Dear Friends, I don’t think anyone/ any committee has the task of revising our beloved Advices and Queries: they haven’t been revised for 20 years or more. I am certainly not putting my hand up to do this! Nonetheless I feel that Advice and Query 19 does not consider how to respond to people who speak out of hurt or hate, people whose lives have not been ‘nourished’.  .Here are my proposed additions to this Advice & Query, in italics. Perhaps you could write a letter to the editor with your reflections on this? I have arranged it in lines to bring out the poetry, and to make it easier for me to put it to music.

Do you respect

That of God in everyone

Though it may be expressed

In unfamiliar ways

Or be difficult to discern?

Each of us has

A particular experience of God

And each must find the way

To be true to it.

When words are strange

Or disturbing to you

Try to sense where they have come from

And what has nourished or warped

The lives of others.

Some of us have been so hurt

That we are not yet free to be kind.

Listen patiently and seek the truth

Which other people’s opinions

May contain for you.

Speak truth to power with love, where you can.

Avoid hurtful criticism

And provocative language.

Do not allow the strength

Of your convictions

To betray you into making

Statements or allegations

That are unfair or untrue.

Think it possible that

You may be mistaken.