Culture Articles
Jonah on display
When I was invited to give the Bible half hours at New England Yearly Meeting in the summer of 1967, I chose to give my first talk on the Book of Jonah. Apart from the Psalms, Jonah is my favourite part of the Hebrew Bible. Pretty well everybody knows about Jonah...
Leviathan
What does ‘God’s will’ really mean?
This is a book about discernment, how we use the experience of God as a guide to living our lives and making decisions, both as individuals and as Quaker Meetings.
YMG showing for student’s film
Multi-weavers
Quaker composer and weaver Nigel Morgan has arranged an afternoon concert of English Renaissance lute songs, featuring works by Thomas Campion, John Dowland and Henry Purcell. The event includes the premiere of his own ‘Improving Silence’, three songs on Quaker texts. Soprano Alice Fox, also a Quaker, will sing, and...
A new kind of growth
Twitter Friends of mine will know that I arrived a day late at the table. It took me some time to orientate myself, and understand some of the complexities of Yearly Meeting Gathering. The rest will no doubt follow in good time. Still, like the labourers in the vineyard, in...
Pilgrims’ procession
It is a long way from Lindisfarne to the coasts of Essex, but in 653AD a Celtic missionary, saint Cedd, made the voyage and used the stones of a ruined Roman fort to build the first Christian church in the territory of the East Saxons. Through a happy chance, the...
The life you can save
On your way to work you pass an unaccompanied toddler, drowning in a shallow pond. ‘Wading in is safe and easy, but you will ruin your new shoes… get your suit wet and muddy… and be late for work.’ Practically everyone would agree that you have a moral duty to...
Food, Friends and Fellowship
Food, Friends and Fellowship begins with a little about Quakers and sharing, then starts like any good meal with a grace. The introduction is followed by the recipes in sections: first we get ‘sweet things’ and then ‘savouries and things’; the savouries section being subdivided into soups, salads, fish, meat...
Time to end our binge-flying culture
We are at a unique moment in history. Today we twenty-somethings are the most powerful generation that have ever lived. As scientists piece together the likely ramifications of our energy intensive lifestyles it is becoming more and more clear that we are the generation that have to start making fast,...