Issue 24-08-2012
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Divine Light and the light of reason
The dichotomy between the divine and the secular, theism and nontheism, science and religion, God and man has occupied Friends for decades. Some Friends ask whether we are willing to be obedient to divine guidance if it goes against secular notions. Others worry that empirical science cannot demonstrate the existence...
Top stories
Punishment enough
The government is planning to construct ways for offenders to make amends to victims. Addressing the All Party Parliamentary Penal Affairs Group in July, justice minister Tom McNally set out measures to increase capacity and capability for restorative justice.
The Quaker camper
Advices and Queries No. 43 When in Norfolk, do you carry with you at all times a stout umbrella, anorak or tarpaulin, capable of withstanding the most sudden and inescapable of downpours? When walking along the shingle beach or sandy dunes of Snettisham in the height of summer, do you...
The Snettisham Saga
Beneath the tent an archaeologist mole is heard blindly tunnelling for worms building hills as he goes. A snuffling hedgehog cleans pots and pans, whilst trusty giant poplars await our return through a sneaky hole in the hedge shielding us from the icy blast.
All together now
For the past year Liverpool Meeting has been supporting All Together Now, a small project to deliver ‘mindfulness’ to Liverpool schools. Whilst mindfulness is central to Buddhist practices, this project builds on the secular approach, which has been developed primarily for adults, and is beginning to be used across a...
Personal queries
I have always preferred action to words, and doing rather than telling others what to do. A large part of my life has been spent in work in Africa, the Pacific and Britain with voluntary bodies (for example: the Citizens Advice Bureau, the World Development Movement, the World University...
All articles
Quakers at Manchester Pride
Manchester and Warrington Friends are making a lively contribution to the ten-day celebrations of Manchester Pride this year.
Norway launches ‘debt audit’
The principle that lenders are responsible for the debts they create, particularly in the developing world, has been highlighted in a historic announcement by the Norwegian government.
Food crisis in West Africa
Christian Aid is escalating its appeal for funds to tackle the food crisis in the Sahel region of West Africa amid reports that the situation is deteriorating fast.
‘Gift box’ in Friends House garden
The public garden at Friends House in London will host one of the more creative projects of the London Olympics.
Quakers at the Fringe
Ragtime music from the time of Scott Joplin will be echoing around the Quaker Meeting House in Edinburgh this Thursday.
Talking peace at Greenbelt
Peace, nonviolence and social justice will be high on the agenda of the Greenbelt Festival held at Cheltenham racecourse from 24 to 27 August.
Presence in the midst
The picture ‘The presence in the midst’ is one that I have seen in many Meeting houses. It depicts a deeply gathered Quaker Meeting of former years, with the genders segregated, and the filmy figure of Jesus as the otherwise unseen presence.
The Boy’s Own Paper
How does an idea begin? I’m going back to 1879. My great grandfather, Ebenezer Henderson Smith, is twenty-eight. There are no comics for young people, but plenty of good storywriters.
Eye - 24 August 2012
Friendly flora Thank you to budding botanist Malcolm Edmunds, of Preston Meeting, who wrote in to help us widen our familiarity with flora: ‘The caption to the attractive cover of the Friend (10 August) says it is a Gladiolus, but it is actually a very different plant belonging to the Mallow...
Letters - 24 August 2012
Land value tax Ralph Hill mentioned Land Value Tax (‘Many Marthas’ 10 August). This was one of two prime recommendations raised at the Woodbrooke weekend on the economy and the Quaker testimonies. The other was to prevent banks creating money – as is being put forward by Positive Money. Most proposals require...