Issue 11-01-2019
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Silence and worship
A Sunday. A Meeting for Worship. A gathered silence. This must surely be the ideal Meeting for Worship? Not too much shifting around, no one coming in late, winter coughing almost unnoticeable; just the occasional creaking chair, but nothing to prevent everyone in the room gently centring down and soon...
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An unsung history
Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens near Penzance is a magical spot, even on a cold, wintry day. Canopies of trees glisten with frost. Dark green conifers cluster against a bare metallic sky. Home to an impressive array of sculptures – including work by David Nash, Richard Long and Tim Shaw – it is also...
Quaker mysticism and truth
Are Quakers mystics? How do Quakers find the truth? These related questions are answered by two contemporary Quaker writers in recent Quaker Universalist Group pamphlets. Are Quakers mystics? This question is tackled by Rex Ambler in Mind the Oneness: The Mystic Way of the Quakers. Rex Ambler traces mysticism back...
When do we close our minds?
I think I can pinpoint the moment in my childhood when I closed my mind: that moment when I realised that my life wasn’t about me, it was about making as sure as possible that I pleased others.
Atttending to the ‘inward wells’
So shins up further Firbank Drinks water, preaches to a thousand These lines from UA Fanthorpe’s poem ‘Fox Unearthed’ contain everything necessary for good media practice among Friends: determination, attending to the ‘inward wells’ and taking the moment.
Brief sanctuary
I was a stranger and you took me in… - Matthew 25:35 In early October 2018, as autumn’s gentle welcome attended us, we enjoyed the privilege of hosting seven refugees and asylum seekers at Claridge House, a Quaker-run retreat centre in Surrey, for two days and nights, as a pilot retreat...
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New site for ‘Quaker Open Christmas’ in London
One hundred and ninety volunteers helped out at the Quaker Open Christmas last month organised by Quaker Homeless Action (QHA).
Government’s solar payment cuts condemned by MEP
Quaker Molly Scott Cato, the Green Party MEP for South West England, has described the government’s decision to ditch payments for householders installing solar panels as a ‘dereliction of duty’.
Digital exchange
Stansted Friends are organising two discussions with a Quaker Meeting in Accra, Ghana. The first Skype debate will take place on 27 January on ‘Truth’ with discussion about ‘post-truth’. The next online meeting, on 10 March, close to Ghana’s Independence Day, will be about: ‘Applying Quaker Testimony to the idea of...
BYM calls on Friends to push for a ‘just immigration system’
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has urged Friends to help ‘shine a light’ in 2019 on what it calls ‘the broken immigration system’.
Quaker psychotherapist launches books
A Quaker psychotherapist and author gave a talk at Friends House in London last month.
Online platform for Young Friends
A Lincolnshire Friend is planning to launch a web-based platform for young Quakers. The ‘YouthQuakeNow’ (YQN) project hopes to inspire young Friends to meet and connect.
Testimonies and jigsaws
In his engaging new book, Quaker Roots and Branches, John Lampen continues his valuable dual mission to get his fellow Quakers to take their history seriously and to remind non-Quakers that we are still going strong today.
Eye - 11 January 2019
A touch of magic Friends from Preston Patrick to Llangollen met in Bolton on 17 November 2018 for a Regional Gathering. During a lively day one Friend created a Harry Potter-style wand (see below) and Teenage General Meeting, who were gathered in Lancaster, joined Friends via Skype.
Letters - 11 January 2019
Self-acceptance On 25 January 2013, our Friend Barrie Rowson wrote in a letter responding to my 11 January article ‘The Road to God’: ‘In my late thirties I had several [mystical] experiences of almost psychotic intensity… yet they transformed my social awareness to such an extent that I was able to get married;...