Book tokens are always a welcome opportunity to see what has been recently published and secure an adventure of discovery! Participating in a recent Church Times debate on assisted dying offered me the chance to secure a copy of this biography of Adrian Cadb
Gifts and Graces
Posted on by James Woodward
I have come to admire the way different individuals function in their professional roles. Yet finally I represent the role my way, in my person, in terms of my gifts and my graces. These “gifts and graces,” as the Methodists put
Prayer and Intercession ( Mother Mary Clare)
Posted on by James Woodward
These words from Mother Mary Clare SLG are worth pondering as we enter into a new season
PRAYER in its wholeness is relationship with God. Our part in all prayer is to be the ‘good ground’ out of which the seed can grow and, if we will let it, be mult
Mark Santer : Bishop, Theologian, Pastor 1936-2024
Posted on by James Woodward
This week, the family of Mark Santer, announced his death
Our beloved father, Mark Santer, died at home on Wednesday 14th August. Over the last years and months, his numerous health issues were catching up with him.
He died peacefully at home with all of us at his
Inhabiting RS Thomas on his own soil
Posted on by James Woodward
It is a long way from Salisbury to the Llyn Peninsula. This was a pilgrimage of sorts to the RS Thomas Poetry Festival. https://rsthomaspoetry.co.uk/ The slow and wet journey north was worth every turn in the road and queue ad a number of spea
Nothing is Secure, Except God : visiting the Community of the Sisters of the Love of God
Posted on by James Woodward
I was first introduced to the Sisters of the Love of God by Geoffrey Connor, the Vocations advisor in the diocese of Durham in the late 1970s. I visited first the Convent during my first year as an undergraduate at Kings College London. These months of study were both exh
Tell Me the Good Things : On Love, Death and Marriage by James Runcie
Posted on by James Woodward
There are, I confess, on my bookshelves a number of books that have been waiting to be read for some time. I bought this book last year after a rather arresting radio interview with James Runcie. There were a couple of connections that moved me into 'I don't need an
The Shaping of a Soul by Richard Harries
Posted on by James Woodward
The Shaping of a Soul: A life taken by surprise
Richard Harries
John Hunt Publishing £18.99
(9781803411620)
I have read and now write about a man and his story from a privileged position. I worked with Richard as his first domestic chaplai
Burkeman on the lessons of Time
Posted on by James Woodward
Four Thousand Weeks: Embrace your limits. Change your life. Make your four thousand weeks count Vintage 2022
What is your relationship to time ? How long is that To Do list ? And what about those good intentions we start any day with? This Saturday started quite
Close ( Film 2022)
Posted on by James Woodward
Gustav De Waele and Eden Dambrine as Rémi and Léo
On my post Easter travels I was glad to reaquaint myself with The Midland Arts Centre (https://macbirmingham.co.uk/) - a place of regular visits over twenty years of living in Birmingham.Based in Canon Hill Park
Leslie Houlden 1929- 2022 : Sacerdos, amator Dei, Quaerēns
Posted on by James Woodward
A Sermon delivered at the Funeral Eucharist of Leslie Houlden at the Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin Temple Balsall
21st December 2022 at 12.30pm
Leslie left clear and detailed instructions for his funeral. From time to time, they were updated - always
What does it mean to Journey? Reading Crossroad by Moseley
Posted on by James Woodward
Charles Moseley is a Cambridge scholar, teacher and English writer. I took this book with me to the Llŷn Peninsula in North Wales last weekend while present at a conference exploring the poetry of RS Thomas. This book was a perfect accompaniment in my lodgings in
Back to my Roots? The legacy of Brooke Foss Westcott
Posted on by James Woodward
I finished reading Isabel Hardman on turned to thoroughly researched life of Westcott. There were many resonances and connections. As the son of a miner the title was arresting. Ordained in Durham after theological studies at Westcott House Cambridge there were further
Reminiscence Work with Older Adults
Posted on by James Woodward
The Multi-Sensory Reminiscence Activity Book
52 Weekly Group Session Plans for Working with Older Adults
Sophie Jopling and Sarah Mousley
Jessica Kingsley Publishers 2017 ISBN: 9781785922398
There are few of us in early middle age who do not know someone who is l
A crisis of Care ?
Posted on by James Woodward
Contrast two scenes. The first is a restaurant – where the food is carefully prepared and warmly served in an atmosphere which seeks to delight its customers. The second is a hospital. Parking the car is nearly impossible – the long impersonal corridors where people a
Holiday reading (1) Gordon Brown My life, Our Times Bodley Head 2017.
Posted on by James Woodward
Having successfully downsized my living and therefore 'storage' arrangements I think twice about buying a book! I was, however, immediately drawn to this political autobiography, not least because on the two occasions I met Gordon Brown I found
Please pray for me
Posted on by James Woodward
As a priest, I should not be surprised at how often sometimes perfect strangers ask me to pray for them. Sometimes it is related to a specific difficulty or crisis – more often than not people understandably take comfort from the reality of being prayed for.
Longing for a deeper Church ?
Posted on by James Woodward
Andrew Walker, Notes From A Wayward Son: A Miscellany, ed. by Andrew D. Kinsey (Cascade, 2015), 322pp. no price marked. ISBN 978 – 1– 62564 – 161 – 8.
This is an intriguing, stimulating and rewarding book that offers a space within which Andrew Walkers rather orig
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
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