Jameswoodward’s Weblog

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you:
Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want:
Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going in and out of the door
where the two worlds touch:

The door is right there, look, it’s wide open!
Don’t go back to sleep.

From Rumi

At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled
after a night of rain.
I dip my cupped hands. I drink
a long time. It tastes
like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold
into my body, waking the bones. I hear them
deep inside me, whispering
oh what is that beautiful thing
that just happened?

Mary Oliver, At Blackwater Pond

It has been a very busy and intensive 10 days as clergy have gathered at St George’s house for a consultation designed to engage us all in a process whereby we might consider how we speak – and perhaps more confidently – about God.We have been blessed with some very skilled and knowledgeable speakers and explored each day the worlds of the church, law, medicine, social action, art, literature, finance and very much more.we have mined for wisdom and attempted to open ourselves up to new perspectives.

In a world that is ever more cynical about the church my heart has been hugely enriched by a wonderful quality of these women and men, some working in difficult and testing circumstances, to keep the rumour of angels alive, to listen and love and serve communities.

Much of the work has been done in small groups.we have read Scripture together and looked at novels, serious books  about contemporary issues such as equality and finance, and a couple of DVDs – including the first series of the BBC sitcom ‘REV’ ! We have done some theological reflection together on a range of issues and questions and each member of the group has brought with them a paper to share with fellow participants.

We have worshipped together. We have eaten together. We have taken wine together. We have looked curiously at each other.we have made new friends and there has been much laughter!

Here’s a snapshot of my small group and for the record thank you to Joabe, Jeremy, Michael, Andy, Barbara, Patrick, Bernard and Richard  for everything that you have so honestly and wisely shared.

I had the privilege of introducing the conference and its work 10 days ago and now I must offer some final reflections and these are the words and a piece of poetry that have emerged as I have reviewed these extraordinary past days:

God: Some Conversations 9^th– 19^th July 2012.  Final Reflections 

1. Learning to listen and especially to voices and perspectives which differ from our own. Being prepared to live with difference and to change. We have all experienced that uncanny moment when a long familiar word becomes strange and remote. We have peeled away the facades of self- evidence and glimpsed the unaccountable otherness of what is there. Our listening has uncovered the difference, the uniqueness, the strangeness of this amazing life.

1. Learning about our limitations, explaining the impossible, reaching the limits of our understanding. We have seen what happens when we allow ourselves space to ask questions. We have faced outwards and inwards as we look at who we are, what people expect of us and how much of ourselves we are prepared to show to others. 

1. Learning about our world and what shapes the way we look at the world. We a have seen  some of the fragility  of our reality and searched for creativity and empowerment. We have listened to the dark forces of sin that perpetuate fragmentation, inequality, unrighteousness, isolation and fear.  

1. Learning to share our faith, bringing people into commitment, enlarging their lives and hearts. We have been searching for where Christ might be found, and how we move people on and deeper in discipleship. We shall want to use all the opportunities of modern communication  to talk about God but not forgetting the liberating experience ordinary eye contact between new friends. Theology happens wherever we are drawn together into the congenial and annoying labour of conversing, listening and disputing – in short, where we are drawn into a collective struggle for truthful speech.

1. Learning about what difference we can make; how we exercise power with love as we share God’s vision of a world where all flourish through the spheres of law, education, finance, Parliament, health, community, family, literature and art. We strive to offer a theology that embraces the whole of reality including all dimensions of our living, our being human and humane. Allowing one another to tell our stories and to find our voice to keep on thinking aloud.

1. Learning to love the church and rediscover our vocation – as we place ourselves within the presence of God and ask what is required of us.   We might have the courage to take risks and discern new priorities for our ministry. We have helped each other to see  the rich diversity of the church and the many colourful ways God claims us. The church exists not for itself but for the sake of a reconciled humanity. We are a laboratory of human possibility, human flourishing, human belonging. And our materials are not test tubes and chemicals, but a book, a chalice, and the broken body of God.

