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.
The annual Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) Spring Conference was an inspiring event. The enthusiasm, interest, energy and inspiration I experienced among Friends over the weekend continues to be a great source of support and upholding for me, especially when I start to worry about political and social crises. At the conference, we shared a vision rooted in our testimonies and learnt about exciting projects that QPSW is involved in, and also about some of the many actions we are taking in our own Meetings and communities.
Sometimes God seems so close. It is almost as though I could reach out and touch Him. I have had this experience a couple of times in Meeting. Yet, at other times God, or the Light, can seem far away. However, one thing is for sure – it is never Him that has moved.
I wonder what it is that creates this perceived distance between us. The difference surely must be in me and not in Him. After many years of trying and failing (which, incidentally, is a fair definition of the spiritual life) I would like to offer some thoughts.
Many people want a loan and cannot, for many reasons, access the loan facilities at their local banks or building societies. It may be that they are not permanently employed, do not have a bank account, are a tenant (rather than a homeowner), have a county court judgement against them, or have a poor credit rating score. Sadly, too many of these people turn to local money lenders, the local Provident agent, one of the payday loan companies, or loan websites; all of whom charge exorbitant interest and ruinous late payment charges. Very often, such loans are rolled over into new, more expensive, loans.
Friends from far and wide will hold a half-hour Meeting for Worship on the top of Pendle Hill on 6 May to show solidarity with the anti-fracking movement. This position is not radical or controversial. On the contrary, it merely echoes mainstream views held by the general public.
During the Saturday afternoon break, while drinking a cup of tea sitting on the lawn in the sunshine, the clerk to the conference asked me what expectations I had come with. The honest answer was none, which I think was a surprise to her. I recounted that when deciding whether to take a place on the weekend, my partner had reminded me of the advice that when you are faced with two roads to choose from, you should take the road you cannot see down. That had led me to join the weekend.
The story of the shipwreck of Rendel Harris in the autumn of 1916 was recorded in the Friend at the time and quoted in this series before Christmas (25 November 2016). On his way home Rendel Harris was, unfortunately, shipwrecked again. It was a terrible twist of fate. The Friend carried reports of the incident and the story gradually unfolded in its pages during late April and May 1917. The accounts are brought together here. In the issue of 20 April, the Friend reported:
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Whether you are new to Quakerism or have been going to Meeting for years, you’ll find something here to inspire, inform and challenge you.
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Written by and for Friends on the bench
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