Articles

Members and Attenders of Nottingham Quaker Meeting write these articles. Each article gives the writer's own views and may not reflect the opinions of all Members and Attenders, or of the Meeting as a whole.

• Ben Waymark - 17th July 2026 - Model behaviour: Ben Waymark seeks a Quakerly approach to artificial intelligence
  Ben explains what artificial intelligence actually is, beyond the hype, and asks how Quaker discernment might guide our response to it. Quakers, he argues, have been here before.
• Jonathan Doering - 26th June 2026 - Home grown: Jonathan Doering celebrates sixty years of Westdale
  Jonathan marks sixty years of Westdale, the Quaker housing community, and the affection its residents hold for it. A reflection on approaching old age with courage and hope.
• Jonathan Doering - 17th April 2026 - A Wizard of Earthsea (1968)
  A review of Ursula K Le Guin's fantasy classic, drawing out its meditation on power, naming and the unity of all things.
• Jonathan Doering - 19th September 2025 - The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)
  Jonathan revisits Le Guin's ground-breaking science fiction novel and the questions it raises about gender, otherness and understanding.
• Jonathan Doering - 5th September 2025 - The Mouse and His Child
  A review of Russell Hoban's much-loved novel about two clockwork mice searching for self-winding independence, and what it says about who we are.
• Jonathan Doering - 21st March 2025 - A clear lens: Jonathan Doering on Quaker poet Helen Morgan Brooks
  An introduction to the compelling life and poetry of Helen Morgan Brooks: spiritual, political, lyrical and gritty.
• Jonathan Doering - 26th January 2024 - 'De-tribalising the mind': Jonathan Doering reports on a 'bread and roses' project in Kenya
  Jonathan reports on a social justice project in Kenya, where economic and psychological work go hand in hand in a country shaped by colonialism and inter-tribal tension.
• Jonathan Doering - 11th August 2023 - Exploring Isaac Penington: Seventeenth-century Quaker mystic, teacher and activist, by Ruth Tod
  A review of Ruth Tod's book on one of early Quakerism's most articulate voices, and why Penington still speaks to Friends today.
• Jonathan Doering - 16th June 2023 - Double exposure: Jonathan Doering starts a conversation about race
  Written in the shadow of lockdown and the murder of George Floyd, Jonathan opens a conversation about race and the listening Quakerism calls us to do.
• Jonathan Doering - 16th July 2021 - What White People Can Do Next: From allyship to coalition, by Emma Dabiri
  A review of Emma Dabiri's book on moving from allyship to coalition, asking what each of us should do next about racial injustice.
• Jonathan Doering - 19th February 2021 - Thought for the week: Jonathan Doering's flower power
  Amid the upheavals of the pandemic year, Jonathan finds hope in fragile, resilient specks of beauty. 'New moves old over, and marches on.'
• Jonathan Doering - 6th July 2018 - wake
  Jonathan welcomes a new poetry collection by Gillian Allnutt, winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.
• Jonathan Doering - 22nd December 2017 - Interview: John Creed
  Sculptor and artistic metalworker John Creed talks about five decades of making public art that serves a purpose, and his Quakerism.
• Jonathan Doering - 8th December 2017 - Interview: Dictynna Hood
  Writer and film director Dictynna Hood discusses her films, including Wreckers, and the common ground she still shares with Quaker values.
• Jonathan Doering - 23rd November 2017 - Interview: Sally Nicholls
  Award-winning children's author Sally Nicholls talks about storytelling, death and killing in children's books, and taking her career decision to a Quaker Meeting.
• Jonathan Doering - 27th October 2017 - Interview: Marina Lewycka
  The author of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian talks about her comic novels, Europe and Quakerism.
• Jonathan Doering - 13th October 2017 - Interview: Philip Gross
  Poet Philip Gross, winner of the T S Eliot Prize, talks about playfulness, nature and the Quaker roots of his writing.
• Jonathan Doering - 29th September 2017 - Interview: Tracy Chevalier
  The author of Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Last Runaway talks about her writing, her empathy with the marginalised and her Quakerism.
• Jonathan Doering - 31st July 2015 - Thought for the Week: Patterns of Life
  Starting from a story about a monastery that greeted every visitor as Jesus, Jonathan reflects on what makes a good Quaker Meeting.
• Jonathan Doering - 3rd July 2015 - Pedalling the Kingdom
  The story of Lucas, a Dutch peace pilgrim who arrived unannounced with a canary-yellow pedal-powered submarine, and the vision he carried with him.
• Jonathan Doering - 19th December 2014 - The message of peace
  Jonathan looks back at the protest movements of the 1980s, including the Greenham Common peace camp, and the inspiring campaign that grew from them.
• Jonathan Doering - 21st December 2012 - The Journey of the Magi
  A personal reflection on T S Eliot's poem, from first discovering it as a sixth-former to what it says about journeys of faith.
• Jonathan Doering - 7th September 2012 - Thought for the Week: Shooting stars
  Watching a shooting star burn brightest as it dies, Jonathan wonders whether memory is enough.
• Jonathan Doering - 29th June 2012 - Thought for the Week: An atomic soap bubble
  From soap bubbles to atoms, Jonathan explores an image of particles weaving around each other in creative harmony, and asks whether it fits Quakerism today.
• Jonathan Doering - 17th February 2012 - Grace in Hitler's Germany
  Jonathan considers Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor and theologian killed by the Nazis, and what his legacy offers Friends of all persuasions.
• Jonathan Doering - 29th April 2011 - Gene Sharp: a quiet revolutionary
  What Friends might learn from the 'Machiavelli of nonviolence', whose writings on nonviolent action helped inspire movements from Egypt to Eastern Europe.