Issue 06-06-2014
Featured story
Thought for the Week: God. Holy? Pure?
What does a word mean? How do we know what thoughts are in someone’s head? If we are listening carefully, we are listening for the meaning behind their words, from the smallest child to the cleverest intellectual. I love doing theology from a phenomenological perspective: what that person, wherever...
Top stories
Assisted dying – towards a Quaker view?
When we joined Leeds Area Meeting’s End of Life Care working party just over a year ago little did we think that the work of the group would coincide with such an increase of public interest in the issue of assisted dying. It is hoped that Charles Falconer’s...
Divine love
Oxford English Dictionary definitions suggest that divine love is strong feelings of affection having to do with God. It is usually felt to be a gift of universal love from God to mankind. Are all Friends of the Truth at ease with this broad statement? Is love a universal...
On the complexity of simplicity
The Quaker testimony to simplicity urges us to live our lives simply. I enjoyed a certain smugness for many years, in the belief that I was practising simplicity because I was driving a Citroën 2CV motor car – the much-loved Freda. It was a very basic vehicle. I contemplated writing...
Baptism in the Spirit
These are the details of the most important days of my life, as I remember them, after fifty years. The memories were prompted by a letter from my close spiritual friend Dawson Price, dated 16 January 2014. They were also prompted by words from Quaker faith & practice: ‘…the Quaker position...
Jewish worship in York
York will again see regular Jewish services, almost forty years after its last synagogue closed – at Friargate Meeting House. The first Shabbat morning service will take place on Saturday 14 June, led by Liberal Judaism’s chief executive, rabbi Danny Rich. Subsequent services will be held on the second Saturday...
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New Meeting house opens for worship
The new Kingston Quaker Centre in South West London will host its first Meeting for Worship at 10am on Sunday 15 June. The following Sunday, the Centre will hold a ‘friends and family day’. Beginning at 10am with a Meeting for Worship, this will continue until 4pm, with lunch, musical...
British Museum action continue
London-based Friends staged a third protest at the British Museum on Tuesday 3 June. A group of sixteen people held a silent Meeting for Worship in the building’s atrium as an act of witness in opposition to the role of BP as a corporate sponsor of the museum. ...
Prisoners need more help
More needs to be done to help prisoners, asserts a former Quaker prison chaplain in a new book. Confessions of a Prison Chaplain, by Mary Brown, was published last week and deals with her experience of the criminal justice system. ‘One in three prisoners have been in care...
Brighton Friends seek ideas for new initiative
Friends in Brighton are seeking ideas from other Quaker Meetings for an initiative that aims to bring together people who hold different views on the Palestine/Israel conflict. They intend to offer Brighton Meeting House as a place of ‘encounter and sharing’ for local people concerned with the situation.
New Rowntree biography
A new biography of the Victorian philanthropist, educationalist and social reformer Joseph Rowntree is to be published in the autumn.
Cadbury story on film
The conflicts faced by the Cadbury family of Birmingham in the first world war were featured in a half-hour film on BBC One West Midlands on 2 June.
Drones and human rights
In March, the Human Rights Council passed a resolution calling on all states to ensure that their use of armed drones complies with international human rights law. The resolution was tabled by Pakistan, following a recommendation from Ben Emmerson, the special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights...
Tax justice
‘May we look upon our treasure, the furniture of our houses, and our garments, and try to discover whether the seeds of war have nourishment in these our possessions.’ These words of John Woolman, written in about 1770, underline that our prophetic role as a peace church extends beyond war...
Letters - 06 June 2014
Tua’r Tarddiad Gerald Hewitson’s piece about the cultural and emotional differences in tone and meaning between two languages (30 May) must have rung bells for many Friends struggling to express themselves in more than simply their mother tongue. Swiss German was spoken in my family, but we lived in...