The Retreat Lecture: Quakers and mental health
Jane Muers, a trustee director of The Retreat in York, gave the Retreat Lecture at Yearly Meeting Gathering in Bath. Tara Craig reports.
‘Friends, meet together and know one another in that which is eternal’. Jane, who is a former NHS clinical psychologist specialising in mental health and the elderly, began her lecture with these words of George Fox. On a first reading, she said, she took this to mean that by meeting we will know one another. On a second reading, however, she interpreted it as an instruction to carry out two separate actions – to meet together, and to know one another. The quotation caught Jane’s attention, she told more than 230 Friends, because it spoke about developing relationships. And this, she argued, is key to thinking about mental health issues, particularly within a community.
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