Street Quaker Meeting, 36 High Street, Street, Somerset BA16 0EQ
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        • April 2013
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    • Members >
      • Room Hire Calendar
      • Deepening our Practice
    • Spotlight on ...
    • Meeting for worship blog
  • Diary Dates
  • About Us
    • Children's Meeting >
      • Quakers and Parenting
    • About Quakers
    • What is a Quaker?
    • A brief history of Quakers >
      • A history of Quakers in Street
    • Five films about Quakers >
      • DVD
    • New to Quaker Meeting?
    • Local Quaker Meetings
    • Quaker values and beliefs
    • What Quaker Meeting means to me?
    • In the press
  • Events
    • Past events at Street Meeting >
      • DSEI - No Faith In War
      • Wells Climate Strike
      • White Poppies, Remembrance 2018
      • Multi Story - Digging The Dirt
      • Quakers for Europe
      • A Quaker Peaceworker
      • Quaker's perspective on Avalon Marshes
      • Charney Manor Retreat
      • Aluna the Movie
      • Bach, Buddha and The Beatles
      • Quaker Connections at Somerset Arts Weeks >
        • SAW report
        • Tyna Redpath
        • Lance Clark
  • Contact
    • Rooms to Hire
    • Opportunities

Picture
Why do fishermen fish?  Why do I paint early on Sunday mornings. With the pressures of business, being a father and a husband to me    it is more important than ever to experience the spiritual in our lives. Our Quaker ancestors clearly experienced collective spirituality in meeting, as shown in the picture in the Street meeting house. It’s why they were called Quakers.  

Some still find it in meeting, others find it in music, in a thunderstorm or up a mountain. For me the times sitting out on the Somerset levels early in the morning is where I find that powerful spiritual depth.  I have even measured the change in consciousness that occurs. I have often sat by ditches on the Somerset Levels on a cold wet February Sunday morning alongside fishermen. They watch their float and even if they do catch anything put it back. So if it is not for their dinner, I have always felt they must be out there for the same spiritual enrichment.
 
Churchill in his wonderful little book, Painting as a Pastime,  describes how painting not only helped him to cope with the tremendous pressures of life, but also to absorb the colours and details of wherever he was and to appreciate the skill of the old masters. For me drawing and painting on trains, at airports, being arrested by the Congo and recently by the Imperial Palace   in Ethiopia for alleged spying have opened many doors and hugely added to the richness of my life.
 
Van Gogh's cypress trees painted shortly before he shot himself convey to me the extraordinary power and depth of his feeling. I like to say that I don’t paint for the result, and am certainly not a van Gogh. But if these efforts help some of you to share the joy that painting has brought in to my life then that is a bonus!



Lance Clark

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