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James Woodward
@woodwardjames.bsky.social
340 followers 170 following 430 posts

Pondering, Reading, Writing, curiosity
Practical Theology, Human Flourishing, Ageing, Pastoral Supervision, Art,

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James Francis Woodward is an American philosopher who works mainly in philosophy of science with particular emphasis on causation and scientific explanation. In addition, Woodward has published in moral and political philosophy as well as philosophy of psychology. Woodward is Professor Emeritus in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, and was previously J.O. and Juliette Koepfli Professor of the Humanities at Caltech. .. more

Philosophy 39%
Psychology 14%
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woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · 6h
Gratitude is strongest, clearest, most robust, and radical when things are really hard.

Diana Butler Bass, Grateful

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · 1d
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.”

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · 7d
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

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · 12d
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”

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · 12d
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.

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · 12d
Friends do join us
mshahn.bsky.social Michael Hahn @mshahn.bsky.social · 13d
The event is hosted at Sarum College and will be accessible via Zoom. Please do let me know ([email protected]) if you would like to attend through either means, and I can make the Zoom link available.

Reposted by James Woodward

mshahn.bsky.social
Michael Hahn @mshahn.bsky.social · 13d
The event is hosted at Sarum College and will be accessible via Zoom. Please do let me know ([email protected]) if you would like to attend through either means, and I can make the Zoom link available.

Reposted by James Woodward

mshahn.bsky.social
Michael Hahn @mshahn.bsky.social · 13d
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.

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · 13d
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.

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · 15d
Everything is in some way sacramental. All depends on the receptiveness and openness of our hearts

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · 18d
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.

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · 19d
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.

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · 20d
Michael Hischer
WV 466, 2017
Painted Aluminium

New Art Centre

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · 20d
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

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · 22d
@luxmuralis.bsky.social @salisburycathedral.bsky.social

Wonderful immersion into story and colour and lost worlds

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · 22d
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

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · 26d
It is only in the second half of life that we come to understand that dying is not opposed to life. Dying is a part of a greater mystery—and we are a part of that mystery. In my experience, it is usually the older psyche that is ready to hear such sober truth.

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · 26d
Aging is not for the weak. One day you wake up and realize that youth is gone, so go insecurity, haste, and the need to please.Learn towalk more slowly, but with greater certainty. Aging means accepting, discovering that beauty was never in our skin but in the story we carry inside us.
Meryl Streep

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · 28d
What some call “liminal space” or threshold space (in Latin, limen means a threshold) is a very good phrase for those special times, events, and places that open us up to the sacred. It seems we need special (sacred) days to open us up to all days being special and sacred.
#Rohr

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · 28d
End of October Colour @visitwales.bsky.social

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · 29d
Powis Castle is a medieval castle, fortress and grand country house near Welshpool,Wales. The seat of the Herbert family, the castle is known for its formal gardens and for its interiors, the former having been described as "the most important" in the country.

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · Oct 28
Tuesday and the prefect accompaniment to The Great British Bake Off ( proudly sponsored by @waitrose3.bsky.social )

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · Oct 27
A few days away starting with some English Sparkling - refreshing !

@visitwales.bsky.social

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · Oct 26
@rcbirmingham.bsky.social @stchadsbirm.bsky.social

Glad to be present to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Nostra Aetate here at St Chads Cathedral

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · Oct 26
Suppose we answer the most important question of existence in the affirmative. There is then only one question remaining: How shall we live this life?

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · Oct 24
To be part of a life-giving tradition brings with it a moral responsibility to make it even better as we pass it on to future generations.
–Brian McLaren

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A Responsibility for Our Tradition
To be part of a life-giving tradition brings with it a moral responsibility to make it even better as we pass it on to future generations. –Brian
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woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · Oct 23
The contemplative life is not a way of knowing. It is not the path of certitude. In fact, that’s what makes it so alive, so necessarily active. Our glimpses of “arrival” along the way are places we can catch our breath and recall we are moving in the right direction.

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · Oct 20
In the end, contemplation is not about escaping life but entering it more fully. It is how we listen for God in the silence—and how we hear God in the cries of the poor, the groaning of creation, and the joy of being alive. It is how we live from that place for the sake of the world.

woodwardjames.bsky.social
James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · Oct 19
Go well

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James Woodward @woodwardjames.bsky.social · Oct 19
We are part of a living tradition of action and contemplation, people who have gone beyond the theoretical and are living out this wisdom in their daily lives. Truly, it will take a movement of such people to create a world where everything belongs.
—Richard Rohr

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