Issue 27-07-2012
Featured story
Thought for the Week: The Quaker testimonies
And this is the word of the Lord God to you all, and a charge to you all in the presence of the living God: be patterns, be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come, that your carriage and life may preach among all sorts of people...
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Walking through silence
As soon as I could walk my parents gathered their patience about them and refused to carry or push me. I was brought up pattering through puddles and stomping through leaf mould. All of our holidays took us to wild places and, with two outdoor instructors caring for me, I...
Quakers and the Olympics
Quakers are responding in a big way to the needs of people attending the Olympics and Paralympics in the next few weeks. Peter Green has been appointed as a Quaker chaplain in a multi-faith team for the 2012 Games. He had been nominated as a delegate to More Than Gold ...
Q-CAT garden wins gold
A gold medal has been awarded to Dori Miller’s garden at the RHS Tatton Show. The garden was inspired by the Quaker Concern for the Abolition of Torture’s (Q-CAT) aim to end torture and complicity in torture.
Wisdom
Is there any real place for wisdom in our frenetic, postmodern, quasi-apocalyptic, multi-tasking, dual- income, economically challenging world? This is one of the questions Stephen S Hall asks in Wisdom: From Philosophy to Neuroscience. He maintains that among ordinary people there is a hunger for any excuse to raise their...
Religion for atheists
I looked forward to this book, hoping it might speak to those looking for a faith with no taint of dogma or superstition; wisdom without doctrine, as the author calls it.
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Young Quakers to explore politics
Young Quakers are planning to explore politics and activism at a weekend gathering in London this summer. The event, aimed mainly at Quakers aged 18-40, will take place at Westminster Meeting House on the second weekend in August.
JRF and JRHT look for trustees
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) and the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust (JRHT) are looking for new trustees. Trustees are selected by a joint search group of Meeting for Sufferings and JRF/JRHT.
Refurbishment gets planning permission
The refurbishment of Friends House, London, was granted planning permission by the London Borough of Camden on 19 July.
Bullying in schools
The majority of lesbian, gay or bisexual students have been bullied at school because of their sexuality. New research, published by the charity Stonewall and based on research it had commissioned, shows that the effect of such bullying is often severe. Twenty-eight per cent of bullied pupils had attempted suicide,...
Welfare cuts
Something dangerous is happening to our spiritual and moral values. Should we, as Quakers, sit by and ignore our testimony to equality while our poorest and most vulnerable members of society are picked on by those more powerful than they are and forced into increasing poverty when they most need...
What shape my soul?
We talk about our soul, spirit, nonphysical being as something coming from inside us, contained within us. When we are in Meeting for Worship, are our spirits combining with each other? If so, would this be as discrete entities, like ribbons on a maypole weaving patterns around each other?...
Eye - 27 July 2012
All the bells Ring in the Olympics! A unique bell-ringing event will soon be taking place nationwide. Martin Creed, the Turner-prize-winning artist and musician, was commissioned by the Cultural Olympiad to create a piece to welcome the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. ‘Work No. 1197: All the bells in a country...
Letters - 27 July 2012
‘Cooperation is better than conflict’ This was the headline of an article in Quaker News number 81. Sounds good, but do we have eyes to see how such a statement could itself escalate such conflict? Conflict isn’t usually a choice. It often results from a situation in which people feel...