Culture Articles
While it is yet day
In an afterword to While it is yet Day: The story of Elizabeth Fry Averil Douglas Opperman, an Irish journalist brought up in a Quaker family in Dublin, sets out her hopes for her version of the life of Elizabeth Fry. She wishes to keep the story ‘light’ in order...
The Quaker Tapestry
The Quaker Tapestry has just enjoyed a hugely successful visit to Lisburn in Northern Ireland. The embroidered panels – crafted by 4,000 men, women and children – are a stunning visual representation of 350 years of Quaker life and experience. They combine artistic expression with storytelling to produce a memorable celebration of Quakerism.
Painting with purpose
Art benefits us in so many ways. It nourishes our spirits and provides sanctuary for our troubled souls. It encourages peaceful, joyful collaborations, cements communities and forges friendships within a framework of equality – one reason why it is targeted for destruction in war zones. On a personal basis, Quakerism has...
Ploughshares
Always the guns he used Were those that had killed. Rendered safe, they were flattened With a strong force for once positive And made into sturdy shovels, Gleaming spades, with which people In the Third World planted trees, Dug in other fruitful crops And made earth banks to protect Their...
Inside Out/Outside In
The exhibition ‘Inside Out/Outside In’, at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, brings together a collaborative exhibition of three Quaker artists. We come from multi-faith backgrounds, namely Jewish, Hindu and Christian. For the three of us in this exhibition, our creative practice uses the figure as a vehicle both metaphorically and...
Inequality: What can be done?
Professor Anthony Atkinson is the author of a hefty new volume called Inequality: What can be done? The book is well known to many politicians and many more economists throughout Europe and America. I suspect that it is already an irritant to a certain class of politician. It is interesting...
Being
Dissolve into the Wholeness, And in time Let the Wholeness Bring you together, And together live. What is there to give That is not already given? Your life is processing The Wholeness, Being a form of flow, Of taking in from the Whole, And letting it pass through The space...
Midsummer Meeting
On a bright summer’s day in a small country town Meeting began when the first Friend sat down. Hard on her heels came a youth at a jog, A hiker, a biker, a dentist, his dog. A visiting family filled the back row And all let the silence gather...
With a tender hand
On the cover, it is subtitled ‘a resource book for eldership and oversight’. In her Epilogue, the author calls it ‘a toolkit for discernment’. I would go further than both. I have read Zélie Gross’s With a tender hand three times now, twice from cover to cover, once...
Women in War
Women and children are rarely, if ever, instigators of war; but, according to the UN, they account for the majority of those affected by armed conflict. ‘Women in War in Their Own Words’ is a celebration in words and music of the resilience, beauty and courage of the human spirit...