'Middle age starts much later than previously thought - at the age of 55, research suggests' - this is the rather helpful advice sent to me by a friend on this my 55th birthday. Born on 23 February 1961 is no arguing any more with the realities of time and age and numbers. For t
Jim Birren
Posted on by James Woodward
REMEMBERING JIM BIRREN
One of the towering figures in gerontology has died : James E. Birren, founding
Director of the Andrus Gerontology Center, at the University of Southern California,
died at the age of 97. His achievements were extraordinary Foremost amo
What kind of Ministry? Chaplaincy as Mission
Posted on by James Woodward
Chaplaincy Ministry and the Mission of the Church
Victoria Slater, SCM Press 2015, 160 pages, pbk, no price marked, ISBN 978 0 334 05315 6
There are three distinctive and attractive characteristics of this book. The first is the authors’ skilful ability to open up h
Sarum College – an enriching and enlarging place
Posted on by James Woodward
I have had somewhat of a break from WordPress and decided on this first day of Lent to reconnect with this medium by way of re-engaging and reflecting on what had been very demanding but stimulating past few months.
During the early part of 2015 I engaged in a discernment pr
Chaplaincy Ministry and the Mission of the Church
Posted on by James Woodward
Chaplaincy Ministry and the Mission of the Church
Victoria Slater, SCM Press 2015, 160 pages, pbk
There are three distinctive and attractive characteristics of this book. The first is the authors’ skilful ability to open up her research in an accessible and stimulating way.
Writing Methods in Theological Reflection
Posted on by James Woodward
Writing Methods in Theological Reflection
Heather Walton, London: SCM Press, 2014
Most readers of this journal will be book collectors. They are necessary tools of our trade as teachers, seekers after wisdom, researchers and writers. Having recently moved house the task of do
Between Dark and Daylight by Joan Chittister
Posted on by James Woodward
Between Dark and Daylight by Joan Chittister
I am busy at the moment embarking upon a major exercise of downsizing in preparation for my move to Sarum. This must include books! The process is illuminating. What do we attach ourselves to? All this ‘stuff’ faces me with the
The Quest for meaning in later life
Posted on by James Woodward
P. G. Coleman, D. Koleva and J. Bornat, eds., Ageing, Ritual and Social
Change: Comparing the Secular and Religious in Eastern and Western
Europe. Farnham and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2013. Pp. xviii,
283. Pb. £19.99. ISBN 978-1-4094-5215-7.
This volume is a compell
CONFUCIUS AT SEVENTY
Posted on by James Woodward
"At fifteen I was committed to learning.
At thirty I took my rightful position.
At forty, I was no longer totally perplexed.
At fifty, I began to understand the unfolding
of my true nature.
At sixty, I was in harmony with contradictions
and ambivalence.
A seventy
Looking your Age??
Posted on by James Woodward
DO YOU LOOK YOUR AGE?
Last month my wife and I were on a Road Scholar trip in Europe and we were having dinner with a Japanese woman. We got to talking about age and she asked how old I was. "Seventy" I replied, thinking of Gloria Steinem's apt phrase, "This is how 7
We need each other
Posted on by James Woodward
The truth is that we shall only understand the balance of severity and confidence, of the strenuous and the relaxed, in the context of the common life.
Every believer must have an urgent concern for the relation of the neighbour to Christ, a desire and willingness to be the me
The Look
Posted on by James Woodward
the look
"The World is not something to
look at, it is something to be in."
Mark Rudman
I look and look.
Looking's a way of being: one becomes,
sometimes, a pair of eyes walking.
Walking wherever looking takes one.
The eyes
dig and burrow into the world.
They touch
f
What is Age?
Posted on by James Woodward
"Age puzzles me. I thought it was a quiet time. My seventies were
interesting and fairly serene, but my eighties are passionate. I grow more
intense as I age...
We who are old know that age is more than a disability. It is an intense
and varied experience, a
A prayer of Lancelot Andrewes
Posted on by James Woodward
A prayer of Lancelot Andrewes
Guard Thou my soul,
Strengthen my body,
elevate my senses,
direct my course,
order my habits,
shape my character,
bless my actions,
fulfil my prayers,
inspire holy thoughts,
pardon the past,
correct the present,
prev
The Windows
Posted on by James Woodward
The Windows
Lord, how can man preach thy eternall word?
He is a brittle crazie glasse:
Yet in thy temple thou dost him afford
This glorious and transcendent place,
To be a window, through thy grace.
But when thou dost anneal
Seeing beyond the immediate: listening and learning alongside older people
Posted on by James Woodward
From 1998 through to 2009, I had the privilege of working with many hundreds of older people in an Almshouse charity. We lived together in rather splendid seventeenth-century buildings which were surprisingly adaptable for modern use.
I remember meeting one frail older woman o
understanding people ?
Posted on by James Woodward
Affinity
Consider this man in the field beneath,
Gaitered with mud, lost in his own breath,
Without joy, without sorrow,...
Without children, without wife,
Stumbling insensitively from furrow to furrow,
A vague somnambulist; but hold your tears,
For his name also is written
Glass
Posted on by James Woodward
glass
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
Sarum College Bookshop : Book of the Month
Posted on by James Woodward
'Between Dark and Daylight' by Joan Chittister
I am busy at the moment embarking upon a major exercise of downsizing in preparation for my move to Sarum. This must include books! The process is illuminating. What do we attach ourselves to? All this ‘stuff’ faces me
Praying for Peace
Posted on by James Woodward
and listening to the voices ......
Erich Fried
When we were the persecuted
I was one of you
How can I remain one
when you become the persecutors?
Your longing was
to become like other nations
who murdered you
Now you have become like them