A great paradox of being alive in this civilization is that we have come to dread and devalue the triumph of having lived, forgetting that to grow old is not a punishment but a privilege — that of having survived in order to begin the continuous creative act of holding on while letting go. #oldage

BLESSING FOR OLD AGE May the light of your soul mind you May all your worry and anxiousness about becoming old be transfigured, May you be given a wisdom with the eye of your soul, to see this beautiful time of harvesting -John O’Donahue

Refreshing, cold and bright Chirk Castle this morning #NewYear26

My first Negroni of the year: and raising the glass to wish you all well for this new year !

Thinking about some space and time for yourself ? Do consider @sarumcollege.bsky.social www.sarum.ac.uk/learning/pri...

2026 : A new Beginning ? There are moments in life when we are reminded that we are unfinished, that the story we have been telling ourselves about who we are and where our life leads is yet unwritten. To begin anything — is to cast upon yourself a spell against stagnation.

On this date in 1926, Rainer Maria Rilke died of leukemia at a clinic on Lake Geneva, at the age of 51. Three years before, he had published the Duino Elegies, the first of which has these lines (my translation): Voices, voices. Listen, my heart, as only saints have listened . . .

We live on in the ongoing fragility and brokenness of ourselves, but we don’t walk in the darkness that surrounds us. Rather, we live in the light that transcends, permeates, and unexplainably shines through that darkness. We walk in the light that shines on …

To be alive in the adventure of Jesus is to kneel at the manger and gaze upon that little baby who is radiant with so much promise for our world today.

For Teilhard, the seeing of Christ in all things was the most powerful source for Christian renewal, for the transformation of humanity, and for the responsible, reverential care of our planet.

Religion’s essential function is to radically connect us with everything. A cosmic notion of the Christ competes with and excludes no one. The Creator’s love and presence are grounded in the created world, distinction between “natural” and “supernatural” falls apart.

For the eternal optimists it’s the first day of summer tomorrow 🥳🌳

Christ is a word for the Primordial Template through whom “all things came into being, and not one thing had its being except through him” Seeing in this way has reframed, reenergized, and broadened my own belief, and I believe it could be Christianity’s unique contribution in the world religions.

Awe is more than an emotion; it is a way of understanding, insight into a meaning greater than ourselves. The beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907–1972)

Contemplation is nothing other than a secret, peaceful, loving inflow of God. If given room, it will fire the soul in the spirit of love. —John of the Cross

Earth is so thick with divine possibility that it is a wonder we can walk anywhere without cracking our shins on altars.

God is the wisdom of every lifetime, a deep plunge, the sinew and muscle of ethical responsibility, a community of goodness, but more. Descriptions reach out as far as they can toward God and then, like a rubber band stretched too far, they snap back and we are left with the silence of mystery & awe

The roots of ultimate insights are found … on the level of wonder and radical amazement, in the depth of awe, in our sensitivity to the mystery.

How do we live whole in a breaking world? It helps to bless what is simply for being. It helps to thank everything for its unbidden everythingness. And still we need help — help holding on to the beauty amid the brutality, help stripping the armors of certainty to be complicated by contraction.

Our delivery of the 2026 Retreats Handbooks has arrived! Members' copies and pre-orders have been posted - have you received yours yet? Or order a copy now on promotingretreats.org/resources! #retreat

www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/202... @mshahn.bsky.social

We journey on and into Advent with Jim Cotter

The divine-human love affair really is a reciprocal dance. Sometimes, in order for us to step forward, our partner must step away a bit. The withdrawal lasts only a moment, and its purpose is to pull us closer—but it doesn’t feel like that in the moment. It feels like our partner is retreating.

Prayers for colleagues @salisburycathedral.bsky.social as they move into serving, singing and carolling

We walk this earth as bewildered animals trying to recover the divinity within — descendants of the great apes who invented gods to mirror back to us the best in ourselves and bridle the worst, but we are still and always have been our own only shepherds.

#SarumCollege #Learning www.sarum.ac.uk

Advent verses from Jim Cotter December 7th 2025

Advent verses from Jim Cotter

I am a Christian because of women who said yes. —Rachel Held Evans

Glad to have some days with the Sisters of the Love of God at Fairacres east of Oxford #Advent

“If we know who we are, we need fear neither the hostility of the nations nor their friendship. For we are strong enough to fight for our safety and for our values.” (Rabbi Sacks on Parshat Vayishlach, c. 1980s)

www.jameswoodward.online/blog/heather... A book review

On this first day of Advent and on this Advent Sunday a journey through this season attending to the generative heart and pen of Jim Cotter

Gratitude is strongest, clearest, most robust, and radical when things are really hard. Diana Butler Bass, Grateful

Somewhere along the way of life, we learn that love means very different things to different people, and yet all personal love is but a fractal of a larger universal love. Some call it God. I call it wonder. Dante called it “the Love that moves the Sun and the other stars.”

The more we bump into the folks who are so-called “other,” the more we are stretched and the more we are pulled out of bias. We have new truths, because we have tangible evidence of the beautiful, powerful creativity of our God who made all of this diversity for us to enjoy Jacqui Lewis

You are not here to verify, Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity Or carry report. You are here to kneel Where prayer has been valid. —T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”

Real communication occurs, and this evaluative tendency is avoided, when we listen with understanding. It means to see the expressed idea and attitude from the other person’s point of view, to sense how it feels to him, to achieve his frame of reference in regard to the thing he is talking about.

Friends do join us

Next Thursday at Sarum College, we are hosting a postgraduate seminar on the theme of "Spirituality and Human Flourishing." Alongside a keynote paper from James Woodward (@woodwardjames.bsky.social) we have three great student papers.

There are no privileged locations. If you stay put, your place may become a holy center, not because it gives you special access to the divine, but because in your stillness you hear what might be heard anywhere. All there is to see can be seen from anywhere in the universe, if you know how to look.

Everything is in some way sacramental. All depends on the receptiveness and openness of our hearts

Sacramentality breaks through our surface obsessions in the world and plunges us into the depth of the Sacred l. It is a spontaneous reminder of God’s creative upwelling and expansive love, calling us to love beyond boundaries.

God brought things into being in order that God’s goodness might be communicated and be represented by them. God’s goodness could not be represented by one creature alone, God produced many & diverse creatures. For goodness, which in God is simple and uniform, in creatures is manifold and divided.

Michael Hischer WV 466, 2017 Painted Aluminium New Art Centre

Most of us pedal pretty hard to avoid going in the direction of Jesus’ Beatitudes. We read books that promise to enrich our spirits. We find all kinds of ways to sedate our mournfulness. —Barbara Brown Taylor

@luxmuralis.bsky.social @salisburycathedral.bsky.social Wonderful immersion into story and colour and lost worlds

The state of enchantment is one of certainty. When enchanted, we neither believe nor doubt nor deny: we know, even if, as in the case of a false enchantment, our knowledge is self-deception. WH Auden