Jameswoodward’s Weblog

Yesterday in St Mary’s Church we celebrated the Harvest – meaningful and relevant because we are situated in a rural part of Solihull and some of our parishoners are farmers. In this global economy the production and movement of food across the world isan extraordinary feat of energy and skill.

We seem so removed from the sources of our food – and surely take so much of it forgranted? Bread, milk, potatoes, apples and cheese  – all delight us with their taste and nourishment. Harvest is a time to give thanks to God for all that is given and resolve ourselves to share the richness of God’s creation for justice and the good of all and not the few.

Here is soem historical background to the long tradition of harvest:

Before the 16th century, harvest was the term usually used to refer to the Autumn season: in fact the word comes from old English hærfest, which meant Autumn (the German word Herbst has the same origin and still means Autumn). The word is a compound word (hær + fest) and its first part has Indo-European roots in *kerp meaning to gather, pluck, harvest. Compare it with the Latin verb carpere meaning to cut, divide, pluck (Carpe diem). So hærfest indicated originally the joyful celebration of finally being possible to gather the mature crops; it extended afterwards its meaning to the all period beginning with the harvest (autumn). Recall also the expression harvest moon which is recorded since 1706 and indicates the fullmoon within a fortnight of the autumnal equinox (21 of September). However, as more people gradually moved from working the land to living in towns (especially those who were literate), the word came to refer to the actual activity of reaping, rather than the time of year, and the terms Fall and Autumn began to replace it in the former sense.

When did anyone ask you for your advice? When did you feel drawn to offer any wisdom to willing or unwilling hearers?

I am intrigued by Tony Blairs present role at Yale University and, indeed the establishment of his Faith Foundation ( see www.tonyblairoffice.org ). I suspect that history will be kinder to Blair as a person than we have been! Perhaps that applies to us all.

I read with interest his reflections to a  new class of Yale – here is an extract

So to you as individuals, what wisdom, if any, have I learnt?

First, in fact, keep learning. Always be alive to the possibilities of the next experience, of thinking, doing and being.

When Buddha was asked, near the end of his life, to describe his secret, he answered bluntly: “I’m awake”.

So be awake.

Understand conventional wisdom, but be prepared to change it.

Feel as well as analyse; use your instinct alongside your reason. Calculate too much and you will miscalculate.

Be prepared to fail as well as to succeed, and realise it is failure not success that defines character.

I spent years trying to be a politician failing at every attempt and nearly gave up. I know you’re thinking: I should have.

Sir Paul McCartney reminded me that the first record company the Beatles approached rejected them as a band no-one would want to listen to.

Be good to people on your way up because you never know if you will meet them again on your way down.

Judge someone by how they treat those below them not those above them.

Be a firm friend not a fair-weather friend. It is your friendships, including those friends you made here at Yale, at this time, that sustain and enrich the human spirit.

A good test of a person is who turns up at their funeral and with what sincerity. Try not to sit the test too early, of course.

Good advice? What words of wisdom would you like to share??

Here is another wonderful discovery!!

Henry Cliffe
1919-1983

Born in Scarborough, Yorkshire. 1939-46 served army, met
William Scott in Ruabon, Wales (Ordinance Section). 1946
enrolled as student BAA, studied lithography and painting
until invited to join staff (married colleague Valerie May).
Taught lithography full time, and gave technical advice to
colleagues (see exhibition Corsham Lithographs and Other
Prints The Arts Centre, Dartington Hall, Totnes 1955);
exhibited Willis Galleries, Bath with other members of staff.
Both his and his students’ work exhibited in many
international exhibitions including Cincinatti International
Lithography Exhibition (1954 & 1960) and at two Venice
Biennales. 1956 first one-man exhibition Redfern Gallery
(Paintings). 1959 one-man show St George’s Gallery (prints).
1960 first purchase prize Philadelphia Print Club. 1961 Ford
Foundation Scholarship. Pratt Institute of Art. New York.
1965 wrote Lithography: A Studio Handbook Studio Vista.
1967 one-man exhibition Aubern University, USA. 1970
retrospective exhibition of prints Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol.
1977 & 1980 one-man exhibitions of paintings and drawings.
Festival Gallery, Bath. 1986 British Prints in the Post-War Years
Redfern Gallery.

My fascination with the USA continues and I was glad to come across this excellent book by Matt Frei

At last the Church engages with something other than sex!!  Both of these articles bear much further thought and reflection.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has written in the Spectator Face it: Marx was partly right about capitalism.

