Woodchester

In contrast to Monday, today was brilliantly sunny, a perfect day for Winter walking. Four of us set off from the lay-by on the A46, past the 18th Century former drying tower (now a house) up Frogmarsh Lane and through South Woodchester, a village with a past: so many fine 17th/18th Century stone properties! Then up alongside Dingle Wood, and back left on the drive towards Bownhill Farm, with a 180 degree panorama from Horsley to Randwick. We descended, skirting Woodchester Park, to Inchbrook through a large, rather incongruous vineyard, before the final climb up to pass above C.F. Hansom's Our Lady of the Annunciation and the former Poor Clares' convent.

Stroud

We don't often go to Stroud, though it's only a dozen miles down the road. Today was my first visit to its celebrated Saturday market. We were too late getting there to sample it properly: this was because we had first been walking in Woodchester Park, then visiting Selsley Church on our way back.

It wasn't at all a bad day for walking, dry and windless for the most part. Our walk ended at the big, gaunt, never finished house, which wasn't open: peering through the windows you can still get a good idea of its astonishingly elaborate Victorian Gothic stonework. The three of us agreed it was a strange place to build such a pile, on the bottom of a narrow valley.

The churchyard at Selsley by contrast has one of the best views of any I know. And a complete set of Pre-Raphaelite stained glass atones for the rather dull church building - of much the same era (and ilk) as Woodchester Mansion. As you can see from the photograph, the Stroud street scene is somewhat different.

"The cross and the wheel"

"The cross and the wheel" is the heading of an article in this week's edition of The Tablet reporting on the Dalai Lama's recent meeting with Catholics at Blackfriars, Oxford. Several observers noted," the article ran, his "cheerful demeanour" - conversations "punctuated with laughter, something that at first sight seemed odd given the suffering of the exiled Tibetan leader has endured."

One of the Dominican theologians present pointed out that laughter was part of the life of the Trinity, something which tied in with what I recalled Frank Regan had said at Woodchester last month. It corresponds with the cheerfulness of the Dalai Lama, springing from his life-long dedication to the practice of meditation.

He would certainly have enjoyed the photograph and headline - above - which appeared in our local paper, the Gloucestershire Echo, at the time of the visit: Cheltenham's MP, Martin Horwood, might have been amused at his star billing too.

Cradle to cradle

One modern usage I find more annoying than most is "Tell me about it". Which of course means, "Don't tell me about it: I already know". But most of our insights come from being willing to rearrange what we already know; and two talks I have been privileged to hear in the past week or so illustrate this for me.

On Friday night, Caroline and I joined the serried mass of commuters driving home to Bristol from Cheltenham/Gloucester along the M5: thank God I don't have that journey every day! Bristol was the venue for a local RSA meeting at which German chemist Michael Braungart - co-author of Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things - was the main speaker. And very inspiring his 'beyond sustainability' message was.

It's one that we all know makes fundamental sense, but that we easily lose sight of. Man can live with nature instead of off nature. Nature and commerce can coexist. It's not a question of growth or no growth, but what do we want to grow? And how do we eliminate the concept of waste? YouTube has part of an earlier address by Michael, and one by his American co-author, William McDonough: I recommend them both.

A week ago, at the Clifton Diocese Justice & Peace Commission's Day of Reflection at Woodchester, Frank Regan gave us this familiar text as what he called a Gospel echo: "I have come so that they may have life and have it to the full" (St John, chapter 10, verse 10). Faith is not so much "belief in God", but "knowing him through his energies, and knowing ourselves to be loved by God". And we need to share that love with others, this love underpinning our mission to be stewards of the planet; our quest for peace, our concerns for the poor and our struggles on behalf of those lacking basic human rights. (Frank, born and raised in the Bronx, speaks from a background of 22 years as a chaplain with the Young Christian Workers helping form trade union organisations in Peru.) At this crucial juncture, he asks, which path will we choose? We do not need a church which has the answers. We need a church which raises the questions for a full humanity that we are still constructing.

And the photograph? Taken a year ago at Charleston Farmhouse, Sussex: not on the way out, but looking in and towards the future!