Issue 05-08-2022

Featured story

Thought for the Week: Daniel Clarke Flynn takes his choice

FREE 4 Aug 2022 | by Daniel Clarke Flynn

From an early age, I heard the advice ‘Be yourself’ but didn’t have a clue what that meant. All I knew about myself is what others told me, particularly those who used the words, ‘you should’ or ‘you must’. I was never asked what I wanted. I was told...

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Top stories

Ill, at ease: Barrie Mahoney on dealing with terminal cancer

4 Aug 2022 | by Barrie Mahoney

‘“Fighting cancer” is an expression that does not sit easily with me.’ | Photo: by Olga Kononenko on Unsplash

Following my ‘Travelling hopefully’ article (13 May), I have received a number of emails, enquiries and comments asking for more information about how I am dealing with my terminal illness. They usually ask if I am having counselling or other support. My answer is that I usually find what I need...

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Through the eyes of the children: a lament

4 Aug 2022 | by Harvey Gillman

'There were so many dreams we could have dreamed together.' | Photo: by Dmitry Ratushny on Unsplash

We were taught to look for the good in everyone. But when your eyes are filled with the blood of your brothers; your ears echo with the cries of your sisters; your head overwhelmed with numbers beyond counting of splinters of dreams scattered profusely over broken pavements, how then are...

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Evil’s advocate: Clive Gordon reads from Isaiah

4 Aug 2022 | by Clive Gordon

‘We have conjured up a god out of our own imaginations, we have projected our own thoughts, and we have thought that that is God.’

In Isaiah 45:7 God says, ‘I make peace, and create evil’ (King James Version). Startling, no? Both ‘peace’ and ‘evil’ do carry a broad connotation in the Hebrew original, which leads to wide variations in translation (the general context of this chapter is of war, suggesting that the word evil here...

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Assuring witness: Melanie Jameson on criminal justice work

4 Aug 2022 | by Melanie Jameson

‘We regard work in the area of criminal justice as fundamental to our Quaker testimonies and our history.’ | Photo: by Hasan Almasi on Unsplash

You may be wondering what has happened to Quaker criminal justice work. Wasn’t it being laid down? And wasn’t there rather a fuss about it at Meeting for Sufferings? ‘Yes’ and ‘Yes’. This time last year, Quakers in Criminal Justice (QICJ) learned that, due to restructuring, our work...

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Stopping traffic: Charlotte Ward on modern slavery

4 Aug 2022 | by Charlotte Ward

‘Many everyday items are produced by slave labour.’ | Photo: by Hermes Rivera on Unsplash

In May, Boston Meeting hosted a talk on modern slavery. We had two very interesting speakers, both of whom clearly felt very passionate about their subject.

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BYM joins calls to end closure of Gaza

FREE 4 Aug 2022 | by Rebecca Hardy

Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has joined calls for the UK government to take urgent action to end the blockade of Gaza.

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Friends mark Hiroshima and Nagasaki Day

FREE 4 Aug 2022 | by Rebecca Hardy

Central England Quakers are preparing for their annual Coventry Hiroshima Remembrance at Coventry Cathedral. Now in its thirty-fifth year, the service will be live-streamed from the nave of Coventry Cathedral on 6 August. The day is to mark the seventy-seventh anniversary since the first atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima – and...

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Play to mark Hiroshima wins award

4 Aug 2022 | by Rebecca Hardy

The Quaker actor and playwright Michael Mears has won an award for his play based on the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

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Stratford Quakers house Ukrainian refugees

4 Aug 2022 | by Rebecca Hardy

Quakers in Stratford-upon-Avon have welcomed a Ukrainian family to the warden’s flat at their Meeting house. The accommodation became vacant in April following the death of the warden. The family – husband, wife and teenage son – arrived in mid-July through the Homes for Ukraine scheme.

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Woodbrooke talks of ‘period of significant change’

4 Aug 2022 | by Rebecca Hardy

The Quaker study centre Woodbrooke has issued a statement signalling ‘a period of significant change’. Describing how ‘the pandemic has changed Woodbrooke irrevocably’, the statement published on 28 July says that ‘new challenges have brought long-standing issues of financial sustainability into sharp focus’.

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Conversation piece: Terry Faull meets a sceptic

4 Aug 2022 | by Terry Faull

It all began with a casual conversation. Most of us have had one of these, often with someone to whom we have just been introduced. But in this one, after the usual exchanges of ‘Where do you live’, and ‘What do you do?’, came: ‘I understand you are a Quaker....

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Safe keeping: Abigail Maxwell on radical vulnerability

4 Aug 2022 | by Abigail Maxwell

The Quaker Meeting is not a safe space. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Here, we meet God in ourselves and others, which may change us. The door is open, and Jesus’ brothers and sisters may come in: hungry, sick, convicted.

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Letters - 05 August 2022

4 Aug 2022 | by The Friend

From heads to hearts I really enjoyed Michael Saunders’ ‘Back from the Dead’ (8 July). Whenever I reflect on ‘Death of God’ theology I am, in a very roundabout way, reminded of those words of Eckhart von Hochheim: ‘I pray to God, to rid me of God’. In so many ways...

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