Eye - 12 January 2018

From light within to unexpected tweets

Light without and light within

Adderbury Meeting House dates from 1675 and, although used infrequently for worship, held a gathering of Friends on Christmas Eve.

Meeting for Worship featured a piece written by Jane Burn, of Banbury and Evesham Area Meeting, set to music.

Jane told Eye that singers were ‘accompanied orchestrally by musicians from Banbury Meeting to the tune of “As with gladness men of old”.

‘The words came to me at [the 2016] Christmas time Meeting at Adderbury, where there is no electricity and so the candlelight emphasises the darkening day: it also recognises thoughts of the very troubled world in which we live.’

Light without and light within

In the silence for peace we pray
Candles giving light in the darkening day
Musicians play and people sing
into that darkness our voices ring.

Light without and within

Remembering those whose lives are torn
By the loss and grief of they that mourn
A new year approaches and so we pray
For peace and love that lead the way
to give light without and light within.

Blurred edges

Why does the wind precede the rain?
Why does a blow foreshadow pain?
And why does loss predate some gain?
We’ll never know for sure.

Why does a bud foretell a flower?
Why do sixty minutes make an hour?
And how does one brick build a tower?
We may never know for sure.

But we know these things occur,
Albeit sometimes in a blur,
And with that we can concur.

- by David O’Donoghue

Unexpected tweets

Mentions of Friends on Twitter has inspired a recent episode of QuakerSpeak, a video project of the Friends Journal. In ‘Weird Quaker Tweets’, which can be viewed at http://bit.ly/2iutRR0, Mackenzie Morgan, of Adelphi Meeting in the US, reflects on the range of tweets she has encountered and the way in which she seeks to engage with Twitter users. Amongst an eye-opening array of examples she has found:

…opportunities to shed light on the theological history of Friends in response to tweets such as: ‘It was Quakers who helped the slaves not Christians. So how come you never see black Quakers?’

…Friends sharing experiences of being confused with other religious communities: ‘If I had a nickel for each time I was asked about my Quaker upbringing and “not believing in sex/electricity” I’d have $$$.’

…that a species of parakeet shares Friends’ name: ‘Quakers are blamed for power outages and fires that are actually caused by squirrels. Several states DO cull them.’

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