(The School of Life 2022) In 2008, Alain de Botton was one of a team of writers and educators who founded The School of Life. Based in centres across the World, The School of Life , offers an emotional education focusing in particular on the issues of Work and Relationships. In an interview with de Botton said: The idea is to challenge traditional universities and reorganise knowledge, directing it towards life, and away from knowledge for its own sake. In…
Hidden Hands : The Lives of Manuscripts and Their Makers by Mary Wellesley ( RiverRun 2021) At Sarum College we have offered an MA in Christian Spirituality for many years – it continues to attract a wide variety of people supported as they are by our brilliant teaching team. We have recently appointed Dr Michael Hahn to lead the programme. Michaels main specialisms are medieval spirituality, the Franciscans, and the development of mystical theology. He is currently working on his…
On Reading A Life-Long Springtime: The Life and Teaching of Fr George Congreve SSJE by Luke Miller (Sacristy Press 2022) Alfred Hope Patten and the Shrine of our Lady of Walsingham by Michael Yelton (Sacristy Press 2022) I remember my first encounter with Walsingham. As a sixth form student I spent the May Bank holiday (possibly in 1977) making the long journey from Hartlepool to Norfolk. We set off in the early hours to navigate the 220 miles south. There was…
I wonder if you pray how do you go about this activity either for public worship or private devotion? In the middle of a recent conversation, I was invited by another person to pray with them. This often happens – I am a priest ! I willingly agreed but in the moment of pause wondered what to say and even how to pray into a space that was unfamiliar with the nature of prayer. Slowly words are merged helped by…
Global Images of Christ: Challenging Perceptions at Chester Cathedral The latest exhibition at Chester Cathedral due to end this month (October 2021) is a diverse, innovative and challenging invitation to the ways in which we represent Christ. In this black history month were taken into a deeper intentional examination of our limitations and prejudices as we see, make sense and come to a judgement. Lorna May Wadsworth is a figurative painter exploring male beauty from a feminine perspective, inverting the…
I first encountered this book through a conversation with a colleague at Sarum College about pastoral supervision.I was aware of Nancy Kline and her transformative Book Time to Think. My first encounter with her thinking was through Christopher Spence with whom she produced A Hundred Principles of Love. Both Christopher and Andrew Henderson profoundly shaped my life through my encounter with the The London Light House in West London. I went onto Chair CARA which inspired my editing the volume…
I wonder what were the things that got you through Covid and especially your lockdown evenings? I was glad of Netflix and their extraordinary range of (possibly eccentric) choices that seek to influence my viewing ! When this film was suggested I wasn’t immediately clear what it was about but complied and was not disappointed ! It is harrowing and illuminating and emotional in equal measure. Its essence might be captured here : in all dimensions of living – we…
This is a short, readable, challenging and deeply transformative book. The author is Rt Revd Dr Alastair Redfern, who chairs the Clewer Initiative, and the Sarum College Trustees, and is a theological educator of significant skill and generativity. Organised into four parts, the book explores the theme of slavery and salvation within our Scriptural and Christian tradition. Part two opens contemporary challenges as the reader is invited to consider the nature of choice in the formation of discipleship. The articulation…
I cannot now remember when I first encountered a piece of art by Frost. I do remember the vibrancy of the colour and the freedom of the form. Here – I sensed – was energy and life. His pictures of the sea and boats inspired by Cornwall remain iconic images of British modern art. This deep attraction and inspiration was nurtured by an exhibition at the University of Warwick in the late nineties followed by a stunning curating of his…
This is an appealing and fluent book with a story and a purpose. I read it in one siting on a train from Durham to London and as I passed through York (just under half way through the book) I felt a deep sense of gratitude for the 98th Archbishop of York and this book. Let me try to explain. I write as someone who has responsibility for the formation of women and men for lay and ordained leadership in…
Most of us live ordinary lives making the best of time and circumstance. We do our best. We sometimes fail. We deal with whatever the days of work bring. We dream. We hope. We cry. We wonder about roads not taken. We (mostly) do our best. We look forward to holidays and try to keep in touch with friends. We wonder what this Autumn will have in store for us. These days and weeks of Covid have changed us all and…
I have recently invested in a Kindle as part of an aspiration to travel a bit more lightly. The conversion will take some time but here is the first marker – this memoir is the first that I have read on the ‘neat’ and ‘light’ tablet. A great start helped by an amazing story vividly and honesty told. Margolyes is just wonderful and she takes her reader into her heart, her fragilities, her joys and burdens. It is a breathtaking…
How do I Look? Theology in the Age of the Selfie Dominic White SCM 2021 £25 At the time of reading this book there is some measure of ongoing uncertainty about Covid and how far it will continue to impact on daily living as the summer draws to a close and autumn brings its colours and changes. At one level nothing changes as the machinery of modern life continues to move and sustain us. The mobile phone, our laptops, and the…
I have had a busy week at Sarum College catching up with students, moderating assignments, a meeting of my body of Trustees as well as the usual range of unpredictable listening, mediating and resolving. Not all questions or difficulties move too quickly into the resolving zone ! I read for a small part of the day – it is a life line and sometimes sheer escape ! Anne Lamott has been my companion this week. And goodness what a gift….
Some of you might be be familiar with the BBC series Who do you think you are? In the programme a number of celebrities uncover, one assumes with the BBC researchers assistance, a number of lost connections and unfamiliar parts of their histories. The thread running through the programme is the persons history revealed in their family tree. Connections are traced and with the help of family the viewer is drawn into the biography as it is revealed. These celebrities…
This is an illuminating, thoughtful and carefully researched book that holds history, theology, spirituality and mission in skilful synergy ! Its focus is Choral Evensong – one of our national treasures – and these ten chapters celebrate its place in our Anglican ecology. It combines scholarship with nourishing insight. Although an easy read and short ( 128 pages) the book is littered with post -it markers indicating places that this reader will return to for further reflection. Simon Reynolds is…
by Brent Peery, London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2021, 121 pp., £18.99 (PBK), ISBN 9781785926822 This is a well-researched, grounded, and passionate text that makes a persuasive case for Outcome Oriented Chaplaincy (OOC). This process embraces a methodology of care that articulates the difference that a chaplain can make to patients, their families and the health care institution. It models generative practical theology that manages to hold theory and practice together. Written from an American perspective it has relevance for the…
This is a gentle, modest and humane book by one of the leading theologians in the UK today. It absorbed a Sunday and stimulated, encouraged and challenged. The flow of the book is hugely helped by the careful fluency of the text and its skilled organisation of themes, ideas and influences. In particular the memoir deals with the intellectual relationship between science and religion. it maps the journey from Northern Ireland to Oxford and a conversion to faith. It is…
Sarum College seeks to offer space and learning to nourish the human spirit. As we find our way out of lockdown we shall need time, refreshment, space and (perhaps) words to help us fathom the ambiguities and paradoxes of these days. We are glad to sponsor this event with a wonderful group of creative reflectors – including three of our visiting scholars ( Padraig O Tuama, Rachel Mann and Mark Oakley). Do carve out some time for yourself and join…
Bird by Bird : Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott Google informs me that around 4,500 books are published each day across the world. This is daunting, by any account, for both reader and writer! How do we make what we write count, be read and make any kind of difference? For those with a limited budget where might our money be profitably spent? I stumbled across Anne Lamott and was offered this book and Almost Everything :…