Issue 12-01-2024
Featured story
Thought for the week: Barrie Mahoney’s window of opportunity
Glass, with its transparent quality, can serve as a metaphor for clarity and purity, and the interplay of light and glass has long captivated human imagination. In many spiritual traditions, including Quakerism, light symbolises the presence of God – the Light. Symbolically, it represents the clarity that spiritual seekers strive for...
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A fair COP? Lindsey Fielder Cook reflects on last year’s climate change conference in Dubai
The climate change Conference of Parties (COP28) in Dubai broke a certain silence. For the first time, nation states overcame strong resistance from wealthy fossil fuel extractors and confirmed the need for ‘transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems’.
Eye - 12 January 2024
A bunch of interesting stuff Barbara Mayhew, of Bury St Edmunds Meeting, recently reported that her grandson William, aged ten, was heard saying this about the Quakers: ‘My Granny does a bunch of interesting stuff. She goes to the Quakers, which is quite cool – they are rather like the Boy...
Peace Museum has January refit
The recently-relocated Peace Museum in Bradford is starting the new year by refitting its new building. The museum showed off its new premises recently in the iconic Salts Mill, in the World Heritage village of Saltaire, Bradford.
Two of a kind: Adrian Glamorgan on QUNO’s assistants programme
While visiting Quaker House in Geneva last year (see ‘United front’, 20 September, 2023), I wondered what Friends in Britain could learn from some of the dynamics between staff at the Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO). I was particularly interested in the relationship between the programme assistants and the programme representatives.
Mediterranean at El Palo, Malaga
A warm evening. The low voice of waves against the sand. Inevitable. A bridge. Here you can cross. Here there are no walls. No custom posts. No defining flag. No halls for inspecting the luggage of one’s life. No pack smuggled over. No flight. No call to declare. No...
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QSA families given ten days to leave
Two families from the Quaker Social Action (QSA) Cook Up project have been given ten days or fewer to leave their accommodation. This is despite rules that say refugees claiming asylum should be given at least twenty-eight days’ notice to leave any accommodation provided by the Home Office.
Second Quaker ‘Truth & Integrity’ award
Nominations for the second Quaker Truth & Integrity Group (QTIG) award opened on 1 January. The award will be made to an individual or organisation in recognition of an exceptional contribution towards the enhancement of standards of truth and integrity in public life in Britain.
Lawsuit against forest defenders dropped
A Manchester Friend has been celebrating after a leading timber company withdrew a lawsuit against indigenous forest defenders in Borneo.
Milton Keynes Friends witness for climate
Milton Keynes Friends are planning to hold monthly climate vigils after responding to a request from the Quaker Climate Action Group (QCAG).
Playing by the rule: Jennifer Kavanagh is resolved
I don’t make formal New Year resolutions, though I usually have some intentions in mind. Last year I went to a Woodbrooke retreat, led by Ben Pink Dandelion and Alex Wildwood. During the weekend we were asked to write a rule to live by. On the morning of this...
All Shall Be Well, by Richard Essberger
When I was first introduced to All Shall Be Well, I had not yet met Richard Essberger, its author. We had, however, been in a correspondence about one of the characters in the book – Tessa Rowntree, who plays a small but pivotal role in the story. The Rowntree Society, where...
Letters - 12 January 2024
Climate change The catastrophic effects of climate change on our planet, humankind, and many other living species, will be worse, I suggest, than any other event that the world has encountered in historical times, including nuclear wars, genocides and pandemics. The inability of politicians to take effective action is appalling....