On the pilgrim way: ‘What, in my old age, constitutes ‘works’?’

25/10/2024 | Reform

Listening works for Sheila Maxey

The letter of James famously states that faith without works is barren. I have been wondering what, in my old age and with declining energy, constitutes ‘works’.

I had an email from my 89-year-old German … Read More

On the pilgrim way: ‘The suggestion that God takes risks all the time startled me and appealed to me’

02/10/2024 | Reform

‘Precarious’ is a troubling kind of word. I think of a rickety step ladder, or the worrying state of someone’s health, or the position of many a local church. Yet two books I have recently read have used the word … Read More

On the pilgrim way: ‘I seemed to be the keeper of the family memory’

06/09/2024 | Reform

This summer I have been on rather a special journey down memory lane – all the more special because it was shared. I visited my 89-year-old cousin in Germany. He remembered our first ‘adult’ meeting – I was 17 and … Read More

On the pilgrim way: ‘A nightingale, its beak wide open, sang its long, complicated and beautiful song’

03/07/2024 | Reform

Sheila Maxey shares holiday photographs

This summer season seems the time for travellers’ tales and photos, and the internet means I am included. A granddaughter and her boyfriend, aged 19, are in southeast Asia for two months. They seem to … Read More

On the pilgrim way: ‘I know many widows fighting their lone battles with ageing’

03/06/2024 | Reform

Sheila Maxey is inspired by widows facing older age

I live a very sheltered life these days: a safe familiar home, no financial worries, a supportive family at the end of the phone, good neighbours for the occasional practical crisis….

… Read More

On the pilgrim way: ‘Can we discover the meaning of experiences many years later?’

29/04/2024 | Reform

It’s never too late to give thanks, Sheila Maxey finds

I can’t get T S Eliot’s words ‘We had the experience but we missed the meaning’ (Four Quartets: ‘The Dry Salvages’ III) out of my mind just now. My mind … Read More