Everything bends

        to re-enact

             the poem lived,

      lived, not written,

the poem spoken

              by Christ, who never

         wrote a word,

             saboteur

   of received ideas

who rebuilt Rome

        with the words he

     never wrote;

whether sacred,

          whether human,

                   himself a sunrise

         of love enlarged,

              of love, enlarged

–          Extract from A Church in Bavaria by William Plomer

so – my gratitude and much more to think about and do!

I have already indicated something of the  rhythms and patterns of the College – and this is very self-evident at the moment as we draw the summer term to a close.The school has started its summer holiday and the choristers are enjoying a well-deserved rest.Today the lay clerks sing their last services and change and holiday await them.There is a tangible sense that folks are ready for a break.For the clergy the rhythm of worship continues with said services and while we look forward to our respective holidays life and work continue.

As I write the Eucharist is being celebrated at the high altar and later this morning we shall gather for Matins followed by the Sung Eucharist. At the service this morning we shall say farewell to Sir Michael Hobbs the governor of the Military Knights of Windsor. Retirement finally awaits him and proper tribute will be paid to his long and distinguished service to this community particularly in the area of development and fundraising. we shall miss his presence, good humour and experience in and around the place.

At Evensong tonight we shall bid farewell to Canon John White who has spent a staggering 30 years here in Windsor. The college has a rather moving service of prayer and farewell built around Evensong and there follows a reception – hopefully outside – weather permitting! John is well-known throughout the Church of England for his independence of mind, his interest and appreciation of art, for his faithfulness, friendship and hospitality. There will be much to give thanks for this evening and we shall all wish him well as he moves into a new chapter.

Canon White ( bottom left)

July also brings the two-week clergy course (God: Some conversations) and we are enriched underprivileged by the presence of clergy from across this country and beyond.I shall reflect a little more about this in due course but it is good to have them here living alongside us and in their own particular way of style asking questions of us about our work! I have been particularly delighted by a wonderfully diverse group who I have been working with over the past six days – is much more to come but goodness what honesty, openness, skill and wisdom.

They keep me sober,

The old ladies

Stiff in their beds,

Mostly with pale eyes

Wintering me.

Some are like blonde dolls,

Their joints twisted;

Life in its brief play

Was a bit rough.

Some fumble

With thick tongue for words

And are deaf;

Shouting their faint names

I listen:

They are far off,

The echoes return slow.

But without them,

Without the subdued light

Their smiles kindle,

I would have gone wild,

Drinking earth’s huge draughts

Of joy and woe.

R.S. Thomas 1913-2000

Conjure something glowing
Take this day
You were born with hands for spinning
Talent for dreams and making them real

Roll the hours like yarn
Spin something that makes you feel full
And big and open to talk

Make this day your own square
In your own life quilt
So shining it brightens the whole of your years
This far
Make this day like one of God’s seven.

Ruth Forman, Even If You Grab A Piece of Time

EVERYONE suddenly burst out singing;
And I was fill’d with such delight
As prison’d birds must find in freedom
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields; on; on; and out of sight.

Everyone’s voice was suddenly lifted,
And beauty came like the setting sun.
My heart was shaken with tears; and horror
Drifted away … O but every one
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

 Siegfreed Sassoon, Everyone Sang

I guess that all of us need some kind of help and friendship and encouragement as we negotiate the inevitable ups and downs of life are particularly some of the transitions that come our way.

In my previous Ministry I had the privilege of working in a Church of England primary school for nearly 11 years.Every Thursday morning the whole school would come into church and we would have an act of worship together. I was extraordinarily shaped by this regular pattern of encounter with children and my heart opened by their courage and insight and wisdom.Too often we talk about what we should do for children – too little do we consider what they do for us.

It was leavers service that left particular memories – that mingling of anticipation of holiday and the sadness of leaving something relatively small and familiar for the unknown.

