Arts Articles
Thought for the Week: Holding in the Light
What can it mean to hold you in the Light? It cannot change God’s Will, or Fate, or Chance, The chain, the world-without-end linear dance Of causes and effects, turn wrong to right.
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The Night Before Christmas
(or ‘A Visit from St Paul’) (Not to be confused with ‘A Visit from St Nicholas’ attributed to Clement Clarke Moore) ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through Friends House Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse; Thanks to new insulation I heard not a thing Till...
Hide and seek
We sit round the silence listening to space, concentrating; our thoughts circle the quiet centre of the room. A faint movement far within the darkness, a cry: there, in the pile of books? or in the vase of flowers? the sun’s flash on a gull, high over the sea....
Courtly gallantry
She was the love of my life. Made for each other everyone said. We made plans. Our world was full of promise. But to test me, like knights of centuries past,
Thought for the Week: Silent worship?
The room breathes in. And out. Hands find a variety of poses. There is a pair of sandals with socks, a pair without. Two fine beards. Malcolm stands, tries to find words about calm. Sits. A stomach growls. Lunch beckons, until we remember to think of God.
Dylan Thomas: A compassion for mankind
The most unworldly Quaker in Wales could scarcely have failed to register that 2014 is the centenary of the birth of a much-mocked, much-misrepresented and much-adored Welsh poet – Dylan Thomas.
Robert Spence
Robert Spence was born in Tynemouth in 1871 into a Quaker family and trained as an artist in London and Paris. While he painted in oils, he is best known for his dry-point etchings. Many of his etchings were based on events described in The Journal of George Fox. His style...
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Vaideeni, Romania It’s a long way from gothic-gaunt steeples meant to prod God beyond reach. This one’s a gingerbread loaf. Colours like a country fair, flocks of saints up the walls, rugs, candlelight, grannies in headscarves, golden syrup of polyphonic chanting.
Classic lasagne
Firstly, make the meat sauce warning: this may disturb the supersensitive mask your eyes, muffle your ears bodies explode from planes wars always mangle us indiscriminately life is just like that