Issue 27-11-2015
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Thought for the Week: Books
This issue of the Friend is devoted to words, writing and books. Quakers, since the seventeenth century, have had a very close association with the written word. Books, despite a fidelity to the advice to heed ‘the spirit and not the word’, have always been at the heart of the...
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Good reads
Marcus Tullius Cicero said: ‘A room without books is like a body without a soul.’ Friends may or may not agree with this opinion. However, they certainly enjoy reading them and 2015 has been a productive year for many Quakers involved, in different ways, in the written and printed word. ...
With a tender hand
What was the original brief for the book and what was your initial response? The book was commissioned by Quaker Life to address all aspects of established practice and newer developments in eldership and oversight in a single easy-to-use volume. Everything in the author’s brief – especially that it should...
The Joy of Tax
Richard Murphy’s new book, The Joy of Tax, is subtitled ‘How a fair tax system can create a better society’. The author’s intriguing title conceals a carefully crafted discussion of the central importance of tax within a nation’s economy and social policy. Tax is little discussed or...
World in chains
It has always intrigued me that we Quakers manage so seamlessly to bridge the split between the nurture of our worshipping community and our concern to confront the ills of the wider world (specific ‘concerns’, of course, are tested by the worshipping community in Meetings for Church Affairs).
A little book of Unknowing
‘Cogito, ergo sum.’ I think, therefore I am. René Descartes came to this memorable conclusion after subjecting his ‘world’ to the most rigorous, uncompromising doubt. Even his senses, he believed, could deceive him. What could he be certain of?
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Friends House statement on terrorism
Britain Yearly Meeting has made a statement responding to recent events in Paris and the widespread ‘terror alert’ in areas of Europe. The statement urges a nonviolent response by the government and asks people to remember the suffering, not only in Europe, but also in ‘more distant places, including Beirut,...
FWCC statement
The Peace and Service Consultation of the Europe and Middle East Section (EMES) of the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) has issued a statement in the aftermath of the attacks in Paris and Beirut.
Quaker activists gather
Quite a scramble took place in the Small Meeting House at Friends House on 21 November, when seventy Friends were asked to imagine the floor as a map of Britain and find a spot that represented their home area.
New Greenham archives
A unique archive documenting the Greenham Common Peace Camp women’s lives and campaigns was made available to the public for the first time at Berkshire Record Office on 17 November.
Refugee concern
A group of High Wycombe Quakers recently met their member of parliament to discuss the refugee crisis. Friends had what they described as ‘a frank and positive meeting’ with Steve Baker MP at the Conservative party offices in High Wycombe, on 6 November.
Quaker project celebrates new website
The Quaker Care stores in Belfast recently launched a new website, marking the occasion with a party.
‘Why we can’t afford the rich’
Award-winning author Andrew Sayer of Lancaster University drew a large audience recently to Settle Meeting House for a well-received talk on inequality today.
Irish Friends join in environmental prayer
Irish Quakers were among those who took part in a national ecumenical prayer service to mark the approach of the Paris climate talks.
Churches Together extends 20,000 welcomes
The Churches’ Refugee Network, part of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, will hold an advent vigil for refugees on 8 December at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster Abbey.
A Man that Looks on Glass
In this searching and provocative new book (the title is taken from a poem by George Herbert), Derek Guiton diagnoses a crisis among British Quakers; that of ‘growing secularisation, the emergence of incompatible belief systems and a readiness, in very many cases, to embrace ideology as a substitute for faith’.
Twelve Quakers and prayer
Prayer, writes one of the contributors to Quaker Quest’s latest pamphlet, is ‘an intimate experience of the heart’ that can leave you feeling ‘naked and exposed’. This makes the contributions in Twelve Quakers and Prayer even more impressive, for their honesty and clarity on a topic that is, in...
Stories to grow on
Books are low on many children’s Christmas wish lists, but we continue to give them as presents. Nothing else has such power to take children into the lives of other people and enlarge their sympathies. The quality of writing for children has never been higher. Here we offer suggestions...
As we live…
Antony Barlow’s new book is an account of the service and lives of various branches of his family over several hundred years and encompasses many of the better-known Quaker names.
Tales of the China Convoy
The inspiring story of how the Friends Ambulance Unit (FAU) ‘China Convoy’ brought medical and relief supplies to a devastated China in the dark years of the 1940s is told in A True Friend to China. The book contains an edited compilation of the recently discovered writings of FAU transport...
Not in God’s name
While former chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks does not give answers as to how the violence and atrocities being perpetrated by Islamic State might actually be stopped, he does suggest how they arise, how wrong are the reasons given by the perpetrators and how, when all their bloodletting is done, they...
Women of courage
On the door of one of the prison cells in the former Inquisitor’s Palace in Birgu, Malta, there is an unexpected notice. The first lines read: Sarah Cheevers, 50 years of age British Quaker from Wiltshire, wife of Henry Katherine Evans, 40 years of age British Quaker from Somerset, wife of...
Voices of Kagisong
There is something totally serene about the colour photo of Kagisong on the cover of Voices of Kagisong: History of a Refugee Programme in Botswana. There are some trees coming into fresh spring leaf; sundry dogs; a few 200-litre oil drums to remind us of the transience of piped water...
While it is yet day
In an afterword to While it is yet Day: The story of Elizabeth Fry Averil Douglas Opperman, an Irish journalist brought up in a Quaker family in Dublin, sets out her hopes for her version of the life of Elizabeth Fry. She wishes to keep the story ‘light’ in order...
Letters - 27 November 2015
The ‘other’ I am very grateful for Ian Kirk-Smith’s constructive Thought for the Week (20 November) following the tragic events in Paris. It is in vivid contrast to Colin Nevin’s polarising and deeply negative letter (20 November), which heightens our fear of ‘the other’ and can only encourage sectarianism. However...