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What did the Romans ever do for us – apart from sanitation, medicine, education, public order, roads, and public health? Well, they gave us a template for moral and political corruption. The Julio-Claudian dynasty (from Augustus to Nero) was probably the most corrupt of all. The phrase ‘power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ could have been written for them as a personal motto.
The heart of a Meeting for Worship is loving welcome: acceptance of each as we truly are. How much more for a Meeting where many are enquirers, some at their first Meeting? In August I had the delight of hearing two people saying that Meetings where I was present helped bring them into Quakers. Another, at her first Meeting, asked where her Local Meeting was: it is my Meeting. Many people hear and express God within: if we were ‘answering that of God in everyone’, there would be more Quakers.
More than a decade ago the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists began warning humanity that new technologies could threaten civilisation, posing threats as great as those of nuclear weapons and climate change. Yet Artificial Intelligence (AI) has entered our lives in a hurry, promising a revolution in work and the arts, with very little public policy oversight, and a mix of wariness, wonder and naivete. It could be both better, worse and different from anything we now foresee. Ben Waymark’s recent article (17 July) begins one part of the process by asking us to be more conversant and nuanced about what we mean by ‘AI’. The new technologies have many configurations and functions. Will new technologies demean and lose jobs, impoverish the majority, and weaken humanity? With so many changes, in so many directions, and in so many industries, with such unclear employment and ecological consequences, and with the concentration of power intensifying, we will need our Quaker wits about us. And there is a spiritual question hankering to be identified, one that asks us about being human, sentient, compassionate, and conscious.
Spiceland Summer Settlement in August has become a fixed mark in my calendar. Taking place at Spiceland Meeting House near Uffculme, Devon, it offers ‘a nurturing and deepening inter-generational few days for Quakers and the Quaker curious’ in the south west of England. Some camp for several nights, others come for a day.
How do we feel when we see a flag? We may feel indifferent, excited, feel that we belong, or that we do not belong. How much does the meaning of these symbols depend on context, on intention? How do we feel about the nationalist flag displays that flutter proudly from our lampposts? For the activists who have busied themselves placing Union and St George’s flags along our roadsides, they may be a righteous call to arms, for a return to what they might term ‘traditional values’. For some of the most vulnerable members of our society (and those who wish to support them) they are both a threat and a challenge. The sight of them in and around Oxford has been especially hard to stomach. Our city is by tradition famously multicultural, and holds the title City of Sanctuary for its work with generations of asylum seekers and refugees. The knowledge that Oxford has been targeted by these groups – not despite, but because of, its liberal traditions – has moved some Quakers to seek a way to do something, other than wring our hands in the comfort of our homes. It was clear, from the bullying tactics of the flag-raising gangs, blocking roads, flaunting their illegal activity in broad daylight, that confrontation was what they desired – it was indeed a major component of their campaign, fuelled by the publicity that resulted.
The sacrament of the present moment
called in while I was drinking primrose tea
in a lost kitchen in Devon. The day was quiet.
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