Issue 23-11-2018
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Windrush exploration
With great absorption and considerable shame, I’ve been reading stories of the Windrush generation: how they were called to serve the ‘mother country’, and how that turned out. Why ‘shame’? In 1965-66, I was a child care officer for the London Borough of Hackney, where many West Indians settled...
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Not a notion but a way
The book God, words and us, edited by Helen Rowlands, is a good thing to have done. It is thoughtful and worth reading but, for me, ultimately disappointing – an opportunity missed. Maybe focussing on the language that divides us was necessary, and the light this book shines on the nature...
Are we aroused to action?
Torture is something we can be reluctant to think about. We don’t like to countenance the idea that people will deliberately inflict pain on others for whatever reason, and we don’t like the idea that ‘civilised’ countries collude and even carry out such behaviour.
France Yearly Meeting
Between sixty and seventy of us met together in Paris at the L’Enclos Rey, a Catholic centre, surrounded by the teeming streets and avenues of the fifteenth arrondissement just behind the Eiffel Tower. Our meeting room looked onto a beautiful park, with even a prehistoric grotto, to help us...
A journey into Uganda
In 2016 Northampton Meeting adopted as its charity the community of Butta, in the district of Manafwa, Uganda. An attender at our Meeting, Alex Gyabi, is a long-term resident of the UK who comes from that area and was concerned about the situation there: subsistence farming made precarious by soil erosion...
Support and nurture
Our Local Meeting has recently welcomed three new members – Friends who had been part of our Meeting community for some two to five years. It was a ‘joyful occasion’ (Quaker faith & practice 11.12). The process of their moving into membership had been a very positive experience. We had thought carefully...
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Let’s talk about peace
Take 1,000 children, five primary schools and what do you get? Answer: a room full of noise, which is ironic, considering we have come here to talk about peace. I am sitting in ‘The Light’, the Large Meeting House at Friends House in London on 9 November, two days before the centenary...
BYM will not invest in firms that profit from ‘occupation’
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has become the first faith group in the UK to announce it will not invest any of its centrally-held funds in companies profiting from ‘the occupation of Palestine’.
New editor for The Friend
The trustees of The Friend Publications Limited (TFPL) have expressed their delight at welcoming the new CEO and editor of TFPL on board. Joseph Jones will be the twentieth editor of the Friend since it began in 1843 and is currently publications manager for Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM). He was previously...
Kindertransport anniversary marked at Friends House
As 1,000 guests gathered at Friends House in London for a Kindertransport eightieth anniversary commemoration, survivors of the rescue operation called for a new Kindertransport for today’s child refugees.
Dismay at theft of white poppy wreaths
Friends were dismayed when two white poppy wreaths from the centenary of Armistice Day were stolen from local war memorials. Bath Quakers had their white poppy wreath stolen for the fourth time, according to the Peace Pledge Union (PPU).
Thirsk Quaker link to Oskar Schindler
A Quaker credited with helping save countless lives after the first world war is being celebrated with displays in the North Yorkshire town of Thirsk.
QPSW campaigner takes to the airwaves
Ellis Brooks, from Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW), has spoken on the radio this month about the new documentary War School, which previewed at Friends House in London.
Inter Faith Week 2018
Quakers enjoyed a lively Inter Faith Week from 11 to 18 November with a wide range of events and activities. From a death café, organised by Leicester Friends on 18 November, to a Liberal Jewish Interfaith Shabbat Morning Service at Friargate Meeting House, Friends found unusual and creative ways to mark the celebration.
Nobel Prizewinner speaks to Paris Peace Forum
The Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) took part in the Paris Peace Forum this month.
Activist Gathering
Friends met for the Quaker Activist Gathering at Lancaster Meeting House on 3 November. The action-focused day was for ‘Quakers who identify as activists, framed in worship’.
Peace Lecture
The Quaker MEP Molly Scott Cato delivered the annual Peace Lecture for Huddersfield Meeting, ‘Democracies don’t go to war’, on 1 November.
Eye - 23 November 2018
Friends have been telling Eye how they marked the centenary of the end of the first world war. On 7 November Friends from Manchester and Warrington Area Meeting sold white poppies outside Central Manchester Meeting House. Ursula Sharma said: ‘We distributed around 400 leaflets over the lunch hour and offered cups of...
Letters - 23 November 2018
Spirituality Stephen Feltham’s article on ‘Humility’ and the role of the ego in war (26 October) touches on a yet deeper issue: our disconnection from each other, from life on this the planet and ultimately from God. This is one way of understanding the biblical fall – the loss of connection...