Issue 30-07-10
Featured Story
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A form of joy
I had a few ideas in my head before I entered the worship room, about what a Quaker Meeting was like. One idea was that it was held in a large room with long lines of chairs going across it. Almost like the pews in a church. Another was that…
Top Stories
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Quaker community?
Last September, I moved into the Quaker Community in Bamford in the Peak District. After five years living alone and working from home, I wanted more intimacy and structure in my life and the discipline of daily worship with others. Although I knew there were conflicts and tensions among some…
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Independence from America at Menwith Hill
The Fourth of July, traditionally the day for the USA’s celebration of Independence from Britain, is also the opportunity for a quite different annual celebration by Quakers from the North of England supported by many others: the Independence from America Demonstration held at the gates of Menwith Hill air base…
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Q-Eye – 30 July 2010
No friend When the artist James McNeill Whistler was a cavalry cadet at West Point military academy horses were assigned daily at random. A mettlesome steed known for throwing its riders was allocated to Whistler. Its name was ‘Quaker’. ‘My God,’ said James, ‘He’s no friend.’
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Conflict arises in Wigton
A heated dispute over the planned closure of Wigton Meeting House in Cumbria has triggered debate about the role of Quaker buildings and Quaker processes of decision-making. Wigton Local Meeting has been formally laid down by North Cumbria Area Meeting (AM), who plan to sell the Meeting house. But six…
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After the bomb dropped
Friends House, London, is to host a major exhibition to mark the sixty-fifth anniversary of the bombing of two Japanese cities with nuclear weapons during the second world war. The exhibition, which marks the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, will be available from 2 to 12 August. All events, which…
All Articles
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BP: was this inevitable?
At the moment BP has stopped filling up the Gulf with their leaking oil. One wonders if this leak was an unfortunate accident or the result of a culture change in the company. The ethical funds have in the past loved this company but now that support is draining fast.… -
Image and reality
Last week’s Farnborough Air Show was labelled ‘a shop window for deadly weapons’ by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT). -
The Spirit Level under attack
At a packed lecture room on 22 July at the Royal Society of Arts lunchtime event, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett gave a spirited defence of their recent book The Spirit Level. -
Revisiting Louise
Spiceland Meeting sent us this poem, which they wished to share. The poem was written by Ben Rice, Shell Young Poet of the Year 1991, now living in Australia. While the Louise he talks about is unknown, here is a bit about Spiceland Meeting House, reputedly the oldest Quaker Meeting… -
Free Schools are not free
The government’s plans for Free Schools are contentious and recent articles in their favour have concerned me. Free Schools are free in that they concur with current views of the free market economy. They are private schools paid for by the state to the detriment of the majority of schools.… -
Letters – 30 July 2010
Free Schools Janice Fletcher Jeal has written a powerful plea for Quaker values in schools (2 July). In fact, it is, today, a plea for the sort of values that all schools might be proud to reflect. This is only the latest example of how Quaker thinking has, over time,… -
And the first of these is envy…
Guilty as charged, I’m afraid. Guilty of the deadly sin of envy. Not the obvious sort of envy, mind you. I have never gone in for a lot of coveting. I certainly have not coveted my neighbours’s wife; that is not intended as any reflection on my neighbour’s wife, but… -
Vipassana – a personal journey
Vipassana is one of India’s most ancient meditation techniques. Long lost to humanity, it was rediscovered by Gautama the Buddha more than 2,500 years ago. Vipassana means seeing things as they really are. It is the process of self- purification by self-observation. The Buddha never taught a sectarian religion; he…
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