Culture Articles

‘My ministry is the jokes and kittens’

FREE 31 January 2019 | by Joseph Jones

Bridget Collins. | Joseph Jones.

Did you grow up Quaker? No no, not at all. I started going to Meeting probably about ten years ago. I’d just walked the Way of St James and I was looking for a spiritual community that did an equivalent thing – sharing a journey with people without having to...

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Quibbles

17 January 2019 | by John Anderson

'...Let’s not get heated.' | Rebcenter-moscow / Wikimedia Commons.

You believe in the love of God. I believe in love as best I can. We both believe in love. Let’s not get heated.

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Ni Sisi

17 January 2019 | by Jenny Webb

A man tears around the rickety stage in agony screaming: ‘Knifed! I’ve been knifed!’ Three brightly dressed, buxom ladies go to inspect his injuries. By now, he is prone on the floor and they turn him over and pronounce their verdict: ‘A bee sting!’

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Testimonies and jigsaws

10 January 2019 | by Rowena Loverance

In his engaging new book, Quaker Roots and Branches, John Lampen continues his valuable dual mission to get his fellow Quakers to take their history seriously and to remind non-Quakers that we are still going strong today.

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Waiting on the Light

03 January 2019 | by Nigel Maynard | 1 comment

Artwork by Nigel Maynard. | All images © Nigel Maynard.

All photographers who use natural light, as I do, have to wait upon this source, and also upon particular qualities of light to determine the outcome of the picture. Light is the primary agency, forming colours and tones, composition and shadows, and also mood. The pictures record how the light...

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‘Here we come a-carolling’

20 December 2018 | by Alec Davison

Carols are ‘a dancing kind of song’. | Pixabay via pexels.com.

‘The universe is the song of God’, imagined the Quaker composer Donald Swann. He and his friend Sydney Carter were, I think, two of the greatest songwriters of the twentieth century, abundant in melody and memorable in lyric. They opened up the world of carols, not limiting them just to...

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The Jesus ghost

20 December 2018 | by Linda Ewles

'When I was little / Jesus lived behind sunbeam clouds...' | James Wheeler / flickr CC.

When I was little Jesus lived behind sunbeam clouds, wearing a white nightie, like an angel who didn’t need wings. He sent my aunty a miracle baby and heard my prayers in Sunday School. I won a prize for a plasticine Joseph and Mary.

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Some broader current?

13 December 2018 | by Stephen Cox | 2 comments

Quote by Stephen Cox. | Tim Mossholder via Pexels.com.

‘Where do you get your ideas from?’ I realise some writers call this a bad question – certainly an annoying one, since it is so common. Yet it’s an honest one: a seeking after truth.

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Heaven on Earth

13 December 2018 | by Stuart Masters

During the 1990s, three Woodbrooke tutors engaged in a sustained and fruitful dialogue based on their respective areas of research and teaching. This resulted, initially, in a course, and subsequently in a book, Heaven on Earth: Quakers and the Second Coming, published in 1998. The book has just been republished to...

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Fragments

08 November 2018 | by Chris Lawson

'...she has composed music that fits the words and sentiments.' | David King / flickr CC.

And we are only justified in going on living if our futures manifest at every point and at all times a heroism equal to those killed in battle. The above words are based on the thoughts of Corder Catchpool in 1919 which Emily Feldberg uses in the concluding section of her...

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