Issue 13-02-2015
Featured story
Thought for the Week: True self
Take heed, dear Friends, to the promptings of love and truth in your hearts. Trust them as leadings of God whose Light shows us our darkness and brings new life. (Advices & queries 1) What is it to sit in silence, waiting for God? God is always here. Our True Self...
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Mary’s Joy
Jeanmarie Simpson is an American Quaker actor and playwright. She is bringing her one woman show ‘Mary’s Joy’ to Europe this month and will be performing it in Britain and Europe from February until September. The play examines the life of Mary Dyer, who was the first colonial woman...
Genetic therapy
Earlier this month MPs voted to permit a radical new procedure, using the genes of three people to form a baby. If the House of Lords agree, children could be born from this procedure as soon as 2016. Most of our genes are in the nucleus of the cell: 22,000 of them....
Meeting for Sufferings: Quaker values in education
In late 2013 some Area Meetings brought concerns to Meeting for Sufferings about the state of education in Britain today. The concern has grown strongly since then through an informal ‘Quaker Values in Education’ group and other initiatives. A threshing gathering, held at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in August 2014, was...
Meeting for Sufferings: Sufferings told of a ‘Quaker treasure box’
Rowena Loverance, assistant clerk of Quaker Committee for Christian and Interfaith Relations (QCCIR), spoke to their annual report. She explained that QCCIR reports to Meeting for Sufferings every year, but this is the first time under the committee’s new set of terms of reference. Douglas Butterfield and Ben Wood...
Meeting for Sufferings: What it means to be a Quaker today - membership
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) recording clerk Paul Parker spoke to his paper ‘What it means to be a Quaker today’, presented at Yearly Meeting 2014. He focused on Minute 40, which asked for two things. The first of these was ‘further exploration by Area Meetings of the flexibility already allowed around membership...
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Meeting for Sufferings: Sufferings responds to climate calls
Sufferings heard minutes from the Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) Central Committee meeting held at Friends House on 21-23 November 2014. Both dealt with energy justice and climate policy.
Meeting for Sufferings: Interfaith peacemaking conference planned
Friends at Meeting for Sufferings were informed that the Quaker Committee for Christian and Interfaith Relations (QCCIR) plan to offer a one day conference in Friends House in the autumn of 2015 on interfaith peacemaking.
Meeting for Sufferings: The end of a long journey
Catherine James, convenor of the Church Government Advisory Group (CGAG), spoke to the proposed redrafts of chapter sixteen and section 3.27 of chapter three of Quaker faith & practice.
Meeting for Sufferings: Britain Yearly Meeting trustees report
Jennifer Barraclough, clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) trustees, spoke to the minutes of the BYM trustees meeting held on 30-31 January. Jennifer said that she wanted to highlight one or two of the issues minuted. She began by thanking Meeting for Sufferings for its help and support over the...
Meeting for Sufferings: Yearly Meeting 2015
Chris Skidmore, clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting, reminded Friends that Yearly Meeting 2015 would be held at Friends House from 1 to 4 May 2015. It will open a new chapter in the history of Quakerism in Britain as it will be the first time that Yearly Meeting will be held in the newly...
Spectacle, reality, resistance
Human beings do not naturally kill each other. In Britain, the chances of being murdered are slightly less than one in 100,000 – a product of natural revulsion against violence and of culture rather than a fear of the law. In the USA, which has substantially higher rates of homicide than the...
Winter sestina (6 December 2014)
on summer nights she cupped love in her heart tasted the honey of a gentle kiss and the heat of an exotic garden, she roamed in a rabble of wild colours, with rows of chillies red hot in the sun, back when she was young, heart hammering, fluttering like a...
Worship without walls
Imagine worshipping, feeling a close connection with nature, bathed in dappled sunlight. This led to powerful ministry when we held our Meeting for Worship in the 1647 Garden of Reflection at Mansfield last autumn.
Eye - 13 February 2015
Peaceful moments Let’s hear the sound of silence, so take away the noise. An interval for quietness can give you so much joy. Pause to rest your emotions, for the head to unwind. Pause for reminiscence to calm one’s mind. For time to think...
Letters - 13 February 2015
Zero-hours contracts I was pleased to read the two articles which relate to recent events at Friends House and to the work of the hospitality company (30 January), and the statement on new working contracts by Paul Parker on quaker.org.uk. It is difficult to comment further without detailed specific...