Culture Articles
Inside foodbank Britain
Why do people use foodbanks? In 2013 doctor Kayleigh Garthwaite began a five-year postgraduate project researching health inequalities in Stockton-on-Tees, about forty miles south of Newcastle and one of the most deprived areas in the UK. Her book, Hunger Pains: Life inside foodbank Britain, is based on this experience.
What does love require of us?
David Brown’s new booklet What does love require of us? Quaker promptings towards love in action, another in the excellent series produced by the Kindlers, is a gem.
from ‘Written on Light’
Such a delicate cusp this evening: the sky, the sea and the barely discernible hinge between them. No, I don’t believe in Judgement but yes, we will be held ...
Images of Christ: Christ amid the cabbages
On 8 August 1932 a group of fifty Protestant fundamentalists descended on a small Cornish church – St Hilary’s, near Penzance – and proceeded to lock up the vicar and trash the church interior. It is a reminder of how recently Christian art was a subject of passionate feelings in Britain, for what...
To a refugee
Tell me your story, How you came all alone To this country.
Healing terrorism
Today I am the doorkeeper – welcoming all who cross the threshold. Greeting each one coming to our Quaker Meeting. Recognising the divine in each person. Responding from that same ‘that of God’ which dwells within me. In us all is that holy love, able to be given as a gift,...
Words, faith and action: Testimony
‘The task of testimony is the task of speaking and doing God’s truth, of coming to the light and walking in the Light…’ - Rachel Muers in Testimony: Quakerism and Theological Ethics In her book, Testimony: Quakerism and Theological Ethics, Rachel Muers offers a fascinating and important exploration of...
Images of Christ: Jesus Christ the Apple Tree
When I started this series, I knew it would probably be as much about me as Jesus. By the third month it was beginning to dawn on me that it was probably not by coincidence that this idea had come to me this particular year. As we struggle with the...
Children of the Stone
‘Children of the Stone’ is a phrase used to describe the young Palestinians of the First Intifada (1987-93) who threw stones at the Israeli invaders of their country because they could think of no other way of defending their land after the invasion of 1987. Sandy Tolan, in his book of...
Doing time in Holot
On a recent visit to Israel to find out more about the lives of Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers there, I chanced upon a photography exhibition at the Israel Museum featuring the work of the Israeli photographer Ron Amir. It was entitled ‘Doing Time in Holot’. Holot is the detention...