Turning the world upside-down
Friends met for Quaker Peace & Social Witness' spring conference
Some eighty people, among them ten members of Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) staff, gathered recently in Derbyshire for the department’s spring conference.
QPSW general secretary Helen Drewery explained: ‘We provide this conference to help relatively new Friends find out about what is being done in their name and to encourage them to become engaged in the work.’
This year’s theme was ‘Being change - making change’. The keynote speaker was Hannah Brock.
Hannah is a former QPSW peaceworker and ecumenical accompanier who now works for War Resisters’ International. She shared the ways in which Friends have inspired her, and explained how she would like to help turn the world upside-down.
Hannah told the audience: ‘That might sound like a rather grand claim for a five foot two woman from the Isle of Wight. But I believe Quaker aspirations, expressed in the work of QPSW – little things like abolishing war, making the economy work for us and not the other way round, and living as if we were part of the earth, not the owners of it – are truly revolutionary.
‘What we want really would turn our competitive, elitist, violence-addicted society upside-down. It is no small task. But the Spirit that pushes us has no small power.’
Comments
Please login to add a comment
