Culture Articles
My Life Story: A Child Of The Windrush Generation, by Xystus Sestus Marcell
This small book tells the story, in his own words, of a man who came to the east end of London from St Lucia, in 1972. Xystus Sestus Marcel’s name refers to the book of Exodus, a reminder of enslaved people coming into emancipation. He was fourteen when he arrived,...
The Deepening Stream, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s 1930 novel will soon be available in a new edition from Persephone Books, and has a particular interest for Friends. Fisher was not, so far as I can make out, a Quaker herself, but her vigorous involvement in pacifism, war relief in the first world war, child...
Oh my darlin’
Witness this my turgid blossom pearl warbler O my darlin’ witness how we ache in ivory – billed heart break
Living Presence: The Sufi path to mindfulness and the essential self, by Kabir Helminski
Over the years I have heard a number of Quakers comment that, while we are passionate about valuing and sharing silence, there is little substantial teaching on how to use and go deeply into it. There are of course various ‘enlightened’ spiritual teachers around, ancient and modern, who offer teaching...
Activism for Life, by Angie Zelter
Angie Zelter is a social change phenomenon. She is a dreamer of campaigns, creative strategist, meticulous researcher, persuasive negotiator, movement organiser, team-player and leader by example. She has an irrepressible vision of justice and peace and, naturally, a world free of nuclear weapons. Activism for Life recounts her story.
The long grass
The grass will grow, green and tall our children fade from sight the grass will blow to yellow dust all children hold the light
A modern Meeting
Switch on the Zoom, and enter these, our homes, Our little fancies all revealed, The pictures on the wall, the tired or tended plants, Our tastes in texture, colour, unconcealed.
Goshen Friends Meeting
Shadows of my childhood family align along this plain meetinghouse bench in Chester County, where I have come to worship. Once our row was anchored by my strong blue serge-suited Father. Now I sit immersed in today’s quiet, seeking Source.
A Paradise Built in Hell, by Rebecca Solnit
Ten years before Rutger Bregman’s Humankind (see review 14 August 2020) Rebecca Solnit pre-figured his view of human nature as fundamentally kind and co-operative by analysing our response to catastrophe. It chimes well with our desire to recognise ‘that of God in everyone’.
Never again
In our writing group a few weeks ago we were given the prompt ‘Never again’. It was a good choice, because it points in two directions. It is the cry of protest at an injustice or cruelty: ‘This must not happen ever again!’ And it holds the sadness, the...