Issue 17-08-2018
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Let our light shine
Like millions who watched the royal wedding earlier this year, I found it exquisitely beautiful and inspiring. Yes, I was even misty-eyed – as the event came two days before the thirty-seventh anniversary of my wedding to my late husband Richard.
Top stories
Jesus, revolutionary of the poor
In his most recent book, Jesus, Revolutionary of the Poor: Matthew’s Subversive Messiah, Quaker prison chaplain and Bible scholar Mark Bredin presents Friends and the wider Christian church with the uncompromising message of Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus, Revolutionary of the Poor reveals a God who identifies with the poor,...
Living in community
Ireland Yearly Meeting was held in Limerick this year for the first time ever. Limerick Friends organised everything superbly and made everyone who attended feel truly welcome. The venue, the Limerick Institute of Technology, was perfect, with sleeping accommodation at the nearby student village. The theme of Ireland Yearly Meeting...
Sources of inspiration
Quaker faith & practice has not had, at least in my memory, any quotes from the Bible in it except when they are embedded in a contribution that has been included. There have been good reasons for this, though I am not sure whether all or any of them have...
Hiroshima and Nagasaki Day vigils
Quakers throughout the UK marked Hiroshima Day this month with vigils and witnesses to peace. Bolton Friends marked the day on 6 August by joining the town’s remembrance ceremony, while members of Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) joined the commemoration in Tavistock Square in London. Bradford Friends also attended...
‘Peace Pigeon’ launches Edinburgh Meeting’s Fringe Festival programme
Edinburgh Meeting House has kick-started its programme of performances for the 2018 Edinburgh Fringe Festival with the help of a feathered friend, ‘Poppy the Peace Pigeon’.
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QARN backs refugee status call
The Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network (QARN) has welcomed a suggestion made by MP Kate Green to extend the twenty-eight-day period between a person being given refugee status and being thrown out of their National Asylum Support Service (NASS) accommodation to fifty-six days.
QCEA report on ‘anti-migrant hate-speech’
The Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) has published a report on what it describes as a ‘call to action against the tide of anti-migrant hate-speech in Europe today’.
Quaker A-level class in ‘The Peace Movement’
The third lesson in the joint Pax Christi/Quakers in Britain Religious Studies A-Level series has been published.
Tokyo students visit Quaker heartland
A group of Japanese students from Friends School Tokyo stayed at Woodbrooke this month to learn about Quaker history.
Alastair McIntosh gives High Profile interview
Quaker activist and academic Alastair McIntosh gave an interview on the High Profile website about the influence of his spirituality on his work.
Asylum seekers’ day with Friends
Friends from Clun Valley Meeting in Shropshire invited refugees and asylum seekers living in Wolverhampton to share a day with them recently ‘in and around Bishops Castle’. Fifty-five adults and children came along for the day, which was the third of these events arranged by the Meeting.
‘Conchies’ play opens at Edinburgh Fringe
A play based on a Lincolnshire pacifist community that included several Quakers who grew up around the villages of Holton-cum-Beckering and Legsby, opened at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
Peace stall in Kent
Friends in Kent hosted a stall at the War and Peace Show near Paddock Wood, Kent last month.
A difficult balance
How do Friends best respond to the injustices occurring on a daily basis in the occupied Palestinian territories without attracting accusations of anti-Semitism? Central Manchester Meeting were approached several months ago by Amnesty International with a request to share a joint vigil around their campaign to persuade the UK government...
Animal spirits
At one point in John Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost (1667) Satan creeps up on Adam and Eve while they are asleep with a view to upsetting God’s handiwork. In the guise of a toad he seeks to infiltrate Eve’s ear with a venom that ‘might taint th’...
Travels of a TEFL teacher
Pat Stapleton’s name will be familiar to many Friends, as she and her husband were the first representatives at the Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) Brussels office from 1979 to 1983. Her internationalist outlook goes back further in her life, however, and is fully evident in the delightful book Travels...
Diplomatic delight
In June 2018 a fellow student at Friends’ School Lisburn, in Northern Ireland, Nicole Buckingham, and I were lucky enough to travel to Brussels and stay at Quaker House while working at the Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA). Our week of work experience was everything we could have hoped for...
Letters - 17 August 2018
Declaration and principles Inspired by the efforts of Kendal and Sedbergh Quakers (3 and 10 August), I looked at their ‘Quaker Declaration for Equality and the Common Good’; and was further inspired to look at Friends’ 2015 ‘Principles for a new economy’. Both admirable and thought-provoking documents mention the now seriously questioned view...