Culture Articles
Poetry saves my soul
Poetry is my way out of a deep dark hole It brightens up my soul, gets the depression out.
Lincoln and leadership
Abraham Lincoln had many qualities a Quaker would want in a leader: clear vision of what he sought to achieve based on ethical principles, combined with a sensitive and compassionate approach to the people he met. These qualities came out strongly in the recently released Steven Spielberg film, Lincoln, which...
Syria found
The Arab League has nailed its colours to the mast but Russia and China have vetoed UN resolutions
Living our discernment
In A Small Share in History: A Quaker initiative in Eastern Europe Diana and John Lampen describe a Quaker initiative – visiting Belarus and Ukraine between 1991 and 2004 (at the time these countries were emerging from the Soviet Union) – sharing methods of creative conflict handling in schools and inter-active classroom approaches; and...
Friends Meeting House, Frenchay, Bristol
When the doors of the house are shut, Eyes lidded, mouth closed, nose and ears Doing their best to idle, fingers allowed out Only on parole; when the lovely holy distractions, Safe scaffolding of much-loved formulae, Have been rubbed away; then the plant Begins to grow. It is hard to...
Here
Here, silence amongst the great and the fallen nearby, a meadow of cornflower blue and poppy red, a place of remembrance, reflecting sorrow and loss: of sacrifices given and honour to the dead.
Peace and conflict
It wasn’t the Odeon, Leicester Square – no red carpet, no ‘A listers’, no paparazzi, no designer gowns – but it was the world premiere of Tony Britten’s (no relation) new film about the development of Benjamin Britten’s pacifist convictions while a pupil at Gresham’s School, Holt in...
The failure of success
Is your attitude to life sharply contrasted between white and black – success or failure? If it is, you may find this slim volume helpful and heart-warming. If it isn’t – rejoice in being blessed with contentment. Jennifer Kavanagh, in her new book The Failure of Success, is deeply concerned...
Tripping the light fantastic
‘Light’, wrote Robert Grosseteste in the thirteenth century, ‘is more exalted and of a nobler and more excellent essence than all corporeal things.’ From the ancient to the early modern world, it was a commonplace that light offered the best way of representing the unrepresentable, namely God. As recently as...
Dancing
Their faces were different, not their on-the-bus faces, or at-work faces, but unveiled, happy faces.