Issue 13-07-2018
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Being lucky
We are lucky, we Friends, that we found each other: capable of sitting, open, worshipping in stillness, heightening awareness, bathing in light, experiencing, listening, musing, praying, acknowledging, confessing, atoning, entreating, glorifying, blessing – in private – or devising, contributing, sharing and hoping to enrich.
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William Penn: William Penn’s vision
The Quakers were one of many religious, social and radical groups emerging from the febrile atmosphere of the English revolution of the seventeenth century, so memorably documented by Christopher Hill in The World Turned Upside Down. As one of the ‘next generation’, who came after the early founders emerged in...
William Penn: Spanning boundaries
An adopted American, a leader, a communicator, a visionary, who was also terrible with money, blind to his own faults, patronising, sometimes lauded and sometimes despised: William Penn emerges from Andrew Murphy’s analysis as a fully rounded and complex human being.
William Penn: A testimony
It is a valuable tradition that testimonies to the grace of God in the life of departed Friends should present the Friend warts and all. So, it was with William Penn when his local Monthly Meeting wrote the testimony that follows. He lived the latter part of his life with...
‘I advise thee to wear it…’
We live in a military society. British culture, prosperity, ceremony and government structure are built on conquest and annexation. Our empire, though, is over and we have to readjust.
Meeting for Sufferings: New triennium urged to ‘apply simplicity’
The first meeting of the new triennium of Meeting for Sufferings (MfS) was held on Saturday 7 July in the Large Meeting House at Friends House in London. A Friend, in ministry, said that a section in the trustees’ report (see ‘Meeting for Sufferings: “Are we ready to be transformed?” BYM...
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Meeting for Sufferings: ‘Are we ready be transformed?’ BYM trustees ask Meeting for Sufferings
There was an upbeat feel to the words of Ingrid Greenhow when she spoke to the minutes of the meeting of Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) trustees held in the beautiful location of Swarthmoor Hall in Cumbria on 1-3 June. She said it was ‘an exciting time’ to be on Meeting...
Meeting for Sufferings: Quaker Recognised Bodies
Six groups were registered as Quaker Recognised Bodies at Meeting for Sufferings on 7 July.
Meeting for Sufferings: QLCC welcomes feedback and invites more comments
Meeting for Sufferings received a minute from Central England Area Meeting that was supportive of Quaker Life Central Committee’s (QLCC) strategy for 2018-22, in particular, aims grouped under the headings of Our faith in the future.
Meeting for Sufferings: ‘Home groups’
New representatives for Sufferings had the chance to get to know each other in ‘home groups’ over the lunch break. The groups were divided into four main areas: London; Midlands and the East of England; North and North West England: and Scotland and Wales.
Queer Quakers at Pride 2018
A group of Quakers joined one million people who took to the streets for the London Pride parade 2018.
March against Donald Trump visit
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has called president Donald Trump’s visit to the UK ‘an opportunity to focus on three key US policies’ and ‘have three clear messages’. These are ‘to reverse the decision to pull out of the Paris climate commitments’; ‘to create a culture of sanctuary for those...
Ride for the Common Good
Friends from Kendal and Sedbergh Area Meeting are gearing up for their ‘Ride for Equality and the Common Good’, starting on 22 July.
Friends gather in Norway
Nearly ninety Friends gathered in Norway to celebrate the eightieth anniversary of the Europe and Middle East Section (EMES) of the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC). Quakers from seventeen countries attended the event on 21-24 June at Åsane Folkehøgskole, Hylkje, near Bergen, which also marked the 200th anniversary...
Bayard Rustin
The Quaker and black civil rghts activist Bayard Rustin, who was a close associate of Martin Luther King and an advocate of gay and lesbian rights, had a commemorative plaque unveiled on 28 June outside his long-time residence at Penn South, New York.
A Scottish gathering
Forty-three Friends, including a visiting English Friend, came to General Meeting (GM) for Scotland in Inverness on Saturday 16 June. GM holds four meetings annually and these rotate round the four Area Meetings in Scotland: East, North, South East and West. Friends, particularly those living on islands, have long journeys to...
Quakers, guns and money
When Quakers talk about their history they tend to focus on the good bits: Quakers against war, against slavery, speaking truth to power. Priya Satia’s book Empire of Guns: The Violent Making of the Industrial Revolution also talks about Quaker history, but in a way which may cause discomfort...
Putting the cart before the horse
I wonder: do we Friends perhaps demean ourselves by our harping on about ‘spirituality’ and ‘the Spirit’, and attributing the natural caring and altruism of individuals to ‘spirituality’?
Letters - 13 July 2018
Imprisoned not destroyed My husband died of Parkinson’s disease at the age of fifty-five. He also had mild Alzheimer’s. While this combination is common in the old, it is unusual in the middle-aged. In his last two years of life, he was bedridden and unable to move. For...