Swarthmoor...

Went to Quaker Meeting at Swarthmoor, the only meeting house that George Fox gifted to the movement. It’s always good to share a silence; the world looks just a little more colourful when I walk out than it did when I walked in. I feel ‘settled’… like a box of cornflakes whose contents may ‘settle during transit’ (the weight doesn’t change, just the volume). As I was leaving, a woman grabbed my hand and beamed. “George Wilson”, she said confidently. I said I was John, not George. “Ah, John Wilson”, she said: just another demonstration that old guys are basically interchangeable. Since we’re all the same, one is as good as another…

Just read an article on the Guardian website about an event in Todmorden, featuring three naked men reading from books by the Brontë sisters. It reminded me that last week, in Whitehaven, I saw two naked men walking down the street (very casually… not like it was some kind of event or charity stunt). They were starkers, except for matching green folders, which they held in front of them (were the Brontë manuscripts inside?). I’d filed the brief experience in a folder of my own, entitled “Did what I just saw really happen?” Perhaps they were on their way to a reading…