Category: Blog

Bird by Bird : Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott Google informs me that around 4,500 books are published each day across the world. This is daunting, by any account, for both reader and writer! How do we make what we write count, be read and make any kind o

Honest Sadness Lament in a Pandemic Age John Holdsworth Sacristy Press 2021 Many of my friends have commented on their weariness with these weeks of lockdown. Government heralds progress with statistics about vaccinations delivered and the reducing infection numbers - and

What Does Jeremy Think? Jeremy Heywood and the Making of Modern Britain, by Suzanne Heywood (Collins 2021) Jeremy Heywood, senior civil servant, 1961-2018  In these days of zoom TV interviews it is not unusual to see the learned and powerful sitting in front of (u

The Power of Ritual : Turning Everyday Activities Into Soulful Practices Casper Ter Kuile William Collins 2020 Casper Ter Kuile I am indebted to my friend Jane Shaw for pointing me in the direction of this rather stimulating and wonderful book. It came out of a conversat

Finishing Well - A God's Eye view of Ageing by Ian Knox ( SPCK 2020) Ian Knox is an experienced, wise, creative priest and evangelist. His love of people, of life, of Scripture and learning are all present in the fourteen chapters of this book. His scope of reading and listen

More than 80 years ago, in Greece, 60 thousand Jews lived peacefully in Thessaloniki. It was a vibrant and valuable community, with most of these Jews working in the port. So much so that the port of Thessaloniki was even closed on Saturday, Shabbat. The Jewish Community at T

 Sacristy Press 2020 (207 pages) 978-1-78959-142-2 £14.99 Sacristy Press has established itself as an innovative publishing house with a diverse, engaging and ground breaking list. Natalie Watson, Richard Hilton, Eric Sharman and Thomas Ball are a strong team. This boo

Jessica Kingsley 2020 This is a book that has taken a long time in the reading. Why? It is so rich, so searching, so challenging that I had to keep putting it down to ingest the questions, stories and wisdom that is captured so simply in these eight chapters. A phrase here, a

Nothing much stands still these days except perhaps weekends in Lockdown. I have been to Church (online of course) and my usual catch up with friends or trip out of Salisbury have been properly curtailed. The opportunity to catch up on some reading before my mandatory exerc

At Sarum College a significant part of our work is in the formation of women and men for lay and ordained ministry ( see a little of our work here https://www.sarum.ac.uk/ministry-training). I enjoyed Matts last book (Becoming Reverend) which charts his progress, survival a

Lessons from the 44th President of the United States of America all 751 pages of it ! I have spent far too much time with my head buried in the pages of political memoir for good and less good reasons! As a genre they are complex, contradictory and (on the whole ) much gi

A second volume - for musings on the first see (https://www.jameswoodward.online/wp-admin/post.php?post=8586&action=edit) An observant friend taking note of the small pile of 'books being read or (being attempted) to be read' saw a copy of Jan Morris' earlier volume In My

As adventures in reading go this wonderful volume is a sheer delight. Skilfully researched and lucidly written the author inhabits the space with creative care. The passion and love of the subject matter shine through the text as each chapter inhabits history, place, art and wri

The Glorious Life of the Oak John Lewis-Stempel Doubleday 2018 As the 'hibernation' ( see my post 22 December) continues helped by persistent rain I turned my attention to this book recommended by the sister of a friend and colleague. It followed my use of the im

Jan Morris who died on 20th November 2020 Pre Christmas hibernation has started with a necessary limitation of Covid 19 travel. So being nourished by some good writing seems a pre requisite of survival and even a little flourishing. This collection of random, reflective, tho

‘The trouble with you is that you are never grateful,’ was the heartfelt challenge from parent to child.  It made me wonder :  Are we grateful? In these dark days of winter and with all the anxieties of the pandemic let us remind ourselves about gratitude. Gratitude

Many years ago, I was asked by one of my teachers to look after his papers. I am working through a number of boxes. Each box ( carefully organised) contains dated collections of papers. They are lectures, draft book proposals, book reviews, talks and sermons. They are an extraor

A sermon for Advent Sunday 29th November 2020 Windsor Great Park It is very good to be with you this morning. I am recording this  homily in Salisbury (Cathedral). I moved from Windsor some five years ago to be Principal of Sarum College in the Cathedral Close. From the win

by Bruce A. Stevens, London, Lexington/Fortress, 2019. This volume stands in a tradition that has had an international influence on our understanding of the nature and practice of spiritual care in older age. The author succeeded Elizabeth MacKinlay as the second Wicking