Thought for the Week: Friends

John Punshon reflects on what unites us across many divides

by John Punshon 8th November 2013

Unless one has knocked about the Quaker world a bit, it comes as rather a surprise to meet the Programmed Quaker Meeting for the first time, complete with hymns, a pastor, a sermon and, if you are lucky, a bit of silence thrown in. It might be easy, as a citizen of the Quaker homeland, to say that such shenanigans are hardly what one would call Quaker and feel, let’s face it, a bit, well, superior. However, if one were to live in the Meeting for a few months, as opposed to attending a Meeting on an isolated occasion, a rather different picture might emerge.