Quaker-related quote Photo: David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
Eye - 12 October 2012
From unfortunate reversals to reaching out
Unfortunate reversals
We are not alone!
After Eye shared the Friend’s red cheeks (5 October) David Hitchin was moved to share some other examples to tickle our readers:
‘Some while ago our local paper (which I am sure would prefer to remain anonymous) within one week managed to render RSPB as the “Royal Society for the Prevention of Birds” and the RSPCA as the “Royal Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals”… Not as bad as the Guardian about forty years ago, which should have read, “The Pope said that the Christian life was not an easy one” – but the “f” was omitted from “life”.’
Ghost patrol
Can the message of peace mix well with opera?
Roger Quinn, of Inverness Meeting, answers in the affirmative, and has encouraged Friends to follow his experience and beat a path to a performance of Ghost Patrol.
The new opera, with a dramatic score by Stuart MacRae and a fast moving libretto by Louise Walsh, received a lot of positive reviews at the Edinburgh Festival recently and is currently on tour in England.
Roger writes: ‘Set in the aftermath of an unnamed contemporary war, the opera is of soldiers so bonded together by fear that they only fight to protect one another, certainly not queen or country’.
Ghost Patrol tells the story of the trauma faced by these men long after they have left military service and, in particular, the guilt and nightmares of having killed innocent people.
‘Accompanying all this,’ Roger adds, ‘there is a menage a trois which explodes in a frenzy of male jealousy giving the opera an ending worthy of Cavalleria Rusticana or I Paliacci. For Friends and peace activists who are opera fans, Ghost Patrol is a must see when it comes south of the border’.
It has crossed the border. Check out www.musictheatrewales.org.uk
Kite-flying and calmness
John Whittaker, of Narberth Meeting, must have been raiding his bookshelves as Eye was delighted to get a bundle of Quaker-related quotes:
‘A Quaker flying a kite is a much more ridiculous object than anybody else.’
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
‘Figs [boy’s nickname], on the contrary, was as calm as a Quaker.’
Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
‘The Quakers, who go about their business of every description with more calmness than we, have more title to the use of these benedictory prefaces. I have always admired their silent grace, and the more because I have observed their applications to the meat and drink following to be less passionate and sensual than ours. They are neither gluttons nor wine bibbers as a people. They eat as a horse bolts his chopped hay, with indifference, calmness, and cleanly circumstances. They neither grease nor slop themselves.’
Grace Before Meat, Charles Lamb
Word play
The cover of this year’s outreach issue (28 September) has inspired several comments from Friends but none have approached it quite like Sally Mason, Forest of Dean Meeting.
She writes: ‘From the largest font words in the “Wordle” image on the cover: Simplicity, Peace, Equality, Light, Truth. An acronym of the initials makes Spelt and “spelt”, as you probably know, is an ancient strain of wheat and therefore a foodstuff (unless you are gluten intolerant). So what have we here? Why, food for body, mind and soul! All sorts of image and word-based mind-maps spring to mind – and the last word in the Wordle large type is Seek. Over to you, Friends!’
Reaching out
Eye was touched by a letter from Rachael Milling, of Swarthmoor Area Meeting, who wrote: ‘I was delighted to see my mother’s, Janet Hitchman’s, book Meeting for Burial mentioned in Eye (14 September) as an effective tool for outreach. I have always felt that it deserved to be made more widely available for this purpose. If any Friend could suggest how this could be brought about, I would be glad to help.’
