One often sees luxury housing developments advertised as ‘exclusive’. The positive implication of this has always puzzled me. Exclusive means someone is excluded: it inspires me to ask who is excluded. And yet when I ask, those around me don’t seem to hear my question as a pointed criticism, as …
I am suffering a bit from familiar foibles. You know what I mean: those foibles in other people and cultures – always easier to spot than one’s own. They make me grumpy – or, maybe I am already grumpy and therefore I notice how people in one country talk rather …
Just a few days ago, my first sight in the morning was a waterfall of droplets cascading down three stories of a wooden stairs, dripping through ceilings and walls, dropping along wooden stairs, and settling in the cellar. My schedule was dramatically re-arranged so I could clean up, although the …
One’s method of transport determines what one sees. A walking tour of a new city gives opportunity for far more detail than a driving tour. A cycle through the countryside gives one the opportunity to hear birds and smell the hot strawberries in a July field. I’ve even heard the …
Quakers are sometimes quite proud of our commitment to simplicity. And yet Quakers are often wealthy – not only in global terms but also locally. It is said that this happened in part by dint of being hard workers and known for integrity and honesty. Wealth makes it hard to …
In order to think more broadly about the issues of poverty and what people in the Global North can do, I have been making a point of speaking about these topics with as many different people as possible. I am fascinated by the influence of each person’s belief regarding society …