Culture Articles
Holiday or trespass
We pay our pot of gold To reach the sun But not the rainbow’s end There is no rain.
Christian beginnings
Geza Vermes, who died aged eighty-eight in 2013, was probably the greatest Jesus scholar of his time. The last book published in his lifetime, Christian Beginnings: From Nazareth to Nicea, AD 30-325, summarises his view of the historical Jesus the Jew, preaching to Jews, not gentiles as scholars such as E...
At the Quaker burial ground, Long Sutton
Beyond the window in the grassy burial ground the long-departed face the stars from which they came. Each modest headstone, laid out in total symmetry and modelled perfectly to fit some ancient template, proclaims the uniformity of all below. There are no crosses, angels or exotic slabs. The wording tells...
Making connections
‘Before we stopped flying.’ It is a very simple image, like a child’s drawing, of two people perched on the back of a dragon, flying across the night sky; in the background is the famous ‘blue planet’ image of the Earth, just touching a circle of gold. The accompanying...
Inside foodbank Britain
Why do people use foodbanks? In 2013 doctor Kayleigh Garthwaite began a five-year postgraduate project researching health inequalities in Stockton-on-Tees, about forty miles south of Newcastle and one of the most deprived areas in the UK. Her book, Hunger Pains: Life inside foodbank Britain, is based on this experience.
What does love require of us?
David Brown’s new booklet What does love require of us? Quaker promptings towards love in action, another in the excellent series produced by the Kindlers, is a gem.
from ‘Written on Light’
Such a delicate cusp this evening: the sky, the sea and the barely discernible hinge between them. No, I don’t believe in Judgement but yes, we will be held ...
Images of Christ: Christ amid the cabbages
On 8 August 1932 a group of fifty Protestant fundamentalists descended on a small Cornish church – St Hilary’s, near Penzance – and proceeded to lock up the vicar and trash the church interior. It is a reminder of how recently Christian art was a subject of passionate feelings in Britain, for what...
To a refugee
Tell me your story, How you came all alone To this country.
Healing terrorism
Today I am the doorkeeper – welcoming all who cross the threshold. Greeting each one coming to our Quaker Meeting. Recognising the divine in each person. Responding from that same ‘that of God’ which dwells within me. In us all is that holy love, able to be given as a gift,...