Issue 26-04-2024
Featured story
Peace of resistance: Kyra Kaisla’s Thought for the Week
I recently received a message from an Israeli friend asking if I’d read the news. An unknown number of missiles were making their way from Iran to unknown targets in Israel. Without knowledge of their short- or long-term consequences, these missiles existed as a kind of Schrödinger’s...
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GRYYM reading: The proposed changes to Yearly Meeting and Meeting for Sufferings
You may have already enthusiastically registered to attend Yearly Meeting (26-30 July, online and at Friends House), or you may be thinking of doing so, while wondering what is on the programme. One of the items will be a proposal to make a specific change to the way in which...
FAET: Steve Kaim-Caudle on a Rwandan collaboration
Education is a key to opportunity, and partnership can be pivotal. One such collaboration exists between Rwanda Yearly Meeting, its schools, the Rwandan Friends Career Center, and Forward Africa Education Trust (FAET), a small UK charity with Quaker roots. Together, we work to provide quality education.
Madonna and child
In just a heartbeat Space dissolves And time stands still And oh! the ecstasy, the thrill In that dissolving unity That tender gaze… A blink before the birth of fear When cruelty was a distant cloud A devil’s joke And there was love, and peace, and hope And all...
It happened on Frederick Street: Margaret Fraser revisits the history of a Belfast Meeting house
In 1969,‘the troubles’ began in Northern Ireland. The conflict had been simmering all year, but made worldwide news in August with the battle of the Bogside. Violence spread, and tensions ran high. Many of those who were minorities in their streets fled their homes.
Quaker Tapestry marks George Fox anniversary
Historical items on loan from Friends House and Swarthmoor Hall are part of a new exhibition at the Quaker Tapestry Museum. Other exhibits include reproductions from the state papers at The National Archives. ‘Sing and Rejoice: George Fox, the English Civil Wars and the Beginnings of Quakerism’ will coincide with...
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Jeremy Corbyn to give Salter Lecture at Hamilton House
Following concerns from within Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) about inviting Jeremy Corbyn to speak at Friends House during Yearly Meeting, the Quaker Socialist Society (QSS) has decided to invite him to deliver this year’s Salter Lecture at an alternative venue.
Quakers debate deep transformation for climate activism
Four hundred people gathered earlier this month to discuss the vision and strategy needed to transform the climate action scene. Quaker Rupert Read, last year’s Salter Lecturer, and Liam Kavanagh, both co-directors of the Climate Majority Project, were interviewed by Jeremy Lent, author of The Patterning Instinct and The...
Quakers offer schools peer meditation funds
Secondary schools in England are being offered a funded opportunity to develop peer-led conflict resolution by Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM). Schools with a sixth form are invited to bid to host the project, which includes around £3,000 in funding for staff costs alongside training for staff and students in peer mediation....
Homelessness rises for second year
The number of people experiencing homelessness rose last autumn for the second year running, Quaker Social Action (QSA) has said.
To the letter: Sergei Nikitin on the ‘Write to Russia’ project
Earlier this year, when the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was still alive, one correspondent wrote to him: ‘I work as a firefighter here, in Canada. We are said to be heroes… I find that funny when I think of people like you. I will never suffer close to what...
A Disabled Apostle: Impairment and disability in the letters of Paul, by Isaac Soon
When he wrote his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul felt compelled to tell his correspondents about what he called the ‘thorn’ in his ‘flesh’, a mysterious ailment that has long puzzled readers. Isaac Soon’s book is the first to be devoted to this enigmatic complaint, and to other...
Eye - 26 April 2024
Glimmers Dana Littlepage Smith, of Exeter Meeting, reached out to share moments of hope that moved her. She told Eye: ‘My dear Dad was a creature of habit: he had the same breakfast most of his life, even when his wife died and a carer arrived: cereal with strawberries, orange...
Letters - 26 April 2024
YM, trustees and Sufferings Marisa Johnson (5 April) is helpfully right to draw our attention to the role of Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) trustees as laid out in 8.17 of the current fifth edition of Quaker faith & practice. This is not substantially different from the wording on 8.03 of the fourth edition....