The Archbishop of York gave a speech to the Institute of Worshipful Company of International Bankers Archbishop Labels HBOS short sellers as “Bank Robbers”.

Read on…..

Listening to Gordon Brown and other political orators has got me thinking about public speech and the way we talk to one another.

What about the sermon? Is it really any way to talk to people these days? What makes for a good sermon?

Lets remind ourselves about some of the history and theory……..

Sermons are usually, but not always, delivered in a house of worship. A sermon is also known as a homily within the Catholic Church. The word “sermon” comes from a Middle English word which was derived from an Old French term, which in turn came from the Latin word sermō; (“discourse”). The word can mean “conversation”, which could mean that early sermons were delivered in the form of question and answer, and that only later did it come to mean a monologue. In contrast to this, is the examples from the Bible, where sermons are speeches without interlocution: Moses’s sermon in Deuteronomy 1-33; Jesus’s sermon on the mount in Matthew 5-7; Peter’s sermon after Pentecost in Acts 2.

In modern language, the word “sermon” can also be used pejoratively in secular terms to describe a lengthy or tedious speech delivered with great passion, by any person, to an uninterested audience. 

 Diverse tradition

In traditional Indian philosophy, a teacher or guru delivers a talk known as a satsang.

In rabbinic Judaism, homiletical literature is found primarily in various forms of Biblical exegesis, known as midrash.

In Islam, the Khutba  is a sermon delivered before Friday prayers and after Eid prayers. There is also a khutba delivered during Hajj in the plains of Arafat, just outside Mecca. This khutba addresses the entire Muslim nation, as its message is carried back by pilgrims to their respective homelands.

 Sermons in the Christian tradition

In Christianity, the most famous sermon is the Sermon on the Mount by Jesus of Nazareth. This sermon was probably preached around 30 A.D. and is recounted in the Gospel of Matthew (5:1 – 7:29, including introductory and concluding material) as being delivered on a mount on the north end of the Sea of Galilee, near Capernaum. The Sermon on the Mount lays out many of the core principles of Christianity.

Many sermons have been written down, collected and published. Such sermons include John Wesley’s 53 Standard Sermons, John Chrysostom’s Homily on the Resurrection (preached every Easter in Orthodox churches) and Gregory Nazianzus’ homily “On the Theophany, or Birthday of Christ” (preached every Christmas in Orthodox churches). Martin Luther began a tradition of publishing sermons (Hauspostille) on the Sunday lessons for the edification of readers.

The Reformation led to Protestant sermons, many of which defended the schism with the Roman Catholic Church and explained beliefs about scripture, theology and devotion. Since the distinctive doctrines of Protestantism held that salvation was by faith alone, and convincing people to believe the Gospel and place trust in God for their salvation through Jesus Christ was the decisive step in salvation, in Protestantism the sermon and hymn came to replace the Eucharist as the central act of Christian worship. To rouse deeper faith in the churchgoers, rather than have them partake in a ritual, was the goal of Protestant worship conditioned by these beliefs.

Types of Sermon

There are a number of different types of preaching, that differ both by their subject matter and by their intended audience. and accordingly not every preacher is well-versed in each type. The types of preaching are:

• Topical preaching – concerned with a particular subject of current concern;
• Biographical preaching – tracing the story of a particular biblical character through a number of parts of the Bible.
• Evangelistic preaching – seeking to convert the congregation or bring them back to their previous faith through a recounting of the Good News.
• Expository preaching – exegesis, or preaching from a text and seeking to expound the text to the congregation.
• Redemptive-Historical Preaching – Preaching that takes into consideration the context of any given text within the broader history of salvation as recorded in the canon of the bi

 Delivery methods

Sermons also differ on the amount of time and effort used to prepare them.

• Scriptedpreaching – preaching with a previous preparation, it can be with help of notes or a script, or rely on the memory of the preacher.
• Extemporaneous preaching- preaching without overly detailed notes and sometimes without preparation. Usually a basic outline and scriptural references are listed as notes.
• Impromptu preaching – preaching without previous preparation.

There can be fewer places of peace and space and sheer beauty than the Northumberland Coast.  A short car journey north of Newcastle and the road opens up to miles of golden sand and the magic of castles and churches and the raw energy of the North Sea. 

