Culture Articles
Music ministry
Paulette Meier is a Friend from Ohio who has been visiting Britain and sharing the wisdom of early Friends through her ‘song chants’. Her ‘music ministry’ involves singing quotations of seventeenth century Friends and her tour in Britain, doing workshops with Friends, took her to Swarthmoor Hall, Woodbrooke, Oxford Meeting,...
A negotiator’s toolkit
As floods, droughts and wildfires can neither be ignored nor rationally explained away, government departments – in every country – require ‘concise arguments for urgent climate action’.
Destinations
The route I need To reach my destination My sister losing touch with life Departing from the North at dawn Alone No-one to say ‘well done’ or ‘take a break’
Quakers, guns and money
When Quakers talk about their history they tend to focus on the good bits: Quakers against war, against slavery, speaking truth to power. Priya Satia’s book Empire of Guns: The Violent Making of the Industrial Revolution also talks about Quaker history, but in a way which may cause discomfort...
wake
Thirty years ago Gillian Allnutt, the recipient of the 2016 Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, was one of four editors of a controversial anthology: The New British Poetry. Each of the editors began their section with a foreword. Gillian Allnutt, presenting the feminist poets, offered various thoughts, including: ‘Poetry must...
prayer
may I make amendment not in the mind – Le Corbusier’s machine for living in his signed environment –
Truth
The concept of truth has always fascinated me, both spiritually as a Quaker, and psychologically as a child and adolescent psychotherapist, so I was interested in how this could be explored using song and movement.
I see you now
I have looked into your eyes, spoken no words except ‘Forgive me. Please forgive me’.
Quakers and Shakespeare
Through most of our history, Quakers were strongly discouraged from going to the theatre. Friends once objected to Shakespeare being studied and performed in Quaker schools. Our attitudes changed gradually, with the formation of the Quaker Youth Theatre in 1976 as a key moment. Nowadays we have excellent touring Quaker drama...
Experiencing music
It may seem curious to be reviewing a book on music and spirituality for a Quaker publication, when Quakers have a history of rejecting music (and the other arts) as an avenue to spiritual experience. Ormerod Greenwood’s Swarthmore Lecture of 1978, Signs of Life: Art and Religious Experience, brought the...