The Friend is a weekly magazine in which Friends speak to each other and to the wider world, offering their insight, ideas, news, nurture and inspiration.
Nurturing Quaker community, each issue offers a space for Friends to share their concerns, and to support each other in faith and witness.
The Friend: enriching, inspiring and connecting the Quaker community since 1843.
A Friend was moved and delighted, while on holiday in Scotland, to see a red squirrel and she told us about it in Meeting. I was glad to hear of her joy. She is a Friend who often finds inspiration in the world around her. As you might imagine, she went on to thank God for the red squirrels. I don’t know what she feels about their grey brethren but I do know Friends who express anger about them.
The series The Handmaid’s Tale, broadcast on Channel 4, has been one of the television drama successes of 2017. Now it has been shown, we can reflect on the series as a whole. It is ‘based on’ Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, and is not a simple adaptation. It has developed the storylines in places quite considerably.
Importantly, I noticed one absence. In the book Quakers appear several times as members of the resistance; in the television series there are no Quakers. The series does, nevertheless, provide a model for a society in which we might ask: how would Quakers resist? In the book Quakers resist by providing safe houses, and by undertaking activities (sharing information, educating, getting people out) that are simply defined as criminal by the ruling authorities of Gilead. They are among those strung up on the Wall, after being brutally executed.
My wife and I decide to make my visit to Penarth to interview Philip Gross part of our holiday. We drive over the day before my appointment and that evening we visit the beach and watch our son Noah. It seems an apt image of playful innocence engaging with and experiencing the greater power of Nature.
The work of Quaker, poet, novelist, playwright and academic Philip Gross is filled with such open playfulness to the world. Through a prolific and award-winning career he has produced a rich and thoughtful textual tapestry.
What a pleasant city centre Dundee is to walk through! It is quite an eye-opener with its grand nineteenth-century buildings and recently improved streets. The nineteenth-century Quaker Meeting House is, however, not sufficiently accessible, so Dundee Friends had booked a modern church hall for us to hold the General Meeting for Scotland on 9 September. Just over thirty Friends were present.
Friends all over Britain came together during Quaker Week 2017 (30 September-8 October) under the theme of ‘In turbulent times, be a Quaker’. A variety of events were put on and included vigils, displays and Meetings for Worship.
A very full agenda, which covered subjects as diverse as ‘speaking out’ in Britain to peace work in East Africa, was dealt with at Meeting for Sufferings held at Friends Meeting House in Mount Street, Manchester on Saturday 7 October.
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Written by and for Friends on the bench
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