Issue 03-01-2014
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Being a Quaker
The badge ‘I’m a Quaker – ask me why’ encourages and challenges us all to articulate our own responses. Sharing with one another why we are Quakers, what belonging means to us, and what we have found in becoming Friends, enriches the quality of fellowship within Meetings. It also gives...
Top stories
The jewel of Quakerism?
We are now considering ‘What it means to be a Quaker today’ and there is much to rejoice in, particularly in our worship and witness. I hope we can also examine in what ways, and why, other aspects of our Quaker lives are in need of change. This, I feel,...
Ways of seeing
Earlier this year my husband – after almost forty years in the field of law – decided to become an art dealer. He’d seek out prints and paintings by neglected artists, research into them, get some restoration done and create a website. Would I be his business partner? It’s normal...
Does RE matter?
Devon and Cornwall Friends recently hosted a public event to draw attention to the large-scale changes in education that have affected the teaching of Religious Education (RE). It was well attended and included a thought provoking speech by Ed Pawson on ‘Does RE matter?’ followed by a short discussion. ...
Love and Light
As many of you will know, I have recently been diagnosed with a terminal illness and my future life expectancy is not great. There is a saying: we are not human beings on a spiritual journey, we are spiritual beings on a human journey.
Credo
Credo in unum deum, patrem omnipotentem, factorem coeli et terrae, visibilium omnium et invisibilium… (I believe in one god, the father almighty, maker of heaven and earth and of all things visible and invisible…). I’ve sung these and similar words on many occasions but, for a long time,...
All articles
Drugs and crime
I have been attending the UN Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Commission meeting for many years on behalf of the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC). In April last year I had a meeting in Vienna with Gilberto Gerra, chief of the drugs and health branch of the United Nations...
Afterwords
Earlier this year I attended a Quaker Meeting after a long break, having lived abroad for a year. It was not my usual Meeting for Worship. We were given an opportunity, directly after worship, to take part in what they called ‘Afterwards’ or ‘Afterwords’ – a discussion about the worship. People...
Precious words
There have been a lot of contributions in the Friend recently on the subject of God and what could be termed the ‘God/no God controversy’. Whether we like it or not, we are a registered charity with the Charity Commission of England and Wales. We have a registration number....
Silence is
What is this silence in which we sit? Yes, a solemnly maintained sacrament, Yes, a strange keeping of the sabbath, But also, much more, Silence is the builder of HaMakom, a sacred temple in which we commune, Silence is a sanctuary for Shekinah, known to others as Huwa...
Ghost town
In 1981 I was a postgraduate student at the University of Warwick, living in Earlsdon, one of Coventry’s satellite villages, and periodically attending the lovely, modern Quaker Meeting on Hill Street. I was aware, through that spring and summer, of rising tensions between skinhead and Asian youths. There was an...