Culture Articles
Love to the loveless
It probably would not be allowed now. The safeguarding implications would be horrendous. But when I first boarded at Sidcot School in 1968, aged eleven, it was the rule that all pupils not engaged in sports fixtures should be off the premises and roaming freely on Saturday afternoons. Some would gravitate...
Feast or famine?
‘Food for myself is a material issue: Food for my neighbour is a spiritual issue.’ - Leo Tolstoy A small, easy to read book, Feast or Famine? How the Gospel challenges austerity, came to me at a time when most of us in Britain were celebrating the Christmas period, and...
Blessings abounding
You are blessed when your spirit can endure no more: you have only God’s hands to sustain you. You are blessed when you grieve for what is most dear to you: only then are you ready for the comfort of God.
Homeless
Somehow my life dropped me into a shop doorway, the reek of stale urine, the sting of cold concrete. Wrapped up in my quilt of shredded green nylon, an old woollen blanket, a damp square of cardboard, I sat and waited for the day to die slowly, with a cup...
Silent night
Silent night, children take flight Run for their lives on a starlit night Leave the home they were born and bred Uncharted highways of hope lie ahead To escape from the bombs and the gunfire Fleeing the fear and the dread.
Interview: John Creed
The artistic metalworker and sculptor John Creed has enjoyed a varied career in industry, education and the creative arts spanning more than five decades. An instinctive artist, his work seems to emerge from the hinterland between conceptual and practical, aesthetic and utilitarian, making his work particularly striking and tangible. Much...
Images of Christ: The Presence in the Midst
Almost all the art works in this series have been either in churches or in public galleries. Last month’s was the nearest I could come to an image of Christ in an outside space. But I also wanted to point you towards one in a domestic space. And thatâ€...
Interview: Dictynna Hood
I first met filmmaker Dictynna Hood when she was an overseer, I an attender, in North London. She subsequently moved on from Quakerism. However, although not a practising Quaker, she still feels some common ground with Quaker values. Perhaps this common ground is one route of entry into her distinctive...
The last of me
One rickety chair, two plants long-dead on the mantelpiece, solitaire laid out three-quarters played, a crisp packet, some crumbs on a plate, an eye of mould in a pot of tea, the tab-end of my last cigarette.
Faith in politics? A testimony to equality
Catherine West is a Labour MP and a former leader of Islington council in London. With Islington councillor Andy Hull, she has written Faith in politics? A testimony to equality ‘a call to action, to encourage us as Quakers to own the challenge of inequality, offering civic leadership in all...