John the Baptist 3In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 2‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’* 3This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, ‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: “Prepare the way […]
Blog: Pictures-Books-Reflections
here’s to opening and upward
Posted on by James Woodward
here’s to opening and upward, to leaf and to sap and to your(in my arms flowering so new) self whose eyes smell of the sound of rain and here’s to silent certainly mountains;and to a disappearing poet of always, snow and to morning; and to morning’s beautiful friend twilight(and a first dream called ocean)and […]
music
Posted on by James Woodward
ah, the hidden sweetness we find when the belly is empty! we are no more or less than string instruments: if the sound box is full of something, no music: obviously. so: if the brain and the belly are burned clean with fasting, every moment a new song comes out of the fire: […]
Befriending Death
Posted on by James Woodward
MOTHER MARY CLARE SLG (1906-1988) LIVING THROUGH THE DYING Any Christian whether living in the world or in the Religious Life, active or enclosed, is being called as was St Antony of old to go down into the most frightening places of world history. If we are really trying to live this life in Christ, […]
interconnectedness
Posted on by James Woodward
Indra’s net Buddhism uses a similar image to describe the interconnectedness of all phenomena. It is called Indra’s Net. When Indra fashioned the world, he made it as a web, and at every knot in the web is tied a pearl. Everything that exists, or has ever existed, every idea that can be thought […]
Learning to forgive ……………..more
Posted on by James Woodward
To forgive,” writes Mary Gordon, “is to give up the exhilaration of ones own unassailable rightness” And there is loss in that, only it is the loss of an illusion, and what is gained is unmistakably real: the chance to live again, free from the bitterness that draws the sweetness from our lives, that gives […]
what we need is here
Posted on by James Woodward
Geese appear high over us, pass, and the sky closes. Abandon, as in love or sleep, holds them to their way, clear in the ancient faith: what we need is here. And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye, clear. What we need is […]
leaves
Posted on by James Woodward
The same leaves over and over again! They fall from giving shade above To make one texture of faded brown And fit the earth like a leather glove. Before the leaves can mount again To fill the trees with another shade, They must go down past things coming up. T hey must […]
Growing Older?
Posted on by James Woodward
BEDE GRIFFITHS: THE MONK GROWS OLD Father Bede Griffiths was a a Catholic monk who spent most of his life as a “Christian Yogi” in India, where he expounded the unity of world religions: “(Father Bede) said at the age of 85 he begged to differ with those who think that life is all over […]
if only
Posted on by James Woodward
if only Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me! A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time. If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me! If only I am sensitive, subtle, oh, delicate, a winged gift! If only, most lovely of all, […]
ATTAINING HAPPINESS
Posted on by James Woodward
The Turkish folkhero Mullah Nasruddin was renowned for his paradoxical approach to wisdom as both paradox and folly. A student sought out Mullah Nasruddin for years, hoping to find guidance from him. He finally found the Mullah in the marketplace sitting atop a pile of anana peels– no one knows why. “Oh great sage, Nasruddin,” […]
if there are any heavens
Posted on by James Woodward
if there are any heavens if there are any heavens my mother will(all by herself)have one. It will not be a pansy heaven nor a fragile heaven of lilies-of-the-valley but it will be a heaven of blackred roses my father will be(deep like a rose tall like a rose) standing near my […]
a golden petal
Posted on by James Woodward
The dawn was apple-green, The sky was green wine held up in the sun, The moon was a golden petal between. She opened her eyes, and green They shone, clear like flowers undone For the first time, now for the first time seen. D. H. Lawrence, Green
HAVE WE LIVED THE WRONG LIFE?
Posted on by James Woodward
“We all dimly feel that our transient historical identity is the only chance in all eternity to be alive as a somebody in a here and a now. We, therefore, dread the possibility, of which we are most aware when deeply young or very old, that at the end we may find that we have […]
asleep and dreaming
Posted on by James Woodward
He knew he was asleep and was dreaming Of a beautiful poem. It seemed to be singing Itself in the night, and he woke In a bed in a room in an old hotel And lay there, hearing the song go on Though he could see the shape Of his empty shirt on the straight […]
Celebrate Imperfection ?
Posted on by James Woodward
W H Auden told Golo Mann that “in each of us, there is a bit of Catholic and a bit of Protestant; for truth is catholic, but the search for it is protestant,” Auden consistently saw the relation between the catholic truth and the protestant search dialectically. As he said, analogously and repeatedly, “the […]
blue
Posted on by James Woodward
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
Immortal Autumn
Posted on by James Woodward
I speak this poem now with grave and level voice In praise of autumn, of the far-horn-winding fall. I praise the flower-barren fields, the clouds, the tall Unanswering branches where the wind makes sullen noise. I praise the fall: it is the human season. Now No more the foreign sun does meddle […]
patience
Posted on by James Woodward
patience An absolute patience. Trees stand up to their knees in fog. The fog slowly flows uphill. White cobwebs, the grass leaning where deer have looked for apples. The woods from brook to where the top of the hill looks over the fog, send up not one bird. So absolute, it is no […]
sunflowers and our search for the divine?
Posted on by James Woodward
attain God… he said, then realised it had been done with nothing but sunflowers from Nicolette Stasko, Conseil de Gauguin (advice from Gauguin)