Issue 07-04-2023
Featured story
Thought for the week: John Wattis talks Jesus
‘Attentive to God, attentive to people.’ These were the opening words of a heading for a Lent midweek meeting in our local Churches Together group. The final part was called ‘Talking Jesus’.
Top stories
A piece of Works: Ruth Tod introduces Isaac Penington
In February, our Meeting invited people in our town to see the snowdrops in what used to be the burial ground. The space is now an orchard, with the old gravestones propped up against the walls. As visitors walked through the archway they stopped still, spellbound. ‘This is a sanctuary,’...
Looking after our own people: Elizabeth Coleman talks to Levi Munyemana, a Quaker pastor in North Ki
Recently I asked George Bani, a Friend from South Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), if he could put me in touch with a Quaker in North Kivu. I knew George through Quaker Congo Partnership. I wanted to make contact with North Kivu Friends as I had...
Meet and drink: Tony D’Souza and the toddy tapper
It was the most remarkable encounter of my life. It was perhaps more remarkable because no words passed between us: he did not speak English, and I did not speak Tamil. That didn’t matter, because what happened when I met the toddy tapper was beyond words.
Canterbury Friends’ Covid memorial
Canterbury Friends commemorated the third anniversary of the Covid lockdown by garlanding a tree in their garden with hearts and yellow ribbons.
Eye - 7 April 2023
Flying the Friendly flag Eye was delighted to find a lyrical missive in the mailbag. Ol Rappaport, from Ealing Meeting, reached out to share: ‘I’m currently studying “multiple religious belonging” at Woodbrooke online. [Recently] I was prompted to recall a ditty I penned several decades ago… to be sung...
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QUNO speaks at IPCC climate talks
Quakers were an integral part of a global scientists’ report last month, which delivered a ‘final warning’ on the climate crisis.
Speaking out on Ofsted
The Quaker peace education team has spoken out about the work of Ofsted following outcries over a Berkshire headteacher who took her own life after her school’s stressful inspection.
Glenthorne Quakers support refugees
A Quaker-supported project providing short respite breaks for asylum seekers and refugees continues to grow.
Woodbrooke prepares anthology of memories
Woodbrooke trustees have opened an email address to collect stories from Friends, with the aim of creating an anthology of memories. The move follows the announcement that the building is to close as a Quaker centre, although Woodbrooke will continue online.
Choice: Daniel Clarke Flynn positively discriminates
As a human being with the ability to choose – unlike anything else we know of in creation – I have come to believe that the most important question that I need to ask is: ‘What do I want today?’ I then wait for intuitions and unplanned thoughts to come to me....
A Friendly Word, by Stephen Sayers
This book is relatively short, only about twenty pages, but it covers a huge amount of ground – Quaker ground. It aims to explain what it means to be a Quaker to young people over the age of about seven years.
Letters - 07 April 2023
A third way? If I were living in a country that was threatened by, or subject to, an armed invasion I would not want to stand passively by; but, as a Quaker, I would not feel able to endorse the prior existence of an armaments industry that would be the...