Issue 21-01-2022

Featured story

Thought for the Week: Neil Morgan comes back for more

FREE 20 Jan 2022 | by Neil Morgan

I attended Yearly Meeting Gathering in Friends House in 2018, when the decision was taken to revise Quaker faith & practice. I remember someone standing up to minister and saying something along the lines of ‘I do not believe in worship, that’s old fashioned’. Personally, I do worship. Indeed, I...

Read more

Top stories

On song: Rebecca Hardy interviews musician and playwright Anaïs Mitchell

20 Jan 2022 | by Rebecca Hardy

'It’s like, the spirit drops in, then disappears for weeks while I try to make sense of the thing, then the spirit drops in again.' | Photo: by Jay Sansone

There’s a line in an Anaïs Mitchell song that goes: ‘And there ain’t a thing that you can do / When the weather takes a turn on you / Except for hurry up and hit the road / Any way the wind blows.’ The song is ‘Any Way the Wind...

Read more

Knowing your strength: Elaine Miles reads from the gospel of John

20 Jan 2022 | by Elaine Miles

John the Evangelist, from the Rabbula Gospels, c6th century CE

The authorised version of the New Testament of 1611 translates John 14: 16-18 as ‘And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter’. It then uses the word ‘comfortless’ in verse 18.

Read more

Minding the time: Simon Webb on an ‘esteemed’ Quaker of Delaware

20 Jan 2022 | by Simon Webb

‘Recent articles have explored how Quakers who had enslaved labourers often attempted to influence them after manumission.’ | Photo: Artistic interpretation of the Cooper farmstead, by Edward Gonzalez-Tennant,

In May 1811, Aaron Cooper was abducted from his home in Kent County, Delaware. Five men came out of the night, tied him up with ropes and carried him off, leaving behind his wife Hetty and their three children.

Read more

To Paulette

20 Jan 2022 | by Joanna Dales

'By singing words they taught us – so to assault Evil and hate with love' | Photo: by Miguel Bautista on Unsplash

And have you taught the Quakers how to sing? Us Quakers, who for more than twelve-score years Have stilled our voices and made deaf our ears To music, lest it hinder focussing Upon the Light within, life’s seed and spring. We were mistaken: you have stilled our fears, By...

Read more

Quaker folk dancing tour in Scotland

FREE 20 Jan 2022 | by Rebecca Hardy

'They are trying to make a stand for peace and reconciliation.' | Photo: courtesy of the Friendly Folk Dancers

Scottish Friends have been asked to support an international Quaker dance organisation that will be touring in 2022.

Read more

All articles

Elbit leaves Oldham after sustained campaign

FREE 20 Jan 2022 | by Rebecca Hardy

Peace campaigners, including Quakers, are celebrating the news that Elbit Systems UK has sold part of its business in Oldham. Protestors claim that the Elbit Ferranti factory provides specialist military technologies for Israel’s fleet of combat drones.

Read more

Friends push for policing bill amendments

20 Jan 2022 | by Rebecca Hardy

Friends were among those who gathered last week in one final push against the controversial policing bill.

Read more

Belated anniversary celebrations for Quaker care home

20 Jan 2022 | by Rebecca Hardy

The Quaker-managed Bernhard Baron Cottage Homes is welcoming Local Meetings back to its grounds after celebrating its seventy-fifth anniversary late last year. The centre near Eastbourne, Sussex reached its milestone birthday in October 2020, but, with residents divided into two self-contained ‘bubbles’ and no visitors allowed due to lockdown, it was...

Read more

New youth worker for Yorkshire

20 Jan 2022 | by Rebecca Hardy

A new youth worker has been recruited for Quakers in Yorkshire.

Read more

Electric cars: Mic Morgan gets a jump start

20 Jan 2022 | by Mic Morgan

‘Be patterns, be examples’ wrote George Fox. And thus it seems that destruction of the environment through the running of petrol cars, entailing the extraction of crude oil from the Arctic, is not a very good life choice.

Read more

Letters - 21 January 2022

20 Jan 2022 | by The Friend

Population growth Stevie Krayer (17 December 2021) speaks our mind about the need for a change of attitude in addressing the issue of population growth. There is clearly too much focus in medical practice on ‘extending life at all costs’. Retired geriatrician David Jarrett provides an authoritative and very readable analysis of...

Read more