Canterbury Meeting has a library of mostly Quaker-related books. However, between them, Canterbury Friends also have a great many more books, and not all of them solely Quaker-related. Some Canterbury Friends also have video recordings (DVD or VHS) of movies. The Light may come from a variety of sources. Some Canterbury Friends are eager to allow other Canterbury Friends to borrow books and video recordings that have been important to them or influential on their understanding.
Please find below a list of books and video recordings available to anyone attending Canterbury Meeting to borrow, to read/watch and to return. If you would like to borrow a specific book or video recording, simply contact the owner of the book/disk/tape and arrange to borrow it. If you are willing to make books/disks/tapes available for borrowing, please write down the details (title, author, year of publication) of each book, or video recording (title, director, principal actors, year of release) and give this information to Peter Hughes who will ensure that the details are uploaded onto this web page, along with your name (as the willing lender). It would be especially valuable were you to write a paragraph about the book/movie and what it is about the book/movie that makes you believe that others would benefit from reading/watching it. If you to are sufficiently tech-savvy, you might even be willing to provide a digital photograph of the book/disk box/tape box, but please do not allow these additional requests to dissuade you from participating.
It might be a good idea for the lender to write their name and contact details inside the book/box, and to make a note for themselves of who borrowed it and when. If the book/disk/tape does not get returned then it ceases to be in circulation, which somewhat defeats the intention of this undertaking. On the other hand, some Friends may have books/disks/tapes with which they would be happy to part more permanently provided that the book/disk/tape remained in circulation.
It is hoped that in this way, Canterbury Friends will come to know and understand each other better. From Advices & Queries 18: "Seek to know one another in the things which are eternal."
Books & video recordings available to be shared
Witness, Director: Peter Weir, Starring: Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, 1985, DVD & VHS
Much of this crime drama is set in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where communities of Amish people live. Kelly McGillis plays Rachel Lapp, a recently widowed Amish woman with an eight year old son, Samuel. Rachel and Samuel live with Eli, Samuel's grandfather. Together, they lead a simple, pious, unadventurous, farming life. Harrison Ford plays John Book, an honest Philadelphia police officer who is dedicated to policing a violent world. The movie plays out what happens when these two very different worlds collide.
When I first watched this movie, I had been a Quaker for only a handful of years, and I was entranced to see portrayed people who were living out their religious faith both by refusing to compromise their values, and also by choosing to turn away from many of the ephemeral distractions of modern life. Quakers have a testimony of simplicity; the lifestyle (as portrayed in the movie) inhabited by the Amish makes our testimony look like just so many words.
Lender: Peter Hughes.