Issue 19-01-2018
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Hope and inspiration
Last summer on Embleton beach in Northumberland I was served a dessert of banana, raspberry and strawberry, topped with cream and cherries. Overhead cauliflower clouds drifted across the blue sky. Before me stretched lightly furrowed golden sand and beyond the bluey, purply, greeny sea.
Top stories
Portrait of a Meeting
Friargate Meeting in York is one of the largest Quaker Meetings in the country. The results of an anonymous social survey may interest not only Friends in the locality but elsewhere.
Catching the wind
We used to believe in God… We knew that there was a Person who made us, loved us, and cared for us. God knew everything and could do anything, and his goodness was without limit.
Making changes
Can we, at a personal level, make real changes to our lives in 2018? I find giving things up to be very beneficial: not driving a car, not eating meat and other animal products, and not working for money have each been leaps forward in my life. So, on my seventieth...
Southern Africa Yearly Meeting
Astarter for ten: how many countries can you name in Africa? Here’s another one: how many countries make up Southern Africa Yearly Meeting? And for a bonus, name them. I’m sure you refrained from checking the internet. The Good Shepherd Retreat Centre in Hartbeespoort, South Africa doesn’t...
Opening to the Spirit
I have been worshipping in our Quaker way for several decades, learning to sit with my Friends in silent expectant waiting, learning to love the discipline and the worship, sometimes transported, sometimes troubled, but usually wonderfully lifted. About a year ago I joined a group that practices untimed worship, closed...
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Army’s recruitment campaign described as ‘misleading’
The British army has been accused of misleading potential recruits with a new recruitment campaign that promises emotional support within the army. The Peace Pledge Union (PPU), a leading British pacifist network, cited several pieces of research showing the damaging effects of military training on mental health.
New role at JRF
A new position has been created by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) to oversee its new strategy, based on the recommendations of the organisation’s 2016 report We can solve poverty in the UK.
Uniting in the word at Glenthorne
This year’s Quakers Uniting in Publications (QUIP) annual conference will consider ‘Writing at the Edge’ and brings together Friends from Europe and America over the weekend of 26-29 April at Glenthorne, Grasmere, in Cumbria.
Community play celebrates Sam Peel
The life of Quaker Sam Peel, a one time warden at Wells-next-the-Sea Meeting house in North Norfolk, will be celebrated on stage in early March.
Tapestry exhibition on tour
A tapestry exhibition on a religious subject that may appeal to Friends who are familiar with the Quaker Tapestry will be on display at selected venues in England.
Lifting the lid off mental health
A leading mental health charity has launched a resource to help churches build a culture of mental health awareness.
In the beginning was the Logos
What was the Logos? Logos was a very common word in Greek, with a vast range of meanings, and is not an exact equivalent of our English ‘word’. Basically logos meant ‘something which is stated or can be stated’ (from the verb lego – I say). So, it can mean:...
Love to the loveless
It probably would not be allowed now. The safeguarding implications would be horrendous. But when I first boarded at Sidcot School in 1968, aged eleven, it was the rule that all pupils not engaged in sports fixtures should be off the premises and roaming freely on Saturday afternoons. Some would gravitate...
Letters - 19 January 2018
A caring response Mary Brown (5 January) offers a kind and caring response to the needs of our friends with dementia and other needs associated with old age that prevent them from getting to our Quaker Meetings and being included in our Quaker communities. This prompts some questions: First, what do...