Category: Spiritual Life
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16.Trusting our own God-given wisdom
June 2015 The Church of England is in decline. But so are the other main-line churches in England. So its not a peculiarly Anglican problem. The same thing is happening across much of western Europe. So its not a peculiarly English problem. There’s a massive loss of confidence in institutions generally, be it the press,…
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15. When do I worship?
May 2015 I was recently in a church for an act of worship with a small congregation, and I found myself wondering ‘At what point does this act of worship begin? And when does it end?’ Does it begin with the words of the opening prayer? Does it end with the Blessing? I wonder. Is worship…
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14. Fatherhood
April 2015 A little over a year ago my wife and I were blessed with twins. Now we have four daughters, and I am surprised at the depth of emotion each of them evokes in me. Whereas once I scarcely felt I had enough love for just me, I now have love for five. I…
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13. Meeting Eve
April 2015 Last week my step son, his wife and their two children came to stay with us. Their eldest child is a little boy of rising three who talks incessantly and bustles about with great energy and curiosity. His sister is only a couple of months old, so she sleeps a lot, waking to…
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12. The Spirituality of Jesus can be ours too
February 2015 I sense that all of the above is important because these elements of Jesus spirituality are potentially ours too. We don’t need a complicated system of teaching in order to grow as people and in relationship to God. All we need to do is the follow Jesus’ example. [1] We all stand in a…
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11. The Spirituality of Jesus
February 2015 I have been wondering about the spirituality of Jesus, and how I might describe it. Nowhere in the Gospels is it described directly, so I need to try and infer it from what we know. There seem to me to be at least several recognisable elements. [1] Jesus clearly stands within a tradition [see my…
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8. Keeping Sabbath
November 2014 I met up with my friend Mary this week at Stixwould. She’s a retired Anglican priest with a spirituality earthed in the everyday, and she was telling me about the way she keeps Sabbath. I found it very interesting, and with her permission I share below two pieces from her blog on the…
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4. Hungarian Spiritual Direction
November 2014 When I travel abroad I like to read a novel or some poetry, look at some art, listen to some music, from the country I am about to visit, to give me a bit of a sense of the culture I will be entering. So when I visited Hungary some years ago I…
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3. Norwegian Wisdom
October 2014 I’m recently back from a trip to Finland and Norway which was immensely stimulating. Before I set out I was reading some of the poetry of the Norwegian poet Olav H. Hauge, available in an excellent collection ‘Leaf-huts and Snow-houses’ translated by Robin Fulton, published by Anvil. I was especially taken by one…
A CONTEMPORARY SPIRITUALITY 