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Rambling, Like The Rose Bush I Want.
Mar. 4th, 2025 07:41 am I do just enough to keep the garden from turning into wilderness. Yesterday I weeded between the flagstones of the patio.
Trump is a Thing. I think I have established that to my satisfaction. Now I need to stop writing about him. The more attention we pay to anything the more energy we give it and the US president has quite enough energy of his own. Opposition gifts a thing with energy. If people knew this (simple) truth of the universe they might relax a little more. "Become the change you seek", said Gandhi. And that's one of the best pieces of advice I know.
Damian was telling us about a yard up near Heffle (Heathfield is what it's called on the maps) where they sell stuff from demolition sites. I happily browse their webite. They have pews, they have gothic doors, they have stained glass. I want that and that and that! But what would I do with them if I had them? Build myself a church? No, I'm being silly.
The only thing I actually want right now is a climbing rose to plant by the pergola where a couple of wistera died.
The local Quakers are agonising over their buildings. These places eat money. I think ours justifies its existence by functioning as a community asset but there's one down the road which has a single figure attendance at Meetings and serves nobody else and costs the rest of us a bomb to insure and maintain. The early Quakers met in one another's houses- and when for convenience sake they started building dedicated Meeting Houses they kept them humble. Those early meeting Houses are all but indistinguishable on the outside from cottages and farms. As Friends got more respectable and more institutionalised they started putting up things that looked like chapels- "Ooh, the Baptists down the road have a portico; we should have one too." Victorian Meeting Houses are essentially churches- fine buildings, but George Fox would have had a fit. The culmination of this arc of hubris is Friends House in Euston which went up in 1926 and looks like something Mussolini would have been happy to speechify inside. It is utterly unQuakerly.
Trump is a Thing. I think I have established that to my satisfaction. Now I need to stop writing about him. The more attention we pay to anything the more energy we give it and the US president has quite enough energy of his own. Opposition gifts a thing with energy. If people knew this (simple) truth of the universe they might relax a little more. "Become the change you seek", said Gandhi. And that's one of the best pieces of advice I know.
Damian was telling us about a yard up near Heffle (Heathfield is what it's called on the maps) where they sell stuff from demolition sites. I happily browse their webite. They have pews, they have gothic doors, they have stained glass. I want that and that and that! But what would I do with them if I had them? Build myself a church? No, I'm being silly.
The only thing I actually want right now is a climbing rose to plant by the pergola where a couple of wistera died.
The local Quakers are agonising over their buildings. These places eat money. I think ours justifies its existence by functioning as a community asset but there's one down the road which has a single figure attendance at Meetings and serves nobody else and costs the rest of us a bomb to insure and maintain. The early Quakers met in one another's houses- and when for convenience sake they started building dedicated Meeting Houses they kept them humble. Those early meeting Houses are all but indistinguishable on the outside from cottages and farms. As Friends got more respectable and more institutionalised they started putting up things that looked like chapels- "Ooh, the Baptists down the road have a portico; we should have one too." Victorian Meeting Houses are essentially churches- fine buildings, but George Fox would have had a fit. The culmination of this arc of hubris is Friends House in Euston which went up in 1926 and looks like something Mussolini would have been happy to speechify inside. It is utterly unQuakerly.
