Eye - 4 November 2022

The sunshine pages return! - and remembering some of the greatest hits.

The sunshine pages return!

Eye is back Friends – it’s been a long time coming, but we’re hoping you’ve missed Eye as much as Eye has missed you!

For Friends who have started subscribing since these canary-yellow pages last appeared, this may not make much sense. For you, and Friends who may need a reminder, let me set the scene.

‘Q-Eye’ was a look at the Quaker world through a lighter lens. A place for limericks, quirky quotes, photos, community activities, and stories that may not have a home elsewhere in the magazine.

Eye was where we always tried to make readers smile.

Where did it go?

This is where I step out from my Eye persona and introduce you to the person behind the pen.

My name is Elinor Smallman, and I am the production and office manager at the Friend. It was a joyous part of my job to rustle up this page for many years.

In 2020 I developed a pulmonary embolism. This wasn’t my first experience of blood clots but it was the worst, and my recovery took longer than I expected.

My return to full-time hours was gradual, and putting together the Eye page was a casualty.

Some people may remember a brief return in early 2021, when my creative juices started to flow again. But then more C-words entered my family’s life, as my mother was diagnosed with cancer and I became her carer.

I feel truly blessed to be part of the Friend family. The team rallied round and supported us while we navigated surgery and treatments during lockdowns and Covid waves.

Thankfully my mother and I are both in a better place health-wise now, although life is unlikely to ever go fully back to the ‘normal’ we knew.

Moving forward

This may all feel like too much information Friends, but I want to be open with you.

The Friend’s readers, writers, and staff are connected in a way that is rare in the publishing world. We are a small team here, serving Quakers because we care deeply about the Society.

I also want to be open because what I’ve experienced in recent years has made me more passionate than ever about why Eye matters. And I am feeling the promptings in my heart that there are other Friends out there who are in need of the sort of light that can shine through Eye’s pages.

The pandemic has been tough for everybody. We may have been in different boats, but we are sailing through the same storm. Communities within Quakerism and throughout society at large are still finding their feet as we get to grips with what we’ve gone through.
Now there is the war in Ukraine, rising energy bills, alarming inflation… we are entering a winterthat will proving difficult for many. I believe we all need something, however small, to uplift us at a time like this. And I have faith that the connections possible through the pages of the Friend is what makes this beautiful magazine precious.

An invitation

I want to give you something to raise your spirits every week. But I can’t do it alone Friends, so this is an invitation to you all: Will you share the glimmers of light in your life through these pages? Can we get to know each other in the things that are not weighty?

Let’s carve out a space where we need not worry about being too silly or ‘unQuakerly’.

All of life is precious, and that includes joy and laughter as much as witness and concerns. I’m a firm believer that making time for the lighter side of life serves us and our wider witness well.

What would you like to see?

Do you have ideas for what you’d appreciate seeing in these pages? Would you like to share some sunshine with Friends? How could the Friend help lift your spirits?

Eye’s greatest hits

In the coming weeks you’ll see some of Eye’s ‘greatest hits’ from our archive, so you get a flavour of what has appeared in the past. I hope you enjoy the stories and pictures that appear, and that they inspire you to start sending in some of your own. If you’re not sure, please get in touch – I’m here to help!

After the first month, a new Eye will emerge. Contributions from you will be centre stage! But you will also spot new elements creeping in too, as we bring fresh eyes to the page. For example, we will include mini-features, such as ‘On this day’ dips into our archive, puzzles, creative activities, and more.

Contributions can be named or anonymous, whatever you feel most comfortable with.

Ideas or questions are welcome – just write to me at eye@thefriend.org, or via post to The Friend (Eye), 173 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ.

I’m excited to see what we can create together Friends!

Making Friends

The creative and industrious Young People’s Meeting in Horsham has crafted a colourful Meeting for Worship from clay.

Over a number of sessions the circle of Friends took shape in the hands of Quakers young and old. It now has pride of place on display in the Meeting house.

(first published 11 January 2019)

Personal & profound

Music, images, and sharing have been bringing one Meeting closer together online.

Vivien Whitaker, co-clerk of Mansfield Meeting, told Eye that Friends have been experimenting with different types of online study groups and discussions.

‘Our winter study group “Sharing Favourite Music” got (some of) us dancing… and moved (some of) us to tears… the combination of both images and sounds on YouTube feeling very powerful.’

Other experiments have resulted in greater intimacy among Friends, for example, the Meeting’s fifth Sunday Shared Eldership and Oversight discussion, held after Meeting for Worship, had a focus on equality in communication.

Vivien told Eye: ‘We requested questions in advance and put them anonymously in a hat and drew them out one by one. Perhaps it was the closeness of Zoom, and/or being centred from Meeting for Worship that enabled our sharing to be personal and profound.

‘One Friend commented: “I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed our session on equality in communication. Hats off to our Friends for their preparation and arrangements. Judging by the universal participation of all Friends attending, it was popular and informative. I find it so liberating to be able to ask the most naïve of questions without fear of admonishment or ridicule, and yet receive such succinct and easily understood answers. I look forward to our next gathering.”’

(first published 26 February 2021)

Small but significant

Melanie Jameson, of Malvern Meeting, got in touch with Eye after an unusual diversion during a recent visit to Marazion Meeting. She writes:

‘I was surprised to find that Friends were being “shushed” and re-directed away from the usual path that leads to the kitchen/lobby area. Instead, we were urged to enter by the other door, which opened on to a gathering Meeting for Worship. What had caused this diversion?
‘The answer proved to be a grey fluffball that revealed itself as a baby seagull, planted firmly in front of the usual entrance and guarded by protective parents who were poised to defend their young.

‘Settled in this charming old Meeting house with the distant sound of crashing waves (Marazion is located opposite St Michael’s Mount), I reflected that a small being, standing its ground, can make a significant difference.’

(first published 5 July 2013)

Friendly in five

Friends General Conference in the USA has posed a challenge to concisely-creative Quakers online: ‘How did the Quaker way find you? Tell us in five words or less! #Quakerfaithinfive.’

Whilst some shared moving stories that defied a word limit, some compact contributions included: ‘We’re going tomorrow. Wanna come?’ – ‘Came for research, stayed forever’ – ‘In the clarity of silence’ – ‘Through my daughter’s Quaker education’ – ‘Internet quiz said I’m Quaker’ – ‘My parents abandoned organized religion’ – ‘With the film Friendly Persuasion’ – ‘Spiritually-parched seeker discovers waiting worship’ – ‘Met Quakers, borrowed meeting house chairs.’

(first published 1 June 2018)

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Comments

Dear Eleanor
We’ve never met in person, but I am so very moved by your openness in describing the journeys you and your mother have made through sickness and back to health made in recent years.

I am a relatively new Friend-reader and so look forward to Q-Eye. Was the name inspired by Private Eye which is one of favourite publications? (it fits with my anarchic tendencies)

Would Q-Eye be a place to talk about a project I’m developing?
It’s called FOGGG which stands for “for our great-great-grandchildren”. 
FOGGG’s mission has two elements :
1. To evolve a vision for what a sustainable planet should encompass by 2149 and get a broad consensus that the majority of people don’t disagree with this vision. Because the end-date is so far away, it needs to be generally accepted that this will be work-in-progress for the next century

2. To inform all generations that the attainment of a sustainable planet is not going to happen during the lifetime of anybody currently alive

This is why FOGGG says it is
Working towards a planet fit for our Great-Great-Grandchildren  

I’d be very interested in any readers who would like to assist in this project which should launch early in 2023

By BruceJJCadbury on 3rd November 2022 - 10:53

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