Issue 14-04-2023
Featured story
Search me: Chris Rose’s Thought for the week
I was recently at my Area Meeting’s fellowship day. While we were there, some visitors arrived and a Friend showed them around. He said they’d asked what Quakers believe. He didn’t say how he answered, but I suspect they would have got slightly different answers from each...
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On track: Peter D Leeming commends ‘journeying in the faith’
It was still dark when we arrived at the station, and my neighbour was eager to get back home. But before walking over to his car he paused and said quietly, ‘Remember, my friend, you travel in faith!’ He knew that I was worried. Prior to reunification, travel from West...
Affirmative action: Robert Ashton finds a helpful charity
I’ve recently been reading William Booth’s excellent book In Darkest England. First published in 1890, Booth writes about recycling, food banks, and enterprises that create employment for people in poverty. Then, these were radical ideas; today they are commonplace. Booth, of course, founded the Salvation Army, and so knew...
Sally Beamish releases new Quaker-commissioned work
A new choral work by Quaker composer Sally Beamish, commissioned by Friends, is now available on YouTube.
What the animals said
Ashamed of cars and war, I went to the place of earth and sat under a ring of damson trees, and asked the damson stone to call the animals round. It took its time, took my hand to feel the twisted trunks, brittle twigs, the age-long infancy of damson, its...
What’s in store? Angela Greenwood attends ‘The Big Sit’
A few weeks ago I had a conversation with S, a fellow Quaker, after Meeting. It was about a ‘Stop the War’ demonstration she was going to in London that weekend. I shared my memory of going to a similar one many years ago. While I respected her decision to...
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Quakers gear up for ‘The Big One’
Quakers up and down the country are planning to take part in Extinction Rebellion (XR)’s planned days of witness for climate action this month. Titled ‘The Big One’, and running from 21 to 24 April in Westminster, organisers aim to attract around 100,000 people to call for urgent action on the climate...
BYM ‘disappointed’ by UK net zero strategy
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has expressed ‘profound disappointment and concern’ that the revised net zero strategy announced on 30 March provides ‘so little of what is needed to meet the vast challenge of ending the fossil fuel era’.
Quakers launch ‘listening space’
Friends from Central England joined the first Quaker Listening Space last month, hosted by the Quaker group Restoring Relations.
Quaker lockdown group meets for the first time
Twenty-nine people from a Quaker group formed in lockdown came to meet together in person for the very first time at the Quaker Glenthorne Guest House and Conference Centre last month. The Friends spent the weekend of 17-19 March together in Grasmere in Cumbria to celebrate three years of Meeting...
Epistle from Junior Yearly Meeting 2023, April 1-4
‘Our weekend was filled with fascinating explorations of truth, power, and integrity. As young Quakers, we experienced the importance of building community and forming meaningful connections. Throughout the weekend, we participated in Base Groups, which provided a familial atmosphere that enabled us to quickly become comfortable with one another. This...
The Varieties of Spiritual Experience: 21st century research and perspectives, by David B Yaden and
Have you ever had a spiritual experience? If so, you are among the thirty-five per cent of people who have, according to this fascinating book.
Eye - 14 April 2023
Friends of all ages in Reading Meeting created a ‘Quaker quilt of joy’ in February. Julia Dover, the youth children and families development worker for Thames Valley, told Eye what inspired the idea: ‘It was noted among Reading Friends that despite attending Meeting for many years – decades in some cases –...
Letters - 14 April 2023
The Peace Testimony David Boulton (17 March) states a simple truth. ‘Russia invaded a country… in defiance of international law.’ History does repeat itself sadly without the lessons being learnt. In 1968 Russia (then the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) invaded Czechoslovakia to overthrow the government of Alexander Dubček. As the...