Culture Articles

Sing with conviction

12 September 2013 | by Mary Dower

It all began when, among the newcomers to Meeting, was someone who had made a round trip of fifty miles to come. This was not that unusual in North Scotland Area Meeting. I mistakenly thought he’d newly moved to join the music department of Aberdeen University.

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Word

05 September 2013 | by Ralph Hill

The questing Spirit lights the receptive soul. Stirring, the mind in turn conceives a thought. The beating heart sends fresh blood to the brain To forge words whence the sentence may be wrought.

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From Beatrice to Beatrix

15 August 2013 | by Mike King

Beatrice Cadbury | Image courtesy of Fiona Joseph.

I recently came into Quaker membership and my Area Meeting clerk asked if I would like Quaker faith & practice as a gift. It was lovely to know that my becoming a Quaker would be marked in this way, but I already had a copy and, so, proposed an alternative:...

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The history of silence

08 August 2013 | by G Gordon Steel

Silence: A Christian History | Image courtesy of Allen Lane Press.

Sometimes, as Quakers, we may be inclined to think that we have a corner in silence, that this marks our special place within the broad range of Christian practice. But that is hardly so and this remarkable book puts us in our place. It is the latest work by Diarmaid...

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The Nayler Passion

01 August 2013 | by Mark Russ

The Nayler Passion. | Image courtesy of The Leaveners.

In the summer of 2006 I was immersed in rehearsals of the latest Leaveners youth theatre project George and the Chocolate Factory in Birmingham. Over the dinner table one evening discussion turned to the question of ‘what next?’. The Leaveners had seen musical explorations of the lives of George Fox, Elizabeth...

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Summer thoughts

01 August 2013 | by Ruth Thompson | 1 comment

'The busy-iness of the bees foraging for food...' | Photo: Joel Olives / flickr CC

As I lay here dozing on the lawn, I can hear the sound of children, Their joyful shrieks of delight at scoring a goal, And the glee in their laughter as they begin to win the game. The sound of the trees gently swaying in the breeze, The sound of...

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Sam Peel

01 August 2013 | by David Saunders

It is exciting to come across a new book that tells a remarkable story of a Quaker life. Sam Peel: A man who did different is a biography written by his granddaughter, Susan Wild, and was recently published by the Wells Local History Group. Sam was born in Stapleford, Hertfordshire,...

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Beyond forgiving

25 July 2013 | by Howard Grace

Ginn Fourie (left) and Letlapa Mphahlele (right). | Photo courtesy of Howard Grace.

South Africans Ginn Fourie and Letlapa Mphahlele form an unlikely team: a white Christian woman and a black atheist man. One has suffered directly from the actions of the other, but both have been victims – and risen beyond their pain. What brings them together is a profound story of tragedy...

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Journey into life

25 July 2013 | by Roger Ellis

Roger Ellis considers the published version of Gerald Hewitson’s 2013 Swarthmore Lecture | Photo: Kaustav Das Modak / flickr CC.

Of all Christian traditions, Quakers are most committed to a mystical understanding of religion. They share this understanding with the Carthusians and Cistercians, and with the mystics of the Church. This explains why George Fox felt such affinity with the sixteenth-century Lutheran mystic Jakob Boehme. It is also why our...

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Lover of souls

25 July 2013 | by Marie Noon

The love I bear to the souls of all men makes me willing to undergo whatever can be inflicted on me  – Elizabeth Hooton Elizabeth Hooton’s words came to life for me on 21 June in Rugby Meeting House. Lynn Morris’s one woman show, Lover of Souls, opened with...

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