Culture Articles
The Gates of Greenham
Thirty years ago, on Easter Monday 8 April 1985, what is reputed to be the largest gathering of Friends in the twentieth century assembled in the Royal Festival Hall, London. It was the premiere of a peace passion, The Gates of Greenham, to celebrate a four-year ongoing witness of the women’s...
A Sustainable Life
A year or so ago I was chatting with a Friend about our Quaker engagement with sustainability. He said: ‘it’s part of our DNA now.’ And it is. It has long been the focus of conversations in Local Meetings about what it means to ‘let your life speak’. It...
The challenge of fiction
‘I am interested in what constitutes loneliness and in the difference between solitude and loneliness.’ Jennifer Kavanagh is best known for a series of thoughtful non-fiction works on subjects such as travel, spirituality, homelessness and aspects of Quakerism. The quote above gave an insight into the link between the authorâ€...
Fields of Blood
There is much in Karen Armstrong’s new book Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence that is of importance to Quakers. The author says that she embarked upon writing it in order to counteract the common misconception that wars and large-scale violence are caused by religion. In...
Understanding Nonviolence
In 2006 Erica Chenoweth, of Denver University, spent a week at the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC). She was sceptical about the power and potential of nonviolence. She had, like most people, internalised the idea that ultimate power flows from the barrel of a gun. Her open scepticism did not...
A Precariat Charter
Do not be content to accept things as they are, but keep an alert and questioning mind. Seek to discover the causes of social unrest, injustice and fear; try to discern the new growing-points in social and economic life. This brief extract from Quaker faith & practice (23.01) offers us a...
A convenient truth
In recent powerful statements, Quakers in Britain have committed themselves to reducing the damage we do to the planet by use of carbon fuels and to working for greater economic equality. Both of these concerns are rooted in hundreds of years of Quaker inspiration and experience. But it has not...
…In Everyone?
Much quoted among us, It’s our firm tenet: There is that of God In everyone.
A B B
Alfred Barratt Brown, my father, was born in 1887 to a family with long Quaker roots. ‘ABB’, as he was known, was immersed in the life of Friends from birth. His faith took practical expression and made him active in many causes: the No-Conscription Fellowship, the League of Nations, the Fabian...
At the Quaker Meeting
Contained by ivory walls, and an oval of wooden chairs, muted colours of the matt, flat cushions, high benches and this handsome, slatted wooden floor. On the central table, just a thick, glass, rectangular vase of startlingly white chrysanthemums. Again; in this quiet company of souls. We drift in one...