Issue 17-10-2014
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Diverse spirituality
How much is our Meeting like a tree? Do we remember the importance of roots below the surface [as made so clear in much Indian art]? Do we appreciate their strength in stopping our tree falling down? Do the roots go down to the deep, to divine vitality which feeds...
Top stories
Climate action without fanaticism
My mother died in June and my brother, sister and I have been clearing her flat. I picked up a small book there by Amos Oz, How to Cure a Fanatic. Writing about the roots of violence in Israel and Palestine he says: ‘The essence of fanaticism lies in the...
Meeting for Sufferings: Warwick chosen for YMG 2017
Yearly Meeting Gathering (YMG) 2017 will be at Warwick University from Saturday 29 July to Saturday 5 August, Friends heard at Meeting for Sufferings on 4 October. Warwick University has been chosen as it is particularly compact, modern and accessible, according to the Yearly Meeting Agenda Committee (YMAC). The nearest mainline railway station, Coventry,...
Unique Quaker building gains award
The Friends Institute on Moseley Road in Birmingham has been listed at Grade II* by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, on the advice of English Heritage.
Quakers witness for peace
Quakers were among those who took part in a national anti-war demonstration held in London on Saturday 4 October. Before joining the Stop Bombing Iraq march, the fifteen-strong group met in Temple Place for Meeting for Worship.
Bruce Kent speaks at Bury St Edmunds
Veteran anti-war campaigner Bruce Kent gave a talk at Bury St Edmunds Meeting House on Sunday 5 October. A seventy-strong audience heard him speak on ‘Striving for Peace in a Troubled World’. Bruce called on more young people to campaign for peace and said that a relatively small number of people...
All articles
Palestinian statehood
A motion to recognise Palestine as a state was backed by 274 votes to 12 in the House of Commons on Monday 13 October. The motion, put forward by Labour MP Grahame Morris, urged the government to ‘recognise the state of Palestine alongside the state of Israel as a contribution to securing a...
Meeting for Sufferings: New terms for sustainability group
Terms of reference for a new Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) Sustainability Group were brought to Meeting for Sufferings last week. In June the Minute 36 Group had recommended that a new group be set up to oversee BYM’s commitment to sustainability. This was accepted.
First event in Large Meeting House
The Large Meeting House at Friends House hosted its first post-refurbishment event, for Birkbeck College, on 30 September.
Mount School menu success
The Mount School in York has been awarded a prestigious national food industry award. James Goodwin, chef manager at The Mount, won the accolade of Independent School Caterer of the Year at the annual EDUcatering Awards at the Royal Garden Hotel, Kensington.
1914
A television documentary screened earlier this year told the story of the ill-fated convoy PQ 17 carrying tanks, planes and ammunition from Iceland to Russia. The protective naval escort having been withdrawn to deal with possible attack by German warships, the convoy was attacked for five days by aircraft and submarines....
The advantages of failure
Once upon a time I was a barrister. Barristers are close to the police. Robert Mark was then commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Once when asked by a student at a police training college how he coped with public order disasters, such as riots in Leicester Square, Robert Mark told...
Open for transformation: Being Quaker
Open For Transformation: Being Quaker is, for me, one of the most important and timely Swarthmore Lectures for a long time. I write from the perspective of one of the majority of British Friends who was not at Bath to hear the lecture by Ben Pink Dandelion at first hand....
Words: Church
In his Journal, George Fox tells of an encounter with a priest in Leicester: He asked me what a church was? I told him the church was the pillar and ground of truth, made up of living stones, living members, a spiritual household, which Christ was the head of; but...
Perth in stitches
Two years ago a small group of Friends in Perth began planning an outreach event for our city. The result of these plans and dedicated work has been stunning. We arranged to display twelve photographs of panels from the Quaker Tapestry in the main library in Perth. This exhibition would...
Doubt and faith
Many people in search of a living faith have doubts but, as Harry Emerson Fosdick put it, doubt is not the enemy of faith, it is ‘the growing edge’ of faith. Some religious people think that unbelief is sinful, but no-one can make another believe until he can ‘so exhibit...
Eye - 17 October 2014
Joyful patchwork A delighted Quaker prison chaplain recently visited ‘Catching Dreams’, the annual Koestler Trust exhibition. Joolz Saunders, of Norfolk and Waveney Area Meeting, said: ‘Imagine my thrill walking into the exhibition… and seeing the patchwork shoulder bag I had encouraged one of “my” ex-prisoners in Norwich to submit hanging...
Letters - 17 October 2014
Commemoration of the first world war I was glad to read Michael Bartlet’s piece on affirming the significance of each individual death (3 October). I have recently held a commemoration at the retirement complex where I live. I made a display of photos, letters and so on of five family...