Culture Articles
Stuffed and starved
This book will make you angry. And if you still have any illusions that the majority of those who process and manufacture our food have our best interests at heart, then they will be dispelled. Today on this planet, 800 million people are hungry, and they are outnumbered by one billion...
Drawing infinity
These are the words of one Harrogate Young Quaker reporting back to the main Meeting on their Sunday morning activity. Robin Wilson had been enthusing them with his fascination for infinity and he has now written a short and wonderful book entitled Of Infinite Beauty: a Quaker explores infinity.
Simplicity made easy
Simplicity. What does it mean? This has been a challenge to me for many years. Some people seem to feel that it is a movement backwards towards an older, supposedly simpler, way of living – growing our own food, avoiding electrical equipment such as computers and so on. For me, this...
An early Quaker woman printer
Printing was a dangerous occupation in 1643: Parliament’s Licensing Order of 1643 instituted pre-publication censorship; registration of all printing materials with the names of author, printer and publisher in the Register at Stationers’ Hall; search, seizure and destruction of any books offensive to the government; and arrest and imprisonment of any...
A Quaker and the Underground
The work of Charles Holden (1875-1960) is celebrated in an exhibition currently on show in the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) architectural gallery at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Holden designed many of the underground stations built in the inter-war period and immediately afterwards and inspired the design of...
The Puritan and the Quaker
The success of London Transport’s design policy was rooted in the successful professional relationship between Holden and Frank Pick, the managing director of the Underground companies, subsequently London Transport.
The Word
The most famous recent example of a ‘miracle’ play was Dennis Potter’s Brimstone and Treacle; it was so distasteful that the BBC kept it under wraps for twenty years. A young girl, comatose as a result of a road accident, was apparently cured by an act of rape performed...
What is Evil?
My wife and I once ran a course at Woodbrooke on responding to evil, in which painful experiences were lovingly shared. But three participants were dissatisfied. They wanted metaphysics: is evil real, or is it only a shadow, the absence of good? What is its power? Can it control us...
The ministry of play
Think of this as a note of introduction, tucked in the flyleaf of a book. The book is Off Road To Everywhere, a collection of poetry for children, which ideally I would leave lying round your Meeting house, for the young people in your Children’s Meeting and for anyone...
Living Adventurously
‘Before we love others we need to love ourselves. How do we treasure our own Light and gifts. How do we learn to share what we have to offer? Do you seek to find the place where your own talents and the world’s needs meet?’ This is number...