Craig Barnett

Quakers have made the cultivation of the guided life the focus of their spirituality for over three centuries. Generations of Quakers have developed practices for nurturing their connection to an inward source of guidance, meaning, and purpose. This Inward Guide is present in all people, cultures, and traditions. It goes by many names and is understood in many ways, but it is equally available to everyone willing to listen and respond. The Guided Life shares some of the spiritual practices that the Quaker tradition has developed to discover purpose and direction in daily life. These practices may be of use to anyone who is wrestling with the complex challenges and dilemmas of the modern world.… (meer)

Quakers have made the cultivation of the guided life the focus of their spirituality for over three centuries. Generations of Quakers have developed practices for nurturing their connection to an inward source of guidance, meaning and purpose. This Inward Guide is present in all people, cultures and traditions. It goes by many names and is understood in many ways, but it is equally available to everyone who is willing to listen and respond.

The Guided Life shares some of the spiritual practices that the Quaker tradition has developed to discover purpose and direction in daily life. These practices may be of use to anyone who is wrestling with the complex challenges and dilemmas of the modern world.… (meer)

In these essays Craig Barnett explores possibilities for spiritual renewal, new life and creativity in the Religious Society of Friends.

This is a short book of short essays, which makes it accessible and readable but sometimes left me wishing for more depth - and, sometimes, for more accounts of personal experience rather than generalisations. It is the latter which are especially open to disagreement. Barnett notes in his introduction that the essays "include judgements about our current Quaker culture that will not be shared by other Friends whose experience and temperament are very different to mine" and I certainly found that to be true. There are some places where I agree passionately with the suggestions made, and other places where I disagree equally strongly - in the chapter on membership, both in the space of a single paragraph! I read this through a single sitting, which was fine (neither repetitive nor especially disjointed), but I think it would also work if read a bit at a time, or to use just one chapter as the focus of a discussion group… (meer)