Micah chapter 4 (one of the readings for the morning prayers on September 5th) speaks of a time when nations “beat their swords into ploughshares, their spears into pruning-hooks” and do not “learn war and more”. In his book “Beyond Brexit” Vernon Bogdanor points out that the wars of the first half of the twentieth…
Author: The Meeting Place
July 2019 First Thursday
Summary of the discussion, 4th July 2019 In the news was the growing conflict between the people of Hong Kong (or, at least, many of them) and the Beijing government, in its early stages at the beginning of July. Beijing, led by its President Xi Jinping, appears to be attempting to undermine what many in…
Primo Levi Centenary (part two)
Extracts from some of Levi’s other books: “The Periodic Table”, “If not now, when?” and “The Drowned and the Saved”. THE PERIODIC TABLE In this book Primo Levi takes some of the chemical elements as illustrations of people or situations he has known and experienced. The following are is a small selection of those portraits….
Primo Levi Centenary
July 31st was the centenary of the birth of Primo Levi in 1919. We read and discussed extracts from some of his writings- here from “If this is a Man”, his description of life in Auschwitz, and “The Truce” his liberation and journey home. IF THIS IS A MAN In 1943 Primo Levi joined an…
First Thursday, June 6th, 2019
We met on the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, which perhaps began the final phase of the Second World War- though it must always be remembered that the main burden of the struggle against Hitler’s Fascism was borne by the Soviet Union, which lost some thirteen million of their armed forces killed…
First Thursday, May 9th, 2019
Our first reading was Deuteronomy 7:1 to 9, where the people recently set free from slavery in Egypt are commanded to commit genocide on the inhabitants of Canaan, their new “Promised” Land. It was an injunction faithfully followed by Europeans, who similarly saw themselves as “God’s People”, when they invaded and settled in the Americas…
First Thursday, March 7th, 2019
Debates about Brexit were dominating the UK Parliament, crowding out other matters that are equally important (or perhaps even more so). For example dealing with the issues of knife crime and violence among young people. There have been dissensions over the question of police numbers- whether the reduction in these has led to an increase…
First Thursday December 6th 2018
Summary of the discussion
Good and Bad Religion
On Saturday, February 2nd, Rodney Ward led a Debate, based on Peter Vardy’s book of the same title
Stories Worth Telling
Click here to download a copy of Stories Worth Telling