Issue 05-12-2014
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Prayer and upholding
Often I hear ‘Let us uphold (this person) in our thoughts and prayers’. There is also frequent comment and discussion among Quakers about different approaches to prayer. There are some people whose prayer takes the form of petitions addressed to a personal God who may or may not intervene to...
Top stories
Vision for our future
Most of us are more comfortable, and understand and express what we believe more easily, with images than with theological abstractions, hence the well known and loved phrase ‘…not a notion but a way’ early in the Advices & queries. That refers to Christianity but it, surely, applies equally to...
Food banks are not enough…
We Quakers can move fast when we need to. In mid-July Central England Area Meeting received minutes from four of its Local Meetings, plus its Peace Committee, in response to the statement on inequality adopted by Meeting for Sufferings in April. It was quickly decided that Peace Committee should be...
Meeting and making Friends
Recollections of the witness and life at this year’s Yearly Meeting Gathering, which was held in Bath in the summer, featured strongly at the recent General Meeting for Scotland in Glasgow. The first session was devoted to the Gathering and we had an impressive array of contributors giving reports....
Words: Christianity
The Religious Society of Friends is rooted in Christianity and has always found inspiration in the life and teachings of Jesus. How do you interpret your faith in the light of this heritage? How does Jesus speak to you today? Advices & queries 4 When I was a child I sometimes...
Words: Words as sacraments
Looking at the stained glass window beyond the prepared altar, waiting for the choir to process in for the requiem mass and considering how Friends do these things very differently, an idea stuck me with great force. Words may be our sacraments, offering a glimpse of the beyond: channels, not...
All articles
Quakers join fuel poverty ‘die-in’
Friends were among a 100-strong group protesting against fuel poverty in London on 28 November. Participants in ‘No more deaths from fuel poverty: Energy Justice Now!’ represented pensioner, anti-poverty, and climate action groups.
Russian adventures at Woodbrooke
Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham recently hosted its first Russia-themed weekend, at the suggestion of Friends House Moscow. ‘Russian Adventures: Russia, Quakers and civil society’ took place on 28-29 November. It attracted almost fifty participants.
Friends meet to challenge inequality
Quakers met in Birmingham on 29 November to discuss practical steps for challenging inequality and austerity. ‘Food Banks are not enough: Practical ideas to challenge inequality’ was organised by Central England Quakers. The conference took place at Bull Street Meeting House.
Quaker schools in anti-bullying stand
Bootham Junior School and Sibford School marked Anti-Bullying Week (17-21 November) in a particularly Quaker way.
US Friends in Washington campaign
American Friends recently staged the biggest pro-peace, pro-diplomacy lobbying day of 2014. The event was organised by the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL). More than 430 people from forty-three states travelled to Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, to urge members of Congress to support the ongoing negotiations with Iran. The lobbying...
PFP aims to educate about Ebola
Purple Field Productions (PFP), founded by Quaker Elspeth Waldie, has launched its latest film, a music video called Ebola is Real. PFP works with people in Africa and Asia to make educational films in local languages. The new video was made with the help of Future View Film Group (FVFG),...
QSA teams up with Mind
Quaker Social Action (QSA) has launched its first project with Mind, the mental health charity. ‘Mindful Money’ is a free ten-week course, taking place in Haringey, North London. It has been designed for people who feel anxious, stressed or depressed because of financial problems. Participants will learn how to manage...
Pickering Friend to be candidate
Alan Avery, who attends Pickering Meeting in Yorkshire, has been selected to stand in the 2015 general election as Labour Party candidate for the Thirsk and Malton constituency.
Voices of the great war
The Grünheide-York Partnership exists to build greater understanding between German and British young people, both across national and across state-independent school divides. Established in 2009, the partnership is between The Mount and Millthorpe Schools in York, and Philipp-Melanchthon Gymnasium near Berlin. It provides students with a chance to meet and...
Hide and seek
We sit round the silence listening to space, concentrating; our thoughts circle the quiet centre of the room. A faint movement far within the darkness, a cry: there, in the pile of books? or in the vase of flowers? the sun’s flash on a gull, high over the sea....
Eye - 05 December 2014
Camels in the catalogues Fascinating photographs from the archive of the Friends Emergency and War Victims Relief Committee have been given some tender loving care during a recent cataloguing project. The images show aspects of relief work carried out across Europe and Russia during and after world war one. The...
Letters - 05 December 2014
Words It has been interesting to follow the series on the meaning of words by Harvey Gillman. The latest one (28 November) on Mysticism may help us to return to our contemplative, yet still practical roots. This is summed up in his last paragraph about a ‘community of practical mystics’. More...