1. Nourishing Connections: Introducing the Website
by Graham Kings
Date added: 06/09/2020
Nourishing Connections: Introducing the Website
Ponderings 1, Sept 2020
Introduction
Ponderings are my blog articles, beginning in September 2020 at the launch of this website, following our move back to Cambridge for retirement.
In this, my first one, I will introduce this website, ‘Nourishing Connections’ which is being launched today and includes mention of my book, Nourishing Connections: Collected Poems (Canterbury Press), which is being published on 30 September 2020.
The site is subtitled ‘Theology, Mission, Poetry’.
I am very grateful to Martin Brasier for the technical design, which mirrors the shape of site we worked on, from 2015, Mission Theology in the Anglican Communion.
Top Banners
Each of the seven sections of the site has a top banner photo, which is a detail from one of the seven paintings of ‘Women in the Bible’ by Silvia Dimitrova: About (Sarah), Articles (Miriam), Books (Ruth), Chapters (Esther), Poems (Magdalene), Galleries (Lydia), Art (Priscilla). The home page, mirroring the final section, has a detail of Priscilla.
The photos in the moving gallery may be identified by clicking on the question mark and may be paused and restarted.
Below this gallery is a general welcome to the site and then the latest articles posted.
The right hand margin has my twitter feed: @GrahamRKings. This can be scrolled down. Below that is a link to ‘Ponderings’ and then a ‘word cloud’ subject index.
The three subsections provide a short biography, biographical articles and contact details.
This section includes subsections of my articles which have been published in The Times and The Guardian, Fulcrum 'Newsletters' (2005-11), Fulcrum articles (2003-), Mission Theology in the Anglican Communion monthly 'Interweavings' (2015-17), and Mission Theology in the Anglican Communion articles (2015-17).
The following four subsections, Covenant (2006 - ), Miscellaneous, Sermons, and Imaginings (contemplative readings of Scripture), still have material to be uploaded.
The final subsection is Ponderings.
This section includes the following chapters in books:
‘Mission and the Meeting of Faiths: The Theologies of Max Warren and John V. Taylor’ in Kevin Ward and Brian Stanley (eds), The Church Mission Society and World Christianity, 1799-1999 (Eerdmans, 2000), pp. 285-318 – still to be uploaded.
‘Worship on Upper Street, Islington’ in Tim Stratford (ed.), Worship: Window on the Urban Church (SPCK, 2006), pp. 74-86.
‘The Joy of being Anglican: Foreword’ in Caroline Hodgson and Heather Smith (eds), The Joy of Being Anglican (Redemptorist Press, 2017), pp. 12-15.
The Global South Christianity subsection includes various lectures and articles.
‘Afterword: Maps and Myths Matter’ in Mark A. Lamport (ed.), Encyclopedia of Christianity in the Global South (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018) Vol 2, pp. 947-949 – still to be uploaded.
‘Mission’ (May-Aug 1991); ‘Good News for All Kinds of People (May-Aug 1994); ‘Poetry in Mission for the Millennium’ (Sept-Dec 2000) Guidelines to the Bible (Bible Reading Fellowship, 1991, 1994 and 2000). The first two are still to be uploaded.
Included are the Introductory chapters, or Prefaces, to:
Christianity Connected: Hindus, Muslims and the World in the Letters of Max Warren and Roger Hooker (Boekencentrum, 2002 and ISPCK, 2017).
Offerings from Kenya to Anglicanism: Liturgical Texts and Contexts (with Geoff Morgan), (Grove Books, 2001) – still to be uploaded.
Signs and Seasons: a guide for your Christian journey (Canterbury Press, 2008) – still to be uploaded.
Nourishing Connections: Collected Poems (Canterbury Press, 2020).
In this section the 61 poems of Nourishing Connections, written over 35 years,are set out under their six themes: Seasons, People, Places, Bible, Art, Prayer.
The large number of photo galleries have sections named after the places where I have served: Kabare, Cambridge, Islington, Sherborne, the Global South.
The video galleries include those I have filmed on my travels and uploaded to Vimeo or YouTube and those others have filmed about my ministry.
The Art galleries are set out under the names of the three artists from whom I have commissioned work:
Benson Ndaka, who carved the seven mahogany reliefs in the Library and Chapel of St Andrew’s College, Kabare, Kenya in 1991;
Jonathan Clarke, a sculptor in polystyrene which forms the shape for aluminium, who was commissioned for work at St Mary’s Church, Islington in 2005 and at the Queen Elizabeth School, Wimborne, Dorset, in 2015;
Silvia Dimitrova, who painted the series of seven Women in the Bible between 2003 and 2020, which are featured in the top banners of this site and which my seven poems expounded.
The fourth artist is Zimbabwean and is currently untraced. In 2008, St Mary’s Church Islington bought his magnificent early 1960s tree trunk carving of five scenes from the gospels.
Conclusion
The reason the site is going live today, Sunday 6 September 2020, is providing a background for the launch of Nourishing Connections: Collected Poems at the end of the month and for the Ordination Retreat for Priests, which I am leading for the Diocese of Leicester at Launde Abbey, 7-9 September, and for the Ordination Retreat for Deacons on 23-24 September.
I will be basing my talks on Silvia Dimitrova’s paintings on both the retreats, and at the ordinations, 13 and 27 September, and will have the originals with me and would value your prayers for the ordinands and for me, forty years after my ordination as a deacon.
At the beginning of the 1662 Ordering of Priests, the Bishop mentions to the ordinands three 'weighings' that they should have in remembrance:
'to how weighty an office and charge ye are called';
'we have good hope that you have well weighed and pondered these things with yourselves long before this time;
'that you will pray to the God the Father that...' 'by daily reading and weighing of the Scriptures, ye may wax riper and stronger in your ministry'.
May these triple weighings and ponderings bear much fruit.
