Culture Articles
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Did you find God in the garden?
If Wordsworth had stood up in a Meeting for Worship and ministered about ‘a host of dancing daffodils’, would he have been accused of ‘daffodil ministry’? When we use this term in a negative way, do we mean that the ministry is predictable? Words about the natural world, as with… -
Worshipful space
Recently I was lucky enough to be able to attend Meeting for Worship at Live Oak Friends Meeting in Houston, Texas. On a still, calm, warm morning, the simple ‘early’ Meeting was profoundly quiet. The sounds of birdsong from the surrounding trees and gardens were woven through by the haunting…
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Outside from the inside
This poem was written by men serving life sentences who regularly attend a Quaker discussion group in prison. A selection of photos including wild creatures, autumn woods, a waterfall and a gorge were presented. Each person chose one and was asked to reflect on why a particular image ‘spoke’ to… -
What is Evil?
My wife and I once ran a course at Woodbrooke on responding to evil, in which painful experiences were lovingly shared. But three participants were dissatisfied. They wanted metaphysics: is evil real, or is it only a shadow, the absence of good? What is its power? Can it control us…
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Revisiting Louise
Spiceland Meeting sent us this poem, which they wished to share. The poem was written by Ben Rice, Shell Young Poet of the Year 1991, now living in Australia. While the Louise he talks about is unknown, here is a bit about Spiceland Meeting House, reputedly the oldest Quaker Meeting…
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The ministry of play
Think of this as a note of introduction, tucked in the flyleaf of a book. The book is Off Road To Everywhere, a collection of poetry for children, which ideally I would leave lying round your Meeting house, for the young people in your Children’s Meeting and for anyone to…
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Living Adventurously
‘Before we love others we need to love ourselves. How do we treasure our own Light and gifts. How do we learn to share what we have to offer? Do you seek to find the place where your own talents and the world’s needs meet?’ This is number one of…
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The new peace politics
From Pacification to Peacebuilding by Diana Francis. Pluto Press. ISBN 978 0 7453 3026 6. £13.99. I received this book for review together with Paul Lacey’s Swarthmore Lecture The unequal world we inhabit. Paul argued that Friends have made nonviolence a shibboleth; if we take seriously the ‘responsibility to protect’…
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Facing the challenge: The Friends Quarterly Prize essays
We have a stark choice before us. Are we going to actively address the key issues that face us in the twenty-first century and bring our Quaker way to bear on them, corporately and individually? Or will we simply be taken over by them and let Quakerism become obsolete. So…
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Uneven geographies, Nottingham Contemporary, 8 May to 4 July 2010.
At Yearly Meeting both Roy Hattersley and Paul Lacey inspired me as I listened to their lectures about aspects of our unequal world. The following day I went to see Uneven Geographies, an exhibition in which artists from five continents explore experimental ways of depicting globalisation and its human consequences.…
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