The Friend

Letter to Josie

Josie, our granddaughter, is in her second year at Manchester University, really enjoying her course in Biology with an option in Philosophy. In her first year I sent an email to her about the nature of incessant change in life and the huge whirl of energies influencing us. I asked: ‘Why is there so much change?’ She replied one minute later with: ‘That’s easy! Random mutation to do with DNA.’ That shut me up… until now!

Reflections on the ‘Red Book’: Conducting our Quaker business

The right conduct of our meetings for church affairs depends upon all coming to them in an active, seeking spirit, not with minds already made up on a particular course of action… But open minds are not empty minds, nor uncritically receptive: the service of the meeting calls for knowledge of facts, often painstakingly acquired, and the ability to estimate their relevance and importance. This demands that we shall be ready to listen to others carefully… trying always to discern the truth in what they have to offer.’

Quaker faith & practice 3.05

Successful spirit-led organisations seem to have three factors in common: they all have a clear purpose that everyone understands and supports; shared values, which are a criterion for joining the organisation; and the decision-making process always includes a point of ‘not knowing’ and the opportunity for everyone to contribute.

From the archive: Letters to the editor

Some of the matters on the minds of Friends in the summer of 1917 were revealed through letters to the Friend. The following selection was published on 3 August. One Friend was particularly concerned about the Friends Provident Institution and the War Loan:

I was shocked and grieved to learn in the current issue of the Friend that the Directors of The Friends’ Provident Institution had invested £750,000 of its funds in the War Loan. This action I cannot but conceive is most unjust to the large majority of Friends who have insured in this well-known institution, and would, I am sure, have distressed its founders. It places pacifist Friends, who are largely in the majority, in a false position, as their capital is invested in a loan of which they strongly disapprove. How so well-known and respected an institution could have taken such a course of action I fail to understand.

Your friend sincerely, Joseph J. Green, Hastings.

A fond goodbye

Since 10 May, when governors announced the proposed closure of Walden School in Saffron Walden, Essex, staff, parents, pupils and governors have all endured much stress and upheaval, and on the last day of the summer term the school’s future was still not clear.

Quakers and Charlottesville

Friends in the USA have reacted strongly to the events in Charlottesville, Virginia on 11 and 12 August, when white supremacist groups staged rallies which resulted in the death of one person, Heather Heyer, and many injuries. Friends also condemned president Donald Trump’s comments in the following days.

Before and during the rallies, Charlottesville Friends and clergy from other faiths held vigils calling for calm and peace. The movement ‘Congregate Charlottesville’ gathered pastors in a direct, nonviolent action.