Issue 18-03-2022
Featured story
That’s the Spirit: Madeleine Pennington’s Thought for the Week
As horrific images emerge from Ukraine I have found myself grappling with what to pray for. I have heard the prayers for the Ukrainian people, and echo them, but I’m also reminded of Jesus’ instruction to ‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you’.
Top stories
Quakers seek funding for Ukrainian refugees
European Quakers are investigating ways to set up funding for those affected by the war in Ukraine.
Theology and witness: Religion of peace in time of war by Michael Saunders
I have written before of the work of the Anglican Quaker Graham Shaw (‘Help in hand’, 17 December 2021). I have recently had cause to return to his work because of the careful attention he pays to the ways in which appeals to God can enable an evasion of responsibility. Shaw’s...
Truth ache: The clerks of a new Quaker group make their case
For some time now the Friend has been publishing concerns about the state of truth and integrity in our country. The 2021 Swarthmore Lecture looked at creating space for truth, and an entire issue of the Friends Quarterly was devoted to the subject. Every so often, a fresh cultural tide sweeps...
Faulty tower: Lucy Pollard visits Penrhyn Castle
I recently visited Penrhyn Castle, a National Trust property in North Wales. The castle, designed by Thomas Hopper, was built over the years 1820-37 by the Douglas-Pennant family. They made their money in the sugar plantations of Jamaica, from enslaved people, and in the slate mines of their native country,...
Outgrowing Dawkins: God for grown-ups, by Rupert Shortt
I have a feeling that neither atheists nor the irreligious (nor the indifferent) will really feel the need to read this book. They’ve made up their minds, as Rupert Shortt indicates in a chapter entitled ‘A dialogue of the deaf’. But it’s important for the religiously inclined to...
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Rabbi proposes kindertransport-inspired initiative
A rabbi in Kent is attempting to set up a ‘Ukrainetransport’ for families fleeing the Russian invasion. Jonathan Romain’s mother fled Nazi Germany on the kindertransport which Quakers helped set up during world war two.
Islington school in Quaker peace education film
A London School is modelling the importance of peace education with the help of a new Quaker initiative.
London Quakers uphold sex and gender diversity
London Quakers have organised a third session on the topic of ‘Sex and Gender Diversity’. The day on 24 March follows two previous sessions last June and December.
Quakers oppose human rights changes
Plans to reform the Human Rights Act will create two classes of humans – one with protected rights and another whose rights could be violated, Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has told the government.
Meeting for Sufferings: Yearly Meeting (YM)
It was difficult to know someone in the Spirit unless you first knew them in the temporal, said Siobhan Haire, introducing herself as clerk nominate of YM 2022. Like many Friends, she was figuring out how to reconnect with her Local Meeting after the pandemic. The morning’s conversation about hearing...
Meeting for Sufferings: Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW)
Offering Friends an update on QPSW, which had been restructured in 2021, Oliver Robertson, head of worship and witness, said that the department looked at the links between various social issues, which other organisations didn’t pick up. The emphasis now was on supporting Quakers where they were. Friends sometimes wrote...
Meeting for Sufferings: Sunday
Before worship on Sunday morning, Friends dealt with greetings to other Yearly Meetings and some simplification to the section in Quaker faith & practice on marriage.
Swift
The best would be the gift to heal; And what exchange could yield that gift? But hope compels the mind to kneel And then in silence turn the wheel; With each rotation short and swift The best would be the gift to heal.
Letters - 18 March 2022
Saving Ukrainians Military confrontation by Ukraine to the Russian invasion cannot succeed against such overwhelming might as admitted by the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenksy. Further violent confrontation will cause immensely more suffering as promised by the Russian president Vladimir Putin. Ukrainian towns are being bombarded, their food, water and electricity...