Women Reflecting

http://www.salisbury.anglican.org/ministry/publications

A series of reflections, mainly from ordained women in the Diocese, ahead of the General Synod vote on legislation for Women Bishops in July 2012.

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Radical Story-telling?

Public Domain The Flight into Egypt File: Adam Elsheimer - Die Flucht nach Ägypten (Alte Pinakothek) 2.jpg Created: 31 December 1608 Which of the Gospel writers include an account of the birth of Jesus? When were they writing, for what audience? Mark’s Gospel is almost universally considered to be the earliest Gospel and it’s understood that both Matthew and Luke used it as a source text. But Mark has no account of the birth of Jesus, he begins with John the Baptist and Jesus’ baptism. Only Matthew and Luke have birth narratives and they are different whilst sharing some common features: Mary and Joseph are to be married and there’s a miraculous virgin birth in Bethlehem. But that’s about it. Jesus is born in a house in Matthew’s account whilst he is placed in a manger in Luke’s because there’s ‘no room at the inn’. Mary’s thoughts and feelings are not mentioned in Matthew at all, whilst from Luke we get the story of the Visitation, Annunciation and the wonderfu...

Silence

Lent Study Group One of my top 10 books of the last 10 years has to be: 'A Book of Silence' by Sara Maitland. I first heard Sara talk at Greenbelt many years ago and I was fascinated then by who she was - an eccentric woman, speaking with intensity and insight, offering an alternative and captivating viewpoint on the human experience. In this book she explores silence in all sorts of ways: by living on her own; by visiting the desert; through analysing the desert traditions within early Christianity; and through attending to what happens to the body and the mind in and through extended silence and isolation. Her book begins: I am sitting on the front doorstep of my little house with a cup of coffee, looking down the valley at my extraordinary view of nothing. It is wonderful. Virginia Woolf famously taught us that every woman writer needs a room of her own. She didn't know the half of it, in my opinion. I need a moor of my own. Or, as an exasperated but obvious...

God's Photos of You

Most of the time it’s possible to live quite happily with the absence of religion. Our lives are full and content without it, indeed most people would probably say less restrictive and less judgmental. But then Christmas arrives with its magical talk of angels, a miraculous birth and God with us . The nativity at school, the lit candle in the darkened church and the carol service remind us of a time when going to church and believing in God made sense. The tune of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ is grasped like an old friend – and it takes us to a place of remembered community, of solidarity, of a secure identity and experience. It gives us a story, which stretches way back, that we can be a part of. Our memories, faded and nostalgic as they are, nonetheless are full of hope, reminding us of an identity that we’ve lost, encouraging us to claim a future that will always be ours. Like the Queen’s Speech, Match of the Day, Strictly Come Dancing – Christmas is the photo frame which colle...

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