When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
Blog: Pictures-Books-Reflections
Jungle Queen II by Hew Locke
Posted on by James Woodward
Hew Locke is a sculptor and contemporary British visual artist based in london. Locke uses a wide range of media, including painting, drawing, photography, relief, fabric, sculpture and casting, and makes extensive use of found objects and collage. Recurrent themes and imagery
time
Posted on by James Woodward
LET it go on; let the love of this hour be poured out till all the answers are made, the last dollar spent and the last blood gone.
Time runs with an ax and a hammer, time slides down the hallways with a pass-key and a master-key, and time gets by, time wins.
Let the
Shalom and Pastoral Care
Posted on by James Woodward
The undergirding theme of pastoral care is characterized by the Hebrew word shalom. This is usually translated 'peace', but that is inadequate. Greek ideas dominate western thought. As a result 'peace' has come largely to mean 'the absence of war', a state which produces prosp
See how these Christian love one another
Posted on by James Woodward
Church of Nigeria reacts to Archbishop of Canterbury’s Resignation
The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Revd and Rt. Hon. Dr. Rowan Williams took over the leadership of the Anglican Communion in 2002 when it was a happy family. Unfortunately, he is leaving behind a Communi
Chagall
Posted on by James Woodward
chagall
donkey or cow, cockerel, horse,
right down to the varnish on a violin;
a man who sings, a lonely bird,
a dancer floating with his wife;
a couple, soaked in their own springtime;
the gold of the grass, the leaden sky;
between them, blue flames and
the vital
acting
Posted on by James Woodward
Poetry reveals that there is no empty space.
When your truth forsakes its shyness,
When your fears surrender to your strengths,
You will begin to experience
That all existence
Is a teeming sea of infinite life.
In a handful of ocean water
You could not count all the fine
Theology and Worship
Posted on by James Woodward
Theology is positioned by God who is Trinity, and to speak or think about God, is not merely human talk, 'because it involves the reception of the mind of God and the participation in the life of God'.
To do theology is to be taken up into the realm of worship and gl
Love
Posted on by James Woodward
All that there is, is love. Nothing else is, but love.
Love is the force that fires the stars,
that drives our lives from seed to sepulchre,
from edge to edge,
from end to end.
Gift and Challenge
Posted on by James Woodward
Every segment of life is both gift and challenge, both endowment and responsibility. It is the warp and woof of the fabric we call time. The delicate interplay between the two has the power to rock us back and forth between total confidence and abject despair.
We lurch throu
Inattention – more wisdom from the desert fathers
Posted on by James Woodward
Most of us fail to look and see - the failure to see what is truly there in front of us - because our own vision is clouded by self-obsession or self-satisfaction.
There are several variants of a story in which some young monk goes in despair to one of
Loving One another
Posted on by James Woodward
'Our life and our death is with our neighbour. If we win our brother, we win God. If we cause our brother to stumble, we have sinned against Christ.'
From the writings of the desert fathers
And this is where the desert monastics have an uncompromising message
smile
Posted on by James Woodward
One day people will touch and talk perhaps easily,
And loving be natural as breathing and warm as sunlight,
And people will untie themselves, as string is unknotted,
Unfold and yawn and stretch and spread their fingers,
Unfurl, uncurl like seaweed returned to the sea,
Growing great?
Posted on by James Woodward
"A society grows great when old men plant trees
whose shade they know they shall never sit in."
-Greek proverb
For the Gift of Music
Posted on by James Woodward
Let us bless God for the gift of music
O Christ, whose birth was greeted with the song of angels,
whose mother sang as she magnified the Lord,
and who was greeted in the Temple by the song of Simeon,
we bless you for the gift of music.
For music
which calms our fe
Pearl
Posted on by James Woodward
This poem is about the wordless, the beautiful.
What, do you need a manual, to feel the heat of the sun?
Look, look at this beauty. It has no reason.
Feel its blessing. Nothing is as good as this.
Perhaps this poem is a miracle. Perhaps it's a trick.
It was written by the i
Do we know what nourishes us?
Posted on by James Woodward
Diet is a key challenge to Christian communities. While it is certainly the case that phrases such as 'food as fuel', 'garbage in garbage out', 'an army marches on its stomach' and 'you are what you eat' can seem simplistic, there is a truth here which has particular importance
Befriending Strangers?
Posted on by James Woodward
During Lent we should recall the challenge of Jesus to welcome and pay attention to the stranger. This was at the heart of Jesus' ministry because it is at the heart of God's relationship to creation.
The stranger represents the one different to us. The Pharisees
What kind of leadership?
Posted on by James Woodward
So often we think of the Church as an organisation that needs to be run!
It might be worth remembering Bishop Edward King.
The words are those of G. F. Wilgress, who was, I think once his chaplain.
‘Without any very visible method in his administration of hi
Ash Wednesday
Posted on by James Woodward
Ash Wednesday
T.S. Eliot
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn