Issue 23 and 30-12-2022
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Thought for the week: Joseph Jones on present dangers
In 1892, the Friend gave a wholehearted welcome to Christmas (‘this happy season’), noting that ‘Puritan objections to its observance have passed away’. Christmas was associated with ‘the greatest event in history’ and Friends ‘ought to hail it and enter into its amenities with ardour and rejoicing’. He who has entered...
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‘Christmas in America’: Janet Payne Whitney, from the 19 December issue, 1941
Even more than we anticipated a week or two ago, our thoughts and our greetings go out this Christmas time to America as a whole and, in particular, to our American Friends and to our English children there. Despite America’s full entry into the war, there will be Christmas...
‘A new year message to the Society of Friends’: Henry T Hodgkin, from 28th 12th Mo. (December), 1917
We are set in the midst of a world of men and women whose chief and deepest need is a living relationship with their Heavenly Father. That fellowship once established, the way is open for fellowship between man and man, and between nation and nation. Out of such an experience...
‘Gold, frankincense, and myrrh’: AD Belden, from the 23 December issue, 1921
Gold for Kingliness! It was a king the wise men sought and it was a King they found. That Babe has placed His royal will upon a thousand million hearts – His hands have waved a world into a new and a more tender way of life – He has brought new...
Quakers address COP27 on climate
Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) was invited to address negotiators representing over sixty-eight countries, and all civil society constituencies, at COP27 in Egypt last month.
‘The Qu-air-kers: A story for children’: Caroline C Graveson, told her by an elderly woman Friend
John and Jane Jessup lived more than a hundred years ago, when Quakers wore a peculiar costume of their own. One First-Day morning they had to go to Meeting, all by themselves. Their mother was ill and their father away. They did not mind the two-mile walk each way, for...
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Schools recognised for peace work
School mediators trained by a Quaker-rooted charity were recognised for their work in resolving conflicts at the National Mediation Awards in Parliament this month.
Quaker speaks on human rights in Russia
Friends discussed how they could support human rights defenders in Russia this month.
Friends mark Human Rights Day
Quakers marked Human Rights Day this month by calling on the UK government to protect the Human Rights Act.
Plans to extend historic Meeting house
Quakers are seeking listed building consent to repair and rebuild a workshop linked to the historic Blue Idol Meeting in West Sussex.
‘The season is again upon us’: Editorial, 24th of 12th month, 1897
The season is again upon us that men call the festival of peace and goodwill. Yet the atmosphere at home and national relationships abroad breathe the spirit of unrest rather than of abiding peace. Uncertainty like the rocking of a sea that cannot rest surrounds us, rather than the quiet...
Poem: ‘What the year has left undone’, from the Twelfth month issue, 1854
It is not what my hands have done, That weighs my spirit down, That casts a shadow on the sun, And over earth a frown: It is not any heinous guilt, Or vice by men abhorred; For fair the frame that I have built, A fair...
Eye - 23 and 30 December 2022
Power and purpose It’s been wonderful to see contributions coming in from you Friends! It has been a particular treat to see how you are sharing and building community with each other. Antonia Swinson, of Richmond Meeting, got in touch to tell Eye about a wide-ranging Meeting for Learning...
Letters - 23 and 30 December 2022
Process of revision By these pickers and stealers – hey, caramba! – I thought within Quakerdom that Friends believed an author’s fingerprints, her breathing, perspiring presence too, were ‘still a thing’ going on behind, within, over and above all typescripts and printed texts! No ‘death-of-the-author’ for us, no no – all is...