Issue 05-01-2024
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Night visitor: Dennis A Clarke’s Thought for the week
For reasons too tedious to go into, I have recently found myself living in ‘sheltered accommodation’. Some time last month my sleep was disturbed by a fellow resident, who, for reasons best known to himself, took to wandering the hallways in the early hours, trying door handles, resulting in the...
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Talking points: Fred Langridge and Emma Roberts find common ground for conversation
Fred is a transgender man; Emma is a lesbian with gender-critical beliefs. We have some experiences in common around gender non-conformity and dysphoria but, in a very polarised topic, we find ourselves on different sides of a big divide. Last year, following discussion in a Quaker Facebook group, we exchanged...
Centre staged: Dana Smith has words of prayer
Sitting at the dinner table of a Buddhist sangha last year, I was not entirely surprised to be surrounded by folks who had once been Quakers. They spoke of the golden thread that runs through all meditative practice; perhaps it runs through all seeking.
Love child: Peter Leeming has a reflection for Epiphany
‘Nothing is so beautiful as a child who falls asleep while saying its prayers, God says. I tell you there is nothing so beautiful in the world.’ Whenever I read this poem by the French poet Charles Péguy (1873-1914), it arouses powerful memories for me of that precious experience...
in this space we breathe, by Khadija Saye
Among the powerful exhibits at the new Faith Museum in Bishop Auckland is a row of images by Khadija Saye, a Gambian-British photographer born in London in 1992. This series, in this space we breathe, was shown at the Venice Biennale in 2017, and has also been displayed at the British Library.
Body language: Barney Smith has words
Contemporary Quakers tend to put early Quakers on pedestals. This has been important as a way of separating Quakerism from evangelical Christianity of the Victorian era. Evangelicals and early Quakers did after all use the same biblical language, even if they made very different uses of it.
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Friends lobby on anti-democratic bills
The year began with a call from Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), saying there was a ‘pressing need to defend our human rights this year as more anti-democratic measures are in the pipeline’. This included the Bill of Rights and the Public Order Bill.
Woodbrooke building handed over
There was sad news in March when, after 120 years of providing Quaker fellowship and ministry, the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre announced that it was leaving its building.
Quakers divided on ‘loyal address’
Quakers from Britain and Ireland visited Buckingham Palace in the spring after being invited to offer a ‘Loyal Address’ – a historic entitlement to address the monarch.
War in Israel and Gaza
The ongoing war in Israel and Gaza dominated the last three months of the year, after the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October took hostages and killed over 1,200 Israelis. By December, at least 20,000 Palestinians had been killed, according to Gaza Health Ministry figures, including more than 7,700 children.
Friends welcome action on climate loss and damage
Quakers campaigned for climate justice in a year that would be ‘the warmest on record’, scientists said with ‘near certainty’. By November, they said it was 1.43C above the pre-industrial average.
Eye - 5 January 2024
On this day Challenging questions – and the forbidden fruits of cheese, Marmite and broad beans – appeared in the page of the Friend on 5 January 1990, pouring from the pen of Pam Hughes. Pam wrote: ‘“Where art thou?” The question was flung from Genesis without warning at unwary Anglican congregations one recent...
The wasp nest
I am your mother; you were torn from me at birth and at that bloody moment the fear of losing you fluttered through my memory like wasp-wings building their future.
Letters - 05 January 2024
Remaining a Quaker Anne Wade (15 December 2023) is to be applauded for her startlingly honest account of the unkind responses she had received in her Meeting, and how they left her feeling. The responders seem to have lost touch with seeing ‘that of God’ in everyone. It is a profound and...