Culture Articles
Enlarging the Tent by Jonathan Doering and Nim Njuguna
Enlarging the Tent: Two Quakers in conversation about racial justice offers an insightful approach for individual and group consideration of racial justice issues. In eight tender and thoughtful conversations, Jonathan Doering and Nim Njuguna raise important questions about anti-racism and how to respond to it. Each conversation deserves time for...
Mediterranean at El Palo, Malaga
A warm evening. The low voice of waves against the sand. Inevitable. A bridge. Here you can cross. Here there are no walls. No custom posts. No defining flag. No halls for inspecting the luggage of one’s life. No pack smuggled over. No flight. No call to declare. No...
All Shall Be Well, by Richard Essberger
When I was first introduced to All Shall Be Well, I had not yet met Richard Essberger, its author. We had, however, been in a correspondence about one of the characters in the book – Tessa Rowntree, who plays a small but pivotal role in the story. The Rowntree Society, where...
in this space we breathe, by Khadija Saye
Among the powerful exhibits at the new Faith Museum in Bishop Auckland is a row of images by Khadija Saye, a Gambian-British photographer born in London in 1992. This series, in this space we breathe, was shown at the Venice Biennale in 2017, and has also been displayed at the British Library.
The wasp nest
I am your mother; you were torn from me at birth and at that bloody moment the fear of losing you fluttered through my memory like wasp-wings building their future.
‘For younger readers: Balthasar’s Cloak’, by Geoffrey Weeden, from December 22, 1972
In a church in Ravenna in Italy there is a very old mosaic picture. It shows the three Wise Men, Melchior, Caspar and Balthasar, carrying their gifts to Bethlehem. Balthasar wears a rich purple cloak with a gold hem and a jewelled clasp. This story is about Balthasar’s cloak. ...
Nuclear family Christmas
There are lights in all the houses, she says to herself, (no one else being available). Standing deep, in discarded wrapping paper, by the window in a darkened room, she stares…
The tall red candles
‘The holly bears a bark as bitter as any gall.’ – Old Carol
Rustin, directed by George C Wolfe
Bayard Rustin (1912-1987) was a pioneering US Quaker activist for civil rights, nonviolence, and gay rights. He was a pioneer of desegregation, and was beaten and arrested for sitting on the second row of a bus as early as 1942 (this later inspired the Freedom Riders). From 1944-1946 he was imprisoned...
Our Last Awakening: Poems for living in the face of death, edited and annotated by Janet Morley
A few months ago I was sent, anonymously, this book of poems on the theme of death and bereavement. It is quite extraordinary to receive such a gift out of the blue. If the donor is reading, I am grateful!