Letters - 07 June 2024
From National Service to Murder most friendly
National Service
Does the Tory Party think by bringing in National Service and teaching young people to kill that this will prevent them taking knives and using them as weapons?
Val McFarlane
Judas
The article by Hilary Johnson in the 17 May edition of the Friend, focusing on Judas Iscariot, brought back memories of thoughts I have had in the past. First, I was very uncomfortable about the hatred placed upon Judas, as the Christianity I felt a part of was a loving religion and this type of hatred had no part in it. (I left Christian churches because of this retribution language and a place called hell, and turned to Quakers, so I was surprised when she says she has heard such language used among Quakers.)
I was very affected by the Leon Rosselson song ‘Stand Up For Judas’. Rosselson saw Judas as being very frustrated at Jesus for not being the campaigner Judas felt was needed at the time. He was angry that all that Jesus taught was peace and love, compassion and understanding. Jesus taught of a loving God who forgave. I suspect this would be the same in a lot of campaigning groups right now, around the world. The action of Judas after Jesus’ crucifixion shows that his revelation about what Jesus’ life meant was too hard to bear. What an amazing man Judas was.
As a Jew, Rosselson may have had a wider view about Judas, but I suppose that since Christians were harshly treated by Jews in those days of the early church, writings and folk memory might be quite negative.
Barbara Mark
Twelve good men?
The article ‘Twelve good men?’ by Hilary Johnson was very much of interest and raised the following issues.
Nearly all the early Christians were Jews and were seen as a Christian Jewish sect. I think when we read the New Testament we need to hold that in our thinking.
Jesus was not a Christian. He died very much aiming his mission at the Jewish people and the pharisees to wake up to their being taken over by the rules and rituals, also practices in the synagogue which were unacceptable according to God’s laws. He was a prophet very much understanding the Jewish theology, and also a revolutionary. Paul and Christianity then developed.
The picture showing Judas with ginger hair very much reinforces the view that those with red hair are not acceptable. Many early religious paintings of both Judas and Mary Magdalene show them with red hair. As someone who had red hair (now white), I am aware that in many cultures people with red hair are often ridiculed and seen as not belonging. An outsider, an oddity perhaps, somebody to tease or ridicule.
Interestingly, today many women, and occasionally men, dye their hair red and it is now seen as fashionable. I have two lovely red-headed granddaughters and they are very proud of their hair. An actress dyed her red hair blonde as she was always being cast as a nasty/devious woman. Her roles changed dramatically.
I welcome Hilary’s view that Judas was redeemed following the three stages of repentance and welcomed her placing an extra ball on her simnel cake. Next year I will definitely do the same. Thank you for the article.
Jo Fisher
To Zoom or not to Zoom?
Simply to say, I share some of Clive Ashwin’s concerns over the still-very-prevalent use of Zoom in Quaker Meetings today (17 May).
In its defence, in Exeter we have a very centred ‘Zoom only’ Meeting for Worship (MfW) on Sunday evenings, and certainly some MfW activity is fine on Zoom. Some disabled members do find it invaluable too. And yet…
Seeing therapy clients only by Zoom was a big factor in my running down of my practice, where I found it difficult to engage fully without any seeing of one another’s faces.
Clive’s proposing of an alternative week Sunday Meeting in person only speaks to my condition. Yes, I can quickly centre into a Zoom-only place. So yes, Meeting in person, simply together without technology, is fine too, but I confess I do myself often centre badly into a rather empty blended MfW.
Mic Morgan
Disability and Zoom
I was interested to read the article about online Meetings (17 May) and the very relevant question how can we bring these divergent needs together.
I am largely an online worshipper, and wonder how I would feel about attending Meeting in person surrounded by all the screens and technology enabling blended Meetings to happen. I don’t think I would find it easy. As it is I haven’t had the opportunity to do that to see what it is like.
I still want to be part of my Meeting as much as I did when I could attend in person every week. I’ve had to find other ways to engage with Friends, which include Zoom.
Online Meetings for Worship were already up and running in 2019, maybe before, hosted by Woodbrooke Europe and the Middle East Section of Friend World Committee for Consultation and were a complete lifeline to me when I suddenly was no longer able to get to my Meeting. I feel a part of that community after attending regularly ever since, while I’ve only managed a few trips to my Meeting over those years.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read that ‘elderly, disabled and isolated Friends often find using the telephone a challenge, let alone a laptop or computer screen’.
Disability comes in all shapes and sizes, to all ages and abilities, can be visible or invisible, stable or fluctuating. Sometimes it comes on slowly, or it could be sudden, it can happen to any of us. If it’s not your reality today, it could be tomorrow. I know that is hard to get your head round while you carry on with your life, thinking it’s something that affects other people. I guess that was me too.
Many disabled people I know, including myself, have improved their online skills massively since being housebound, and host online Meetings, breakout rooms, and elder online Woodbrooke courses and so on. It’s where there is a level playing field, we can be included alongside others and offer our skills and gifts.
There are no easy answers and I welcome the discussion, but please don’t write off disabled people, we still have much to offer, particularly online.
Maureen Rowcliffe-Quarry
Election for change
There may be dissatisfaction with the performance of the government; change may be desirable. However, the change which is really needed is away from the confrontational negativity so often displayed in the House of Commons and in political campaigning.
We should all try to be positive. Let us start, as electors, finding out who the best candidates are and then decide to vote for them, being guided by party allegiance only when there is doubt as to who might be better.
Alexander Hopkinson-Woolley
Murder most friendly
I do not want to come across as a killjoy but I am struggling to see the humour in the Q Eye posting entitled ‘Murder most friendly’ (10 May). I doubt that the children I worked with during the course of my professional life who had witnessed their mothers being murdered by their fathers would have found it amusing either. Neither would the children’s grandparents.
We would not make light of war. War is organised mass murder so why is it acceptable for us to make light of murder, in whatever context it occurs?
We should have got real to the threat posed to children and women by domestic violence a long time ago. Approximately two women a week are murdered by their partner or ex-partner. If anyone has not noticed, their names have been read out each year in parliament by Jess Phillips MP. It is a depressingly long list.
Richard Pashley
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