Issue 02-07-2021
Featured story
For the love of God: Kate McNally’s Thought for the Week
This pandemic has shown that many of us need love to drive out the fear around us. We all need love to quench the fires of fear and dread, and the grief we feel for parts of our lives that are lost to us. How can we provide this for...
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Street talk: A shocking homelessness fact prompted Jennifer Kavanagh’s latest book
In 1861, asylum for the homeless poor of London was opened when the thermometer reached freezing point. In 2017 the mayor of London Sadiq Khan announced plans to open homeless shelters there every day the temperature was forecast to drop below zero. When people ask what led me to write Let Me...
Keep it in mind: Ricki Rittstieg on autism in faith communities
Autism is a relatively common condition. Over one in a hundred people are autistic, which amounts to around 700,000 people in the UK. This means that, at some point in their life, almost everybody will have had contact with an autistic person, knowingly or unknowingly.
A work in progress: Matthew Callow on the development of a ministry
I knew of the Quaker reputation for activism long before I had any association with the Society of Friends. But when I started attending Meeting, just over a decade ago, it was not apparent that many were involved in such work. A small number spoke with little detail about causes...
Show goes on: Judith Bromley Nichols on the art of outreach
A group of Quakers at Bainbridge Meeting are excited that their initial, tentative plans for outreach have gathered momentum. They are planning for an exhibition of panels from the Loving Earth Project collection, later this month.
Quaker wins landmark arms fair appeal
A Quaker is one of four Christian protestors who have had their convictions quashed by the supreme court for forming a blockade outside a London arms fair. The ruling has been hailed as a significant affirmation of the right to protest.
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Friends mark Refugee Week
Quakers celebrated Refugee Week last month with a range of action and support. Sheila Mosley from the Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network (QARN) said that the week, from 14-20 June, is an important time ‘when people come together to raise a positive and collective voice of welcome, to give voice...
BYM reserves grow thanks to legacies
Britain Yearly Meetings (BYM) reserves increased by nearly seven per cent in 2020, according to the annual report released last week. The figures show that BYM’s reserves grew from £86 million to £92 million, despite a seventy per cent loss of revenue from its trading company the Quiet Company, due to the...
FWCC Gretchen Castle reflects
Quaker Gretchen Castle spoke at a Quaker Conversations session about her nine years service as general secretary for Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC). The episode on 26 June was the tenth in the FWCC series. Writing on the FWCC website, Gretchen Castle said: ‘I have shared meals with Friends in...
Quaker talks on art and migrant children
The arts have a key role to play in promoting intercultural dialogue and integrating migrant children, said a Bath Quaker at an international conference last month.
BYM trustees speak again on racism
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) trustees and senior management agreed a statement this month on becoming an anti-racist employer and embedding anti-racism in all work programmes.
Learning difficulties: Paul High on Brummana High School
While the situation in much of the Middle East is troubling, British Friends need to have a particular concern for Lebanon.It has been almost one year since we all saw the devastating Beirut port explosion, on 4 August 2020. But it has also now been nearly two years since the Lebanese...
Undercover Trophy Hunter: Britain’s top 20 hunters revealed, by Eduardo Goncalves
Portsmouth Friend Eduardo Goncalves’ fourth book on trophy hunting explores this – shockingly thriving – British community. Eduardo was once an investigative journalist and he uses this skill to take us into the world and mind of those who enjoy recreational killing. For a year he went undercover posing as someone seeking...
Psalm for a digital age
I sent you a message. You stopped answering a time ago. On my knees I begged to know what name you had become. Your silent laughter filled the multiverse. I consulted the address book and called again all the names I found there. I shouted, whispered, coaxed, wheedled, texted even....
Letters - 2 July 2021
Outreach I hope that Geoffrey Durham’s article in the Friend dated 11 June will be given the serious attention it deserves. In reminding us that Quakers in 1680 were a far higher proportion of the British population than now, it challenges us to consider why this is so. One likely...