Culture Articles

Spell God

28 March 2024 | by Dana Smith

'Cease fire. A phonic sounding like the mass of Christ in Bethlehem’s rubble' | by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

I write it in the dirt today in the bottom of the grave where New Year’s worms ease in the writhe or relent of human hate.

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The Dictionary People, by Sarah Ogilvie

28 March 2024 | by Lucy Pollard

'It is not a coincidence that many of the contributors, including the three Quakers, were women.' | Book cover (and detail) of The Dictionary People, by Sarah Ogilvie

Friends love wordless silence, of course, but some of us love words too, written or spoken. This book is the latest in a line of fascinating works about the history of the Oxford English Dictionary.

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Darling, save the last dance for me

14 March 2024 | by Steve Day

'Between every orchard and meadow you plant for peace fly a flock of white doves already set free...' | by Zac Ong on Unsplash

Not a neat map with a route-proofreading of sorrows. We find ourselves inherently happy. Your twitch to my itch, my blistered kissed lips and your sculptured jaw-line moving prime numbers into play. We approach a kinda Dhammapada climbed neither high nor higher. To that far place where no sun shines, ...

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Consciousness Beyond Life: The science of the near-death experience, by Pim van Lommel

14 March 2024 | by Daniel Clarke Flynn | 1 comment

‘Van Lommel doesn’t say, “This is the Truth”. What he says is “Let’s keep an open mind”, which is what good scientists should do anyway.’ | Book cover of Consciousness Beyond Life: The science of the near-death experience, by Pim van Lommel

This book is much more than its subtitle. When I wrote a simple thank-you to its author, he sent me an article that ends with this extraordinary statement: ‘Consciousness seems to be our essence, and once we leave our body, leave our physical world, we exist as pure consciousness, beyond...

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Marion Fay by Anthony Trollope

07 March 2024 | by John Lampen

'Marion’s father Zachary lives by traditional Quaker values but cannot resist some pride at the idea his daughter might marry an earl.' | Book cover and detail of Marion Fay by Anthony Trollope

Lovers of Anthony Trollope’s novels generally admire his skill in depicting the lives and feelings of young women. But you may not know that one of his last heroines is a Friend. Trollope did not always have a high opinion of Quakers, once writing of our ‘low character for...

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The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford

29 February 2024 | by Simon Webb

'Ford may have used a wealthy US Quaker as his narrator because such a man could find himself caught up in these events while still being able to observe them.' | Detail of bookcover for The Good Soldier, by Ford Madox Ford

The Good Soldier (1915) is routinely included in lists of the best novels written in English. John Dowell, its narrator, is a Quaker from an old Pennsylvania family. He is one of those unreliable narrators, far from disinterested. He is one of the four main characters in the novel – the quartet...

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What the skeleton said

29 February 2024 | by Rosemary Mathew

'Yet no tongue utters words from my wide mouth, This silent mouth.' | by Jon Butterworth on Unsplash

When alive I was male. My hips have Told you this. A warrior, a soldier. You need only see my shin, dented, Axe-marked, the whole leg mis-shapen While still in my teens. Fighting was harsh, and weapons primitive. My hands, when they held blood, damaged by war, My skin burned,...

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Elisabeth Frink: A view from within

22 February 2024 | by Marigold Bentley

Elizabeth Frink’s Walking Madonna (1981) |

Elisabeth Frink (1930-1993) produced startling sculptures and artworks that continue to intrigue today. But what motivated her? How did she come to develop her art, and what was she trying to portray?

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Friends’ Meeting House Pakefield

15 February 2024 | by Patricia Peters

'Old Friends jostle for places in the Meeting house I feel their presence as we sit in silence for an hour.' | Friends’ Meeting House Pakefield

Too small to be called a hall a house in an overgrown garden, where old horizontal slabs hold faint names of the long dead.

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I Seek a Kind Person by Julian Borger

08 February 2024 | by Ruth Tod

‘I had known about these things in my head but not really known it in my heart and body, until I read these deeply-expressive accounts.' | Book cover of I Seek a Kind Person

The title of this new book is the first line of an advertisement that was placed in the tuition column of The Manchester Guardian in August 1938, by Leo and Erna Borger. The full advertisement read: ‘I Seek a kind person who will educate my Boy, aged 11. Viennese of good family....

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