One of the exciting things about travel is the discovery of new artists – Newmans effect on this tourist was electrifying – his use of primary colours is vibrant and fascinating. Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American artist. He is seen as one of the major figures in abstract […]
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William Rees-Mogg
Posted on by James Woodward
William Rees-Mogg is one of the pivotal figures of post-war Britain. In this memoir he recounts the story of a colourful life, and reflects on the key figures and events of his time. As editor of The Times (his glory years), journalist, commentator, Chairman of the Arts Council, and, later, Chairman of the Broadcasting […]
UnMasking Age
Posted on by James Woodward
Unmasking Age: The significance of age for social research Social Research Bill Bytheway Policy Press 2011 When the history of social gerontology is written, the chapter devoted to the contribution of individual researchers to the field, will certainly feature Bill Bytheway. This book is a brilliant overview of age. It is readable, stimulating and […]
Amaryllis
Posted on by James Woodward
One morning–and so soon!–the first flower has opened when you wake. Or you catch it poised in a single, brief moment of hesitation. Next day, another, shy at first like a foal, even a third, a fourth, carried triumphantly at the summit of those strong columns, and each a Juno, calm in brilliance, a […]
To Canada
Posted on by James Woodward
I am surrounded by lists at the moment and preparing to go fly off to Canada – intrigued and interested to see what I shall discover. Monoday morning shall take me in Heathrow (soem advantages of living in Windsor!) to fly to Ottawa, Ontario St Matthews Anglican Church are my hosts and I shall be having […]
Hands
Posted on by James Woodward
“Adam, where are you?” God’s hands palpate darkness, the void that is Adam’s inattention, his confused attention to everything, impassioned by multiplicity, his despair. Multiplicity, his despair; God’s hands enacting blindness. Like a child at a barbaric fairground — noise, lights, the violent odors — Adam fragments himself. The whirling rides! Fragmented Adam […]
Time and Age – some more questions!
Posted on by James Woodward
Is it absurd to suggest that the tick of the clock is relevant to understanding age? Picture it: a landscape, a family enjoying a picnic, rolling hills in the distance; Can you think of an equivalent timescape? How routine is your daily life? Do you think it is becoming more routine as you grow […]
presence
Posted on by James Woodward
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 […]
How Old do you think I am?
Posted on by James Woodward
Try this out for a starter if you want to reflect in Age! Do you feel age masks ‘the real you’? When did you last take a hard look at yourself in the mirror? Do you look your age? Do you feel your age?
patience
Posted on by James Woodward
An absolute patience. Trees stand up to their knees in fog. The fog slowly flows uphill. White cobwebs, the grass leaning where deer have looked for apples. The woods from brook to where the top of the hill looks over the fog, send up not one bird. So absolute, it is no other than […]
The Tate Modern
Posted on by James Woodward
Tate Modern was created in the year 2000 to display the national collection of international modern art (defined as art since 1900). By about 1990 it was clear that the Tate Collection had hugely outgrown the original Tate Gallery on Millbank. It was decided to create a new gallery in London to display the international […]
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham
Posted on by James Woodward
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, known as Willie, was born in St Andrews, Fife, on 8 June 1912. As a child she showed very early signs of creative ability. Determining while at school that she wanted to be an artist, she set her sights on Edinburgh College of Art where, after some dispute with her father, she […]
thinking
Posted on by James Woodward
Half the day lost, staring at this window. I wanted to know just one true thing about the soul, but I left thinking for thought, and now – two inches of snow have fallen over the meadow. Where did I go, how long was I out looking for you?, who would never leave […]
Theology?
Posted on by James Woodward
Theology is the Greek word for thinking about God. According to H. R. Mackintosh, ‘’theology is simply a persistent and systematic effort to clarify the convictions by which Christians live.’’ Theology is thereby also the clarification of convictions by which Christians engage in ministry. Therefore, God is the principal subject matter of pastoral theology, though […]
PRAYER
Posted on by James Woodward
Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer utters itself. So, a woman will lift her head from the sieve of her hands and stare at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift. Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth enters our hearts, that small familiar pain; then a man […]
How do we learn?
Posted on by James Woodward
Learning by suffering—pathei mathos in Aeschylus’ phrase; but this means more than being undeceived: ‘what a man has to learn through suffering is not this or that particular thing, but the knowledge of the limitations of humanity, of the absoluteness of the barrier which separates him from the divine. It is ultimately a religious insight—that […]
Being Wrong – we are all destined to err
Posted on by James Woodward
In this sense, all wrongness is optimism. We err because we believe above all, in ourselves: no matter how often we have gotten things in the past, we evince an abiding and touching faith in our own stork theories. Traditionally, we are anxious to deny that those stories and theories are stories and theories—that we […]
BURNING THE FALSE SELF
Posted on by James Woodward
Suffering is a predominant feeling of the process though which a human being must pass as the mental ego deconstructs and the transpersonal self is birthed… The suffering comes from the clinging we do to all those facets of self we imagined ourselves to be and that burn off in the process of becoming Light. […]
Why I dissented from Falconer
Posted on by James Woodward
The Commission on Assisted Dying published its report yesterday. It has concluded that it is possible to devise a legal framework that would set out strictly defined circumstances in which terminally ill people could be assisted to die. The work was funded by Sir Terry Pratchett and Bernard Lewis, both advocates of assisted dying. I […]
Commission for assisted Dying – radio interviews
Posted on by James Woodward
Here ois a piece from BBC Radio wales ( starts 48 minutes 56 seconds in) http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b018lc28/