Serious theological work today is or ought to be rather like working in a quarry, and quite specifically the kind of quarry which one finds in India, where men and women, and quite young children too, in the heat of the day hack away at the rock-face with simple implements, exp
Blog: Pictures-Books-Reflections
poppy
Posted on by James Woodward
In the whole garden
like screens of green plane
of green rising into the morning sun
a single poppy
more ornate, fuller, larger
as if a shower puff,
overlapping petals
a singular color, melting
salmon steak and orange sherbet
richer, softer
crepe paper r
Theological Quarry (2)
Posted on by James Woodward
The cliff-face in our theological quarry is the Bible and the rich resources and insights into truth which are to be found in the Christian tradition, and the other world faiths and ideologies that have interacted with the Christian tradition If we are faithful in our quarry wo
We need to talk about death!
Posted on by James Woodward
All of us swim in the one sea of our lives, trying to stay afloat as best we can, clinging to such life-lines and preservers as we might draw about us: reason and science, faith and religious practice, art and music and imagination. But in the end the wall go down, we all
Theorizing?
Posted on by James Woodward
So too with theorizing: the instinct is about staying alive, but the excess is about living. It enriches our everyday life (those happy-hour debriefs about the boss) and enables our most extraordinary achievements (that hoped-for cure for cancer).
Without it, we would be bereft
Communication?
Posted on by James Woodward
One of the most obvious features of modern life in the West has been a radical questioning of tradition, of everything received from the past. Wisdom distilled from living in previous eras has often seemed irrelevant and out of date, unsuited to modern conditions and problems.
Help me to change?
Posted on by James Woodward
The need to be right about ourselves—past, present, and future—is what drives our yearning for perfect self-knowledge. And it also drives our yearning for something else; perfect self-consistency.
As with complete self- knowledge, we know, in theory, that an unchanging s
Discovery?
Posted on by James Woodward
Sometimes everything has to be enscribed
across the heavens
So you can find
the one line
already written inside you.
-David Whyte
All Saints
Posted on by James Woodward
Almighty God,
you have knit together your elect
in one communion and fellowship
in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord:
grant us grace so to follow your blessed saints
in all virtuous and godly living
that we may come to those inexpressible joys
that you h
I Know?
Posted on by James Woodward
"I know" seems to describe a state of affairs which guarantees what is known, guarantees it as a fact. One always forgets the expression, "I thought I knew."
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty
shadow
Posted on by James Woodward
Are they shadows that we see?
And can shadows pleasure give?
Pleasures only shadows be
Cast by bodies we conceive
And are made the things we deem
In those figures which they seem.
But these pleasures vanish fast
Which by shadows are expressed;
Pleasures are not, if they
Compton Verney House
Posted on by James Woodward
Compton Verney House is an 18th century country mansion at Compton Verney near Kineton in Warwickshire which has been converted into the Compton Verney Art Gallery.
The building is a Grade I listed house built in 1714 by Richard Verney, 11th Baron Willoughby de Brok
Being Wrong
Posted on by James Woodward
All of us outgrow some of our beliefs.
All of us hatch theories in one moment, only to find that we must abandon them in the next.
Our tricky senses, our limited intellects, our fickle memories, the veil of emotions, the tug of allegiances, the complexity of the w
‘que sais-je?’
Posted on by James Woodward
Michel de Montaigne, the great Renaissance philosopher and essayist, inscribed above the door of his study que sais-je?—what do I know? And thus Descartes set himself the task of doubting everything, up to and including his own existence .
These thinkers weren't n
the gaze
Posted on by James Woodward
Something different, set apart, special
this single room in the house, a sanctuary, a refuge
a place where the spirit, palpable, real, living
where this presence is felt, alive
Under the gaze of angels, a collections of guardians
symbols, metaphoric, talismans, a row of saints
c
longing
Posted on by James Woodward
Love is not condescension, never
that, nor books, nor any pencil trace
on paper, no; nor in how we talk
about each other. Love is a tree
with branches reaching out to always
with roots that come from everywhere,
and no trunk. Have you seen it?
No. You can't. Your deep desi
Edward the Confessor
Posted on by James Woodward
Edward was the son of Ethelred II 'the Unready' and Emma, the daughter of Richard I of Normandy. The family was exiled in Normandy after the Danish invasion of 1013, but returned the following year and negotiated Ethelred's reinstatement. After Ethelred's death in 1016 the Danes
Reflecting the light
Posted on by James Woodward
Yet any glass through which we see is always made of human hands, like mine.
All spiritual language is by necessity metaphor and symbol.
The Light comes from elsewhere, yet it is necessarily reflected through those walking on the journey. As Desmond Tutu often says "We
exuberance
Posted on by James Woodward
It's the mystery of the hunt that intrigues me,
That drives us like lemmings, but cautiously—
The search for a bright square cloud—the scent of lemon verbena—
Or to learn rules for the game the sea otters
Play in the surf.
It is these small things—and the secret behind
Embracing the diversity of the Bibles Impact
Posted on by James Woodward
Let us imagine entering a museum and contemplating one of the exhibits. The exhibit could be said to offer us a type of revelation, for it stands before us and communicates a message. However, the message of a piece of art is not simple, singular or able to be mastered. This is