often it is the only thing between you and impossibility. no drink, no woman’s love, no wealth can match it. nothing can save you except writing. it keeps the walls from failing. the hordes from closing in. it blasts the darkness. writing is the ultimate psychiatrist, the kindliest god of all the gods. […]
Blog
Leadership and Listening?
Posted on by James Woodward
………… it is significant that our English word for ‘obedience’ is derived from two Latin words -ob and audire- which mean to ‘listen keenly’. As Bill Kirkpatrick observes in his book The Creativity of Listening, listening has three meanings: The first is to hear; the second is like the meaning of the French ‘connaitre’ – […]
Chris Mullin Decline and Fall Diaries 2005-2010
Posted on by James Woodward
Chris Mullin, the amiable backbencher and sometime junior minister, does not appear in the index of Tony Blair’s memoir, A Journey. He is not in the index of The Third Man, Peter Mandelson’s insider’s tale, nor that of Alastair Campbell’s The Blair Years. To the talent at the top, Mullin was simply a vote and […]
I Look Into My Glass
Posted on by James Woodward
I look into my glass, And view my wasted skin, And say, ‘Would God it came to pass My heart had shrunk as thin!’ For then I, undistrest By hearts grown cold to me, Could lonely wait my endless rest With equanimity. But Time, to make me grieve, Part steals, lets part abide; And […]
All Souls
Posted on by James Woodward
Eternal God, our maker and redeemer, grant us, with all the faithful departed, the sure benefits of your Son’s saving passion and glorious resurrection that, in the last day, when you gather up all things in Christ, we may with them enjoy the fullness of your promises; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who […]
All Saints
Posted on by James Woodward
Kadinsky All Saints Almighty God, who hast knit together thine elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of Your Son, Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow Your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that thou hast prepared for those […]
Word Cloud
Posted on by James Woodward
Thanks to Stephen Gardiner here is a play with some of the words in my blog…..
In memory of W.B. Yeats
Posted on by James Woodward
Earth, receive an honoured guest: William Yeats is laid to rest. Let the Irish vessel lie Emptied of its poetry. … Follow, poet, follow right To the bottom of the night, With your unconstraining voice Still persuade us to rejoice; With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of […]
Conversations about God (continued!)
Posted on by James Woodward
If the Bible is anything to go by, such experimental approaches to the reality and the realizing of faith will not guarantee any one of us necessarily comforting and reassuring experiences. We may be taken out of the half-light of a pseudo-faith or semi-faith into the darkness of doubt which is the ante-chamber to the […]
Befriend the Older stranger in yourself?
Posted on by James Woodward
In a science museum, there is one exhibit in particular which attracted long lines of children: “Face Ageing”. A child sits down in front of an automatic camera and has their portrait taken. They wait and their digitized bust appears on a TV. monitor. Then, tapping a button like a VCR remote, each child could […]
anger
Posted on by James Woodward
Anger and tenderness: my selves. And now I can believe they breathe in me as angels, not polarities. Anger and tenderness: the spider’s genius to spin and weave in the same action from her own body, anywhere — even from a broken web. From Adrienne Rich, Integrity
God : Some Conversations (part 4)
Posted on by James Woodward
He is known also as the Holy and Righteous and Transcendent One who is trustworthy. This is a thing which has been borne in upon the followers of God, those who have been called to know that they are his people through all the ups and downs of their lives, through all the muddle and […]
God: Some Conversations (part 3)
Posted on by James Woodward
Belief in God today is what it always has been. A commitment to a way of living based on response to a way of giving – to the way in which God gives himself to us in Jesus Christ, through our fellow believers, through that of God in every man and in the possibilities of […]
www.jameswoodward.info
Posted on by James Woodward
After a great deal of work Im glad to report the launch of my redesigned web page….. take a look at www.jameswoodward.info and let me know what you think
God: Some Conversations (part 2)
Posted on by James Woodward
I must move constantly between not needing to know and knowing that I do not know and thus commit myself to the process of finding out. I experience faith as a gift and as a question. The very nature of the gift requires that I face the question. If it is truly a […]
Edward The Confessor
Posted on by James Woodward
Edward, the penultimate Anglo-Saxon king of England, was known as ‘the Confessor’ because of his deep piety. Edward was the son of Ethelred II ‘the Unready’ and Emma, the daughter of Richard II of Normandy. The family was exiled in Normandy after the Danish invasion of 1013, but returned the following year and negotiated Ethelred’s […]
God : Some Conversations (part one)
Posted on by James Woodward
God is either a gift or a delusion, the source of all gifts and of the possibility that everything may be received as a gift, or the phantasy of men who prefer to imagine that they receive gifts rather than to acknowledge that they must face facts – on their own. I believe in God. […]
Britain is unequal and deeply divided
Posted on by James Woodward
The Equality and Human Rights Commission is today publishing a 700 page report that shows Britain to be a deeply divided country. The most comprehensive report on UK inequality ever published, ‘How Fair is Britain?’ charts the divergence of life chances from birth through to retirement – illustrating that the gulf in opportunity and outcomes […]
Awe?
Posted on by James Woodward
Yesterday I saw a small group of children in Chapel here in St Georges Windsor. It was amazing to see their reaction and it took me back to thenk about space, wonder and awe. Donald Allchin eloquently evokes how spirituality might relate to a cathedral: To speak of spirituality is to speak of that meeting […]