Friends celebrate Quaker Week
Friends around the country mark the seventh annual Quaker Week
Many Quakers across Britain are taking part in activities to mark the seventh annual Quaker Week, from Saturday 28 September to Sunday 6 October. Outreach events have been organised by some Meetings to raise the profile of Quakers locally. Cardiff Friends are holding an open air Meeting for Worship. Meetings, including Roundhay in Leeds and New Earswick in York, are holding open days and encouraging people to bring a friend to experience Meeting for Worship.
‘Quaker Week is all about worship,’ says Alistair Fuller, head of outreach development for Quakers in Britain. ‘The stillness and quiet in Meetings for Worship is the root of all we do as Quakers and we’re keen to welcome all to the enriching experience. We aim to live in the spirit which inspires us in our worship.’
Quakers in Wigtown, Scotland, are running an outreach stall in the market, which coincides with the local annual Book Festival. Malvern Friends are holding walking meditations. In Ludlow, Chris Cole of the Drones Campaign Network is giving a talk on drone warfare.
The Quaker Service Exhibition on the Friends Ambulance Unit and Friends Relief Service during the second world war is on display at Cambridge Regional College.
Other Friends are using the arts to reach out. On Sunday 6 October, Lynn Morris is performing ‘Lover of Souls’ at Ealing Meeting House. The play is her dramatisation of the life of Elizabeth Hooton, George Fox’s mentor and one of the first Quaker women missionaries.
Sibford School and Cambridge Area Meeting have separately hosted the theatre partnership ‘Plain Quakers’ performing ’Nine Parts a Quaker – Unfinished Business?’ The play, which is being performed in several places during Quaker Week, tells the story of Thomas Clarkson and his work with Quaker groups to abolish the slave trade. It invites the audience to reflect on the large numbers of people experiencing forms of modern day slavery.
Comments
Please login to add a comment