If you havn’t experienced this part of the world then you are missing out! Take another look –

I love the way that the grass so easily gives way to the sand and the sheer size of the canvas of creation. And the opportunity to walk without many folks sharing the miles of sand!

Look it on the map and add to your places to visit! 

Swimming in a sea of Death: A Son’s Memoir by David Rieff, (Simon & Schuster) 2008, £12.99

Unfortunately I have had recent experience of my father and his brush with his mortality. A serious blood clot carried him off into hospital where, thankfully, at the age of 70, the doctors were able to correct this life-threatening problem.  It was a significant experience for me, as a pastor and as a son.

As a pastor I have spent much of the last two decades living in the shadow of death and doing my best to support those people who experience death in all kinds of different situations.  For some death is expected, slow and painful; for others it is a sudden, untimely and utterly tragic.  However, as a son my awareness of my parents’ mortality has been to date partial and even denied.  Of course, I have seen them both get old. Landmarks such  as a  40^th Wedding Anniversary; the marriage of daughters and  the arrival of grandchildren; the arrival of the bus pass offering free transport were reached but perhaps celebrated not reflected upon. However I do not think I had ever quite taken into my own consciousness the reality of how close to the end of their lives they might be.  This is a reminder and challenge for all of us who are professionally engaged with death and dying. The physical, emotional and spiritual reality of dying is very different for those who have a more intimate, and perhaps, more complex relationship to it through those they love very deeply. Distance is a key element in the geography of death. Those who work closely with the dying may well protect themselves by ensuring that there is plenty of detachment!

David Rieff, the son of Susan Sontag, offers in this short book an intelligent, if slightly chaotic, but always challenging and disturbing, account of his mother’s final illness.  We are taken thought the details of the process with feeling and real passion.  It is unapologetically personal.  The narrative is rich and can be read from so many different perspectives.  For Rieff the high priests of the body (the medical profession) disappoint.  In the end, neither science nor medicine, reason nor raw intellect could undo her death.  From this perspective and persuasively for this reviewer, this book is a superb argument against the concept of ‘a good death’.  Susan Sontag “died as she had lived: un-reconciled to mortality”.  Perhaps that’s the most honest starting point for those of us who work in this area and indeed for those whose lives are shaped by personal experience of loss and change.  So within this struggle there is pain and regret and a rather beautiful unresolved humanity.  It is our humanity that makes us mortal, not our creeds, whether they be theological, scientific or psychotherapeutic.

So all of us swim in the one sea of our lives, trying to stay afloat as best we can, clinging to such life-lines and preservers as we might draw about us: reason and science, faith and religious practice, art and music and imagination.  But in the end the wall go down, we all sink, we all die.  This messes up Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ tidy and too hopeful five stages of death.  Life is much more interesting, much more uncontrollable much more anger-filled than that.

This is why this book needs some attention from those of us who are professionally engaged in the area of end-of-life care, but particularly the medical profession. I would make this book required reading for all medical and nursing students! Rieff’s medical critique about how his mother was treated needs some attention and reflection.  Rieff argues that just as prisoners become experts in legal briefs, patients and their families learn the arcane of medicine and pharmacy.  But in the end, a death in the family is more than a medical or religious or scientific or intellectual event.  It is for humans a signature question about being and ceasing to be.  So let’s get rid of this absurd concept of a good death and inspired by Rieff engage in a more honest debate and dialogue and listening around the human complexities of our mortality.  Rieff is as hard on himself as a person as he is on the professionals.  He laments his tendency to be inhibited, witholden, morose, clumsy cold.  Who is to teach a boy to be impulsive, generous, cheerful and warm if not his mother?  What makes this books so convincing – it breaks open and lays before the reader the questions and refuses to take refuge in easy or controlling answers.

From what distance do you view end of life? How does the personal relate to the professional? Can we recover and nurture the chaos of an imagination fired by feeling?

Here are soem books that have helped me understand soem of the more challenging and problematic dimensions of childhood.

