Issue 22-02-2019
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Thought for the week: Soul clap its hands and sing
I love WB Yeats’ poem about spiritual life in old age, from which my title is taken. David, my husband, and I, are having our noses stuck into old age – he is almost blind, which for a life-long painter in oils is a great deprivation; and I take five minutes...
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‘Tent villages are moved every few days, which prevents children from attending school.’
Rose pink Calais sunrise. Farewell hugs from friends Volunteer happiness. I composed this haiku as I departed Calais, feeling a surge of good feeling that scared me in its inappropriateness. The backdrop was the daily human struggle for refugees’ survival, which remains unchanged here. The warehouse continues to hand out 10,000...
‘These people were willing to risk all for the Truth.’
Would we be comfortable in the company of early Quakers? They worshipped in