The Pilgrim way has led to the Abyss.
Was it to meet such grinning evidence
We left our richly adorned ignorance?
Was the triumphant answer to be this?
The Pilgrim Way has led to the Abyss.
We who must die demand a miracle.
How could the eternal do a temporal act.
The I
Blog: Pictures-Books-Reflections
blossom
Posted on by James Woodward
Is it not by his high superfluousness we know
Our God? For to be equal a need
Is natural, animal, mineral: but to fling
Rainbows over the rain
And beauty above the moon, and secret rainbows
On the domes of deep sea-shells,
And make the necessary embrace of breed
Being Human
Posted on by James Woodward
Abraham Maslow points out in his “hierarchy of needs” that one cannot meet higher needs at any level of depth if the lesser needs are not first tended to.
One cannot do an “end run” to levels of communion and compassion, for example, when one’s basic security and sur
The Transfiguration
Posted on by James Woodward
So from the ground we felt that virtue branch
Through all our veins till we were whole, our wrists
As fresh and pure as water from a well,
Our hands made new to handle holy things,
The source of all our seeing rinsed and cleansed
Till earth and light and water entering there
Cosmo Lang
Posted on by James Woodward
Cosmo Gordon Lang: Archbishop in War and Crisis Robert Beaken (I B Tauris, £25),
This was a hasty buy helped by a book token that I had been trying to use for ages and (frankly) a rather interesting set of photographs! I was not disappointed.... It has gained a litt
Acnowledging Weakness
Posted on by James Woodward
Sixth Sunday of Easter
St George’s Chapel Windsor
5th May 2013 Mattins
Acts 16.9–15
During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ When he had seen the vision, we
smile
Posted on by James Woodward
Then new happenings happened, and said:
'Don't move a muscle. Something overwhelmingly
generous is on its way.'
The sun is a fountain of light. It is you.
I am a tree shadow on the earth.
You make angles curve.
The soul at dawn is the night
25 Ways to say "No" Without Saying "No"
Posted on by James Woodward
I don't want to reject this out of hand. So I'll have to think it through first.
Perhaps you could find somewhere else that they've tried this. And maybe join them for a while, so you can really understand it?
I'd like you to bring this to the Annual Church Meeting. Coincide
Our need for theology?
Posted on by James Woodward
It is the role of the contemporary conflicts of theology to expose the idolatries to which we Christians are prone; and the exorcism of them is necessary for the renewal of faith and for the convincing communication of faith to the world. Idolatry for Christians wears many guise
The Centre and the Edges
Posted on by James Woodward
How do we find what is supposedly already there? How do we awaken our deepest and most profound selves?
By praying and meditating? By more silence, solitude, and sacraments? Yes to all, but the most important way is to live and fully accept our reality. This solution sounds so
Seeing the Glorgy of God
Posted on by James Woodward
The truth of God’s transcendence still stands. God is near, but God is different. God is here, but man is dependent. God’s otherness is the otherness of Creator to creature, of Saviour to sinner; and it is for the creature still to worship the Creator and for the sinner sti
Wise Self Reflection?
Posted on by James Woodward
Everybody matters– how do we live up to those words.?
That precept is not only the title of Mary Robinson’s autobiography, but also the core conviction that has guided virtually every step of her life on the world stage.
By any measure, Mary Robinson is a remarkable p
The Scene of a Thousand Jokes
Posted on by James Woodward
Laughter is one of the ways we cope with the discrepancies of our lives. There is a dream we all have for this world, and then there is, well, this world. There are expectations we have of our religions, and then there are our religions . . . Our capacity to love God, ourselves
fresh life
Posted on by James Woodward
and then my heart
pulled itself apart
and, filled to the brim
with a new light,
overflowed with fresh life.
now even the heavens
are thankful that
because of love
i have become
the giver of light
Rumi, ghazal 1393
The Incarnate One
Posted on by James Woodward
The windless northern surge, the sea-gull's scream,
And Calvin's kirk crowning the barren brae.
I think of Giotto the Tuscan shepherd's dream,
Christ, man and creature in their inner day.
How could our race betray
The Image, and the Incarnate One unmake
Who chose this form an
The springtime of Lovers has come
Posted on by James Woodward
The springtime of Lovers has come,
that this dust bowl may become a garden;
the proclamation of heaven has come,
that the bird of the soul may rise in flight.
The sea becomes full of pearls,
the salt marsh becomes sweet as kauthar,
the stone becomes a ruby from th
love's confusing joy
Posted on by James Woodward
If you want what visible reality
can give, then you are: an underling.
If you want the unseen world,
you haven't discovered the truth.
Both wishes are stupid.
Don't worry about it.
It's so easy not to know
that absolutely all you really want
is love's confusing joy.
St George
Posted on by James Woodward
God of hosts,
who so kindled the flame of love
in the heart of your servant George
that he bore witness to the risen Lord
by his life and by his death:
give us the same faith and power of love
that we who rejoice in his triumphs
may come to share with him the fullness of the re
decline
Posted on by James Woodward
one day a day woke up and
was sky, air, light
and itself. Later, evening
tapped my shoulder:
a reminder, a privilege,
a job to do. Record, it said
the elegance of the day's decline,
and the perfect curves
of all that is left
of a tulip.
Denise Levertov
A prayer for Vocations Sunday
Posted on by James Woodward
'I am no longer my own but yours.
Put me to what you will,
rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing,
put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you,
or laid aside for you,
exalted for you,
or brought low for you;
let me be full,
let me be empty,
let me have all thin