Issue 06-07-2012
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Happy New (financial) Year!
In common with all charities, The Friend Publications has a financial year end: a fixed day each year when we tot up all the ‘ins’ and all the ‘outs’ and breathe a sigh of relief that the ‘ins’ nearly always exceed the ‘outs.’ For The Friend Publications (a small,...
Top stories
Interview: George Lakey - Peace, justice and conflict
Would it be fair to say, George, that your commitment to nonviolence and your faith grew together? Very much. It was a mercy to discover the seventeenth-century Quakers, who were cousins of the Levellers and the Diggers and so on. They were part of that whole revolutionary ferment that...
Welsh concerns
If only he hadn’t had to conduct a marriage ceremony. Had he come, it might have felt like an historic moment of ecumenism. Local Friends had invited the vicar of Meifod in Powys to join Meeting of Friends in Wales in its Saturday afternoon session. In Meifod’s...
Getting to no
I have a university friend getting married this summer. I confirmed I’d go and booked the flights to her home in Israel. Then the thunderbolt hit. It was a line in an email, that a forthcoming study (from an oil company, no less) predicts 6˚C warming by the...
Buddhist wisdom and the earth
The respect given to Burma’s opposition leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, and Tibet’s spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, this June in Britain is heartening to Buddhist Quakers like myself; for they are outstanding Buddhist practitioners of nonviolence and well tested by the suffering of their peoples and of...
Quaker addresses Methodists
‘How did a Quaker chartered accountant become a dangerous man?’ asked Richard Murphy, co-founder of the Tax Justice Network on Monday. He was giving the Beckly Lecture, part of the annual Methodist Conference. Richard Murphy – who considers himself as ‘a Quaker with some Anglican leanings’ – was described as ‘dangerous’...
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Christians need to be open to change
The new president and the vice-president of the Methodist Conference have said that Christians need to be more open to change and to welcome people as they are. They were speaking at the annual gathering of Britain’s Methodists, held in Plymouth from 28 June to 5 July.
Commemoration prompts controversy
The commemoration given to Bomber Command last week, and the unveiling of a memorial statue in Green Park, London, has prompted controversy. Thousands of poppies were dropped over the area by a Lancaster bomber as part of the commemoration.
Pilgrims reach Canterbury
Quakers were among a group of pilgrims who have walked from London to Canterbury as a witness against economic injustice. Around thirty-five supporters of Occupy Faith – a group formed by religious supporters of the Occupy movement – spent twelve days on the walk, while others joined for parts of the...
George Lakey to tour UK
A leading US Quaker activist is about to begin a speaking tour of England and Scotland. George Lakey, who has trained thousands of people in nonviolent direct action in five continents, will speak at ten venues in July. In the 1960s, George Lakey joined the civil rights movement...
Deepening the Life of the Spirit
Few Friends will be surprised that as Meeting co-clerk I get a lot of mail. Much of this needs sifting, sorting, being presented to an appropriate Friend or quietly filing away. One packet that was not for quiet filing was Ginny Wall’s new booklet Deepening the Life of the...
What does Quakerism mean to you?
Quakerism, for me, is a sense of community and inclusivity, a sense of belonging and a sense of friendship. The story below reflects this. I was at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre a few years ago and was reading a classic novel: George Orwell’s 1984. I decided to go down...
Found poem in three voices
Greece Greece is gripped by the spectre of isolation beneath the surface is deep fear and anger A bloated and corrupt centre has sucked the economy dry Most Greeks want to stay in the EU as guarantee against Turkey where memories go back to age old enmity
Eye - 06 July 2012
A Round Tuit Right. I am Definitely going to do it. Now. Probably… To be honest, I’m a bit cold at the moment. What with it being summer (!) and the price of oil and everything, I haven’t lit the Rayburn. And the storage heaters take a while to...
Letters - 06 July 2012
A Concern for Syria Kurds in Syria have been fighting systematic torture, arbitrary arrests and oppression by the regime for many years, but the arrest and torture of a group of children from Dara’a on 6 March 2011 led to mass peaceful protests in the streets inspired by the ‘Arab Spring’....