Issue 19-11-2021
Featured story
Past, caring: Tony D’Souza’s Thought for the Week
My childhood memories are of carefree days spent playing on the old bomb sites of London. These were the greatest adventure playgrounds imaginable. The fallen masonry, the crushed arches, and the little culverts where you could hide, giggling, while your playmates looked for you. We played for hours on end....
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Quakers lament ‘tiny steps’ of COP26
COP26 has delivered tiny steps forward when giant leaps are needed, Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has said, after the summit drew to an end last weekend.
Looking for hope after COP26? Tim Gee says it’s faith that’s most sustaining
Along with many others, my attentions in recent weeks have been on Glasgow, host to the twenty-sixth UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26). There, the governments of the world have been negotiating their response to the climate crisis.
The forgotten bombardment: An ‘English mistake’
I am a British national but my mother was Dutch. Perhaps that’s why I find it interesting to gain glimpses of how other people perceive my country.
Battle royal: Eleanor Nesbitt on unlikely Quaker Josiah Harlan
O ne hundred and fifty years ago, Josiah Harlan, a very unusual Quaker, died of tuberculosis in San Francisco. Josiah had been readmitted to the Religious Society of Friends after the withdrawal of a judgement against him for violating the rule of pacifism. His career – in Burma, India and Afghanistan –...
English Pastoral: An inheritance, by James Rebanks
All the churches are now talking about the environment, but how many of us can talk about it with real authority? To have a comprehensive idea of what’s happening, one needs knowledge in a variety of fields: chemistry, botany, economics, even astronomy and palaeontology.
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Quakers urged to stand by strikers
Quakers have been urged to stand by workers at Clarks shoe company who have been striking for weeks. The workers from Clarks’ main distribution centre in Street, Somerset, have accused the 200-year-old shoemaker of betraying its Quaker roots by demanding that employees accept a significant pay cut or face the...
QSA ramps up mobile library for winter homelessness
Quaker Social Action (QSA) has said that it is ‘ramping up’ its mobile library service Turn a Corner for the winter months, as charities brace for a rise in homelessness.
CTE appoints new general secretary
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has welcomed a new general secretary of Churches Together in England (CTE). Mike Royal, a pentecostal bishop, will take up the position in March 2022 when Paul Goodliff retires.
Brighton Friends raise licensing concern
Brighton Friends attended a council hearing last week about a new restaurant opening next to its Meeting house.
Return from a Distant Country, by Alister McGrath
Alister McGrath started out as an atheist enamoured of Marxism and scientism. He studied chemistry at Oxford, specialising in quantum theory. Along the way he discovered Christianity, being fascinated by its intellectual and imaginative depth. He wrote this short, intriguing book to set out the points where he believes science...
Poem: A Gathered Meeting
Written in response to the Dovetailing art installation at Farfield Quaker Meeting House, July 2021. Each time, from a new page, stillness uncoils from within me, to hang, suspended, in the Meeting’s light.
Letters - 19 November 2021
Brummana’s supporters The dramatic plight of Lebanon continues to be headline news and so it should be. In a country disintegrating, just where Brummana High School (BHS) would be without its Quaker supporters conjures a terrible image: one of students, staff and families at breaking point and a country...