Grief in Young Children: Atle Dyregov. (Jessica Kingsley Publishers) 2008, 91pp, pbk, £9.99, ISBN 9781843106500

Grief in Children: Atle Dyregov. (Jessica Kingsley Publishers) 2008, 198pp, pbk., £14.99, ISBN 9781843106128

Listening to Children:  Alison McLeod, (Jessica Kingsley Publishers) 2008, 214pp, pbk., £17.99, ISBN 9781843105497

The Spiritual Dimension of Childhood:  Kate Adam, Brendan Hyde and Richard Woolley, (Jessica Kingsley Publishers) 2008, 156, pbk, £16.99, ISBN 9781843106029

Anger Management Games for Children: Deborah M. Plummer, (Jessica Kingsley Publishers) 2008, £15.99, pbk, ISBN 9781843106289

There has been an increasing focus on children in today’s society and how we might best understand and respond to their needs.  These five books, all from Jessica Kingsley deal with a variety of issues relating to children.

The first two books (Grief in Young Children and Grief in Children) are first rate resources written by a clinical psychologist working in Norway.  The first book challenges a common misconception that pre-school children are not capable of experiencing grief in the same way that older children do.  Dyregov demonstrates with admirable clarity that although young children may not express grief in the same way they do need to be supported through loss. She is a careful and skilled guide through this process.

The book uses variety of experiences which enables the reader to inhabit the particular world of how children react to death and loss.  A range of issues such as how to keep children in touch with their memories, how to answer the questions they ask but above all to do this within the context of a faith based within which their feelings are listened to.

The second book (Grief in Children) is an equally impressive handbook which now finds itself in a second edition.  This edition has been updated and Dyregov’s skill again is splendidly evident in the quality of the text, reflection and the support of the reader in their pastoral responses.  This is model of good writing in the area of pastoral care.  The chapters are short.  The text is clear and avoids jargon.  There are useful guidelines, references and pointers to internet resources.  The book indeed deserves its reputation as a small ideal text book to help teachers, social workers, councillors and parents.  We could well afford to have shorter and more accessible books that bridge the dynamic between theory and practice.

The third book, (Listening to Children) written by a lecturer in social work at the university of Cumbria draws on over twenty years experience of working with children and families as a teacher,  social worker, social work manager, trainer and consultant. Alison McLeod wants to offer a practical guide to what listening to children might mean in practice.

The book is divided into five parts – in part one we are encouraged to think about the voice of the child; in part two communicating with children is introduced and then developed in part three which is entitled ‘Opening up a dialogue’ with a child.  In part four McLeod offers particular examples of interviews and conversations for specific purposes; and part five completes the book with a powerful and persuasive argument to include young people and children in decision making and the informing of individual and societal perspectives.  Again the book is carefully referenced.

This book enabled me to see children in a different way and challenged my perception about how far we involve children at a variety of levels both within the primary school which I am involved in but also in church for the general planning of the life and work a parish Church.  It is an excellent book.

Kate Adam, Brendan Hyde and Richard Woolley deal with the question of the spiritual in relation to our understanding of the nature of children and their development (The Spiritual dimension of Childhood).  I challenge any reader of this volume not to have their horizons expanded by this excellent study.

The book offers a working definition of spirituality and demonstrates what might happen if we listen to the voices of children.  We are enabled to see how children draw on spirituality (as adults do) to address notions of meaning and value.

This book deserves to be both widely read and acted upon.  I hope copies will find their way into the hands of all those working particularly in Church schools. There is knowledge, wisdom and challenge in the text.

There are few of us who find anger easy to manage both in ourselves and others.  The emotional life of children needs particular care and attention.  This practical hand book (Anger Management Games for Children by Deborah M. Plummer) offers adults support to understand manage and reflect in children’s anger.  There is a range of ‘easy-to-learn- team games, designed to foster successful anger management strategies.

This book is a model of good writing: clear and accessible.  We need to attend more carefully in pastoral care to the emotional world of children and Plummer is a skilled guide.

People do not always get on with each other. There is infinite opportunity for misunderstanding. Despite best efforts we sometimes do not communicate well – and if we thought we were clear – that doesnt prevent the hearer picking up a different strand of the story!

Community does not just happen. It needs effort and care and patience. It needs tasks beyond itself to give us all aspirations. We need vision. We need to dream dreams.

Our Heritage Open Weekends give us a chance to stretch ourselves – sometimes to the limit – to test our patience and understanding. Here in Temple Balsall It is a weekend when we get to know each other – and build what is good.

Here is a glimpse of our community :

Tea and chat …… what are they talking about??

Keep an eye on Anne Cloke ( she is the wicked one on the right!)

Soem people just cant stop talking!

Sara introduced to the delights of whiskey and she was in Church the following day!

Val and Ruth ( who love having their picture taken!)

Thanks to this community for its life and work. See www.leveson.org.uk