'The wonder of life that is presented in great art and true religion.’
The arts, says Quaker faith & practice, can be seen as a ‘manifestation of God’.
‘There was something special about the shared experience.’
Joseph Jones, editor, the Friend
I haven’t been able to settle to online Meeting for Worship. Fortunately, as Horace B Pointing noted, ‘The revelations of God are not all of one kind. Always the search in art, as in religion, is for the rhythms of relationships, for the unity, the urge, the mystery, the wonder of life that is presented in great art and true religion’ (Quaker faith & practice 21.32). With that in mind we thought we’d ask some visible Friends what sustained them culturally over the last year.
I’ll cheat and go back to lockdown when, missing live music, and with internet bandwidth constrained by the multiple demands of digital schooling and home working, I was grateful for my record player. You can tell, I think, that Valerie June (pictured bottom right) grew up singing gospel, even though these days she adds more Appalachian folk and hippy soul to the mix. ‘Is there a light you have inside you?’ she asked on Order of Time. ‘Is there a way for you to give it your all?’
This year, the historian Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny put the hairs up on the back of my neck in much the same way. Subtitled Twenty lessons from the twentieth century it offers a set of advices for resisting populism. Friends will find a like-mindedness in being called to ‘Believe in truth’ or even ‘Make eye contact and small talk’, but will also enjoy tussling with more challenging headings like ‘Be reflective if you must be armed’ or ‘Be a patriot’. Nora Krug’s illustrated version is a wonder, and turns this little book into a cross-generational gift.
Margaret Bryan, clerk to Meeting for Sufferings
We spent a long weekend in Inverness over the summer and took a bus out to the Culloden battlefield and visitor centre. We were surprised and moved to become so immersed in the recreation – through sound, film and the display of artefacts – of what led up to the last pitched battle on British soil.
The facts and the folkore of this particular period of eighteenth-century history were vividly described from a range of perspectives, and I came away having learnt a lot. Many aspects beyond the received ‘facts’ of the story are familiar to us today – the spin, internal politics, factions, grudges, the charismatic and ultimately unsuccessful leader, the suffering of the innocent and the futility of all war.
Just as in worship we are urged to ‘listen patiently and seek the truth’ and ‘think it possible that you might be mistaken’ so we do well to remember that every story we are told has its interpretations and these may need to be challenged or re-evaluated.
Rhiannon Grant, Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre tutor
Marvel’s The Eternals (pictured left): an example of a community struggling with a leading to do something new but right.
Tim Gee, incoming general secretary to Friends World Committee for Consultation
I enjoyed Chine McDonald’s book God is not a White Man, which speaks powerfully to Christianity in Britain about the need to practice what we preach regarding racial injustice, and also to think harder about what we preach too, in particular by listening to black theologians. It is a reminder that many of the complexities and contradictions relating to Quakerism and race are by no means unique to us. The book is ultimately hopeful about the potential for collective change as she argues ‘The Kingdom of God is a mosaic’, a phrase which stays with me.
Paul Parker, recording clerk, Britain Yearly Meeting
I’ll read pretty much anything I find in front of me, but one book which engrossed me was The Museum Makers: A journey backwards, by Rachel Morris. In it, Morris uses a series of artefacts found in boxes under her bed to create a personal museum of her own rather remarkable life. Starting with an impoverished and unhappy childhood (coincidentally in a house which must have been next-door-but-one to the house I lived in, rather more happily, myself until a few months ago), she tells the tale of her extraordinary family: her socialite, adventuring, utterly dependable gran; her glamorous London aunt; her largely absent father, an alcoholic artisan printer called Guido; her impetuous and tragic mother; her Free Lover ancestor; and many others besides. And along the way you learn a lot about museums, in which the writer made her career: how to select exhibits so as to tell a story, and how to read artefacts to uncover the tales beneath. It made me wonder, what objects and documents would I choose to tell the story of my own life? And what other stories could I tell, if I chose differently? A remarkable book, do read it.
Atiaf Alwazir, head of the peace programme at Quaker Council for European Affairs
The 2019 French film Les Misérables, by director Ladj Ly, is a harrowing and powerful film that exemplifies the lack of peace in some parts of Europe, and the need to promote equality. It is not a light film, and not for the faint-hearted. But it is important, disrupting the notion that there is no violence in Europe by state actors.
Quaker scientist and author Ursula Franklin defined peace as ‘not so much the absence of war but the presence of justice… the absence of fear… a commitment to the future’. With that definition, the film demonstrates how there are many pockets in Europe where peace is absent. Where injustices and inequality are rampant.
It is set in the suburbs of Paris, and shows how injustices still stalk the poor and addresses deep-rooted systemic oppression and racism, and its impact on the power relations between the French police and immigrant communities. It shows how police brutality impacts everyday people’s lives. It shows how some people are treated differently than others just because of their race or religion or other factors. How their voices aren’t heard, and how the cycle of injustice breeds more violence. In this regard it really speaks to the Quaker testimony of equality.
The film also exhibits the nuance necessary for addressing these issues, showing how kindness can go a long way. It also addresses the need to stand up to bullying, and to peer pressure to remain silent within our own communities, as well as the need to be courageous and speak truth to power. The film also demonstrated that ‘not all policemen are bad’ and that people aren’t born ‘bad’ – that there is that of God in everyone.
Ly ends the movie with a quote from Hugo that ‘there is no such thing as bad weeds or bad people. Only bad farmers’. With this quote he asks the viewer to take a hard look at the primary causes of oppression, and how the cultivation of hate and bigotry will only result in more hate and violence. Only love, empathy and structural changes towards equality can lead to peace.
Caroline Nursey, clerk to Britain Yearly Meeting trustees
I loved Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart. Every word is perfectly chosen and he shows such sympathy for the characters. The poverty and deprivation of the boy’s childhood, blighted by his mother’s alcohol addiction, is a painful reminder of the extent of inequality in our society.
Lis Burch, clerk to The Friend Publications Ltd
I enjoyed listening to the beautiful simplicity and clarity of Vikingur Olafsson’s (top right) performances of Bach’s solo piano works from Reyjavik during lockdown. We have since bought a CD so can listen at will, but there was something special about the shared experience of listening on the radio, knowing thousands of others were also tuning in and feeling calmed, consoled and upheld by these illuminating performances.
