Issue 28-08-2015
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Thin places
In April, on a day of low mist and gentle seas, I made an all-too-brief visit to the island of Iona. On an information board near the Abbey, I read that George MacLeod, founder of the Iona Community, had considered the island to be a ‘thin place’ where the veil...
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Science and religion
I recall a time in my youth when science was the intellectual fashion. It promised us a clear-cut, hard-edged world, which made sense and relieved our existential anxiety. If there were still things to be discovered, things we could not yet understand, that would be remedied by time. We could...
From the archive: Camps and camping
In the late summer of 1915 the Friend was giving more and more coverage to the witness of Quakers. In Holland the Friends War Victims Relief Committee (FWVRC) was setting up workrooms in refugee camps – in Ede, Gouda, Uden and Amersfoort. In Britain the Friends’ Emergency Committee was visiting camps for...
Love your enemies
I welcomed George Macpherson’s well-presented case against the Trident nuclear weapons system until I reached the line ‘Conventional armies, air forces and navies are capable of a huge range of positive activity… communications, logistics and disciplined ready hands are their metier… Armies can become an instant force for good –...
The QUNO effect
At the end of August, negotiators will head back to Bonn for another week of climate talks in the run-up to the Paris conference. A high point in the week for a fortunate few of the delegates will be the ‘quiet diplomacy’ dinner organised by the Quaker United Nations Office ...
Talking to one another
Communications matter. How we talk – and listen – to one another in our Meetings affects how well we can get to know one another in the Spirit, care for one another, build our community and carry out business in right ordering. So, we all need to pay attention to what is...
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Landscapes in the Light
The refurbished Large Meeting House at Friends House in London has hosted its first art exhibition, ‘Climb up to the Moor’. Artist Judith Bromley told the Friend she feels ‘very honoured’ to be involved in the first exhibition to be held in the space. The exhibition was organised by the...
First for Friends in East Africa
Bware Yearly Meeting (YM) in Kenya has appointed the first woman presiding clerk in East Africa. Monica Makungu Dalizu has been vice presiding clerk of Bware Yearly Meeting for the last three years and has served a three-year term as the YM recording clerk. She is also the recording clerk...
Quakers at Greenbelt: drones and a dome
Kite-making and storytelling are among the activities being run by Quakers at this year’s Greenbelt festival of music, art and faith, between 28 and 31 August. Friends will be based in a tent, known as ‘the Quaker dome’, in the orchard section of the festival site, near Kettering, Northamptonshire. They will...
QSA project in running for award
Quaker Social Action (QSA)’s Down to Earth project is among the names on the long list for the Good Funeral Awards.
Friends highlight population growth
Quaker Concern Over Population (QCOP) has applied to become a listed informal group The group was formed in the wake of the Canterbury Commitment and the statement in the Britain Yearly Meeting epistle of 2011, which said that ‘we can no longer ignore the fact that our planet is finite’.
Canadian Friends address penal abolition
The Canadian Friends Service Committee (CFSC) has launched an educational resource aimed at dispelling some of the myths surrounding penal abolition. The document From Harm to Healing: Transforming the Justice System, also offers alternatives to a criminal justice system that Canadian Friends believe ‘harms criminals, institutional staff, families and communities’.
‘Something good’ at the Peace Hub
The Peace Hub, the Quaker Peace and Justice Centre, is hosting an art workshop to celebrate Birmingham Cathedral’s tercentenary. The workshop is part of Something Good, a multi-faith arts programme that is being led by writer Mandy Ross. She will work with participants on the theme ‘Exploring Light and...
Letters - 28 August 2015
Phlogiston and stuff My thanks to Geoff Pilliner for a stimulating contribution to what he calls ‘the theism/nontheism debate’ (21 August). May I make two points in response? First, ‘debate’ is surely the wrong word, suggesting as it does a confrontation producing winners and losers. That is not what Friends...