I was glad therefore this year to be able to address the leavers of St George’s School Windsor – it was a moving service and I share my few words with you with a tremendous sense of the hope and expectation that surround this particular group of young people.

St George’s School Leavers Service 6^th July 2012 Friendship  

Here is a little story – listen carefully – imagine the scene as I try to describe it.
Two friends worked on a farm collecting grain. Each night they would take their sacks of grain and put them in their stores. One friend was single and lived on his own. The other had a large family. One night the friend with the large family thought, ‘This is not fair. My friend lives all on his own and does not enjoy the life of a family. I will help him. I will secretly take one bag of grain and put it in his store at night.’ So that night he got one bag out of his store and crept over to his friend’s house in the dead of night. He placed the bag in his friend’s store and tiptoed home.

The same night the single friend thought to himself, ‘This is not fair. Here am I with only one mouth to feed. My friend, on the other hand, has many children. I think I will take one bag of my grain and secretly put it in his store.’ So he took one bag from his store, tiptoed over to his friend’s house and placed it in his friend’s store.

Every night for weeks the friends would take a bag of grain to each other’s stores. But they both became very puzzled, because even though they were giving away their grain the amount they had never seemed to diminish.

One night they were both out carrying sacks of grain to each other’s houses. Suddenly they bumped into each other. They looked at each other, saw the bags of grain on their shoulders and suddenly realized what had been happening. They laughed out loud and gave each other a big hug.

The actions of those two friends remind us that at the heart of friendship is an amazing pattern of giving and receiving. It’s a living example of the teaching of Jesus :The more we give, the more we receive.

We have much to be thankful for this morning as the School term ends. To the leavers I ask this – as you pack your bags and move on – what are you most grateful to St Georges for? What gift has our School given you? Perhaps you can dance or add up numbers or understand how the weather works (I wish I understood the weather!)Or sing or read Latin or play tennis ? I hope too that you will take away the precious gift of having made some good friends. Good friends last forever. Friendship is vital for our living. In order to live together as a community we need to nurture relationships of trust, to be friends.

There are three aspects of friendship that I want to touch upon – respect; dependability and challenge.

First: Respect. Friendship is the mingling of respect with affection. Friendship isn’t about getting our own way. One does not have to do as you are told with a friend, one neither looks up nor down to a friend but simply in the face. In friendship one can experience oneself just as you are, accepted and respected as unique and special and in your own way talented.

Second: Dependability. Friendship also combines affection with faithfulness. You can depend upon a friend as a friend you become someone upon whom others can depend. A friend remains even in the difficult times of our lives. The only rule for friendship is the promise to walk with each other and to be there for one another: this is dependability and faithfulness, a keeping an eye out for each other. We express our friendship in small everyday acts of support, encouragement and kindness.

Third: Challenge. Friends of course can also confront us as they walk beside us will stop they can challenge is to see the ways in which we can be negative and destructive to ourselves or others.  A friend urges me, helps me to resist what is destructive. They tell us to get real ! A good friendship can draw us out of ourselves and help us to honour so much of what is around us, waking us up to celebrate what we see and so easily take for granted.

Friendship in the bag that you take away from our school – friendship that reflects respect, dependability and some challenge to grow!

This morning we give thanks to God for friendship and pray that we may be good friends: friends of God and friends, good and faithful friend’s one to each other.

sadness, goodbye
but hello again
you are the writing
on the ceiling
you are the writing
in her eyes
sadness, sadness, you’re not that bad
I can eclipse and cloud you with a smile
welcome, again
you are the body of love
you are the power of love
love’s uprising
beyond the body
beyond the brain
sadness, you have
a beautiful face.

 
  Paul Eluard

You can add up the parts
but you won’t have the sum
You can strike up the march,
there is no drum
Every heart, every heart
to love will come
but like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

From Leonard Cohen, Anthem.