Issue 30-10-2015
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Hospitality
How is your Meeting’s exploration of Quaker faith & practice going? We recently had our first discussion, after Meeting for Worship, in Wilmslow, using the advice from the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre. The discussion left one Friend feeling we should only have the ‘stuff from the seventeenth century’ as...
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Mental health in prisons
It was a privilege, as ever, to be able to attend the Quaker Prison Chaplains’ Conference, which was held at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham 16-18 October. The theme of the conference was ‘Mental health in prisons’. In our opening worship on the first evening Quaker faith &...
To All the Nations
The opponents of early Friends often wrote lurid accounts of charismatic behaviour taking place within their Meetings in order to portray the movement as an outrageous and dangerous example of religious enthusiasm. Initially, therefore, the label ‘Quaker’ was given to Friends as a term of abuse. In response to this,...
From the archive: The hospital train
In late 1915, a development in the work of the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU) had been the staffing of a British Red Cross ‘hospital train’ in France. Some forty FAU members were involved, most of whom were trained at the Oxhey Grange Camp in Hertfordshire. The Friend carried a detailed report...
Paris, here we come!
Last week, in Bonn, negotiators held their last round of talks before the Paris climate conference in early December. They must now hand over to politicians to make the decisions. Trust remains a major issue: while most governments want an agreement, there are huge differences on what it should contain....
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Scouting for outreach
We recently received a request from a local cub scout group to visit Exeter Meeting House so that their members may earn their world faiths activity badges. It was a wonderful opportunity to engage with the wider community. What a positive message we are able to put forward! By following...
Equality on the agenda in Birmingham
Some sixty Friends from twenty Area Meetings gathered at Bull Street Meeting House in Birmingham on 24 October for the ‘Road Maps to Equality’ conference. This was the second Birmingham conference on equality and focused on ‘finding practical ways forward’.
Friends declare ‘not in our name’
Southern Marches and Mid Wales Friends have put together two declarations for speaking truth to power. The declarations were prompted by a growing concern about the direction in which our society is moving, the Meetings said. They referred to the ‘deliberate dismantling of our welfare state, the diminishing of the...
White poppies for parliamentarians
Scottish Quakers have helped send white poppies to members of the Scottish parliament and Scottish members of parliament in Westminster.
FWCC welcomes representatives of Christian churches
Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) general secretary Gretchen Castle welcomed general secretaries of Christian communions to Friends House on 21 October.
Rajagopal’s work recognised
The Indian nonviolent campaigner Shri Rajagopal PV has won the Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration for the year 2013 and 2014. He will receive the award from Sonia Gandhi on 31 October. The award is given to individuals or organisations who have promoted national integration, fellowship and understanding among the religious groups,...
Religious leaders in zero carbon call
More than 150 religious leaders have signed a statement calling for a zero carbon, climate resilient and equitable future. The statement was handed to the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres. It was coordinated by ACT Alliance, CIDSE (an international alliance of Catholic development...
White feather diaries
The latest instalment of The white feather diaries went live online on Monday 26 October. The diaries speak of the experiences of five Quakers who refused to serve in the first world war. They are set in late 1915, when the threat of conscription was imminent and opposition to war was censored....
Eye - 30 October 2015
Beginning with Stillness, my Faith becomes Action Deep down in the human heart there’s an ocean of love and light. Below fear and doubt and worry is this place of joy and delight. We need to bathe in these waters of peace, to heal our pain and our fear, ...
Letters – 30 October 2015
Greenbelt Festival Abigail Maxwell’s contribution (9 October) is timely. But her suggestions will raise anxiety in the minds of many Friends. She reported on the contribution Quaker Life made in the Greenbelt Festival this past summer: ‘…thousands of liberal or radical Christians, and a number of post-Christians – so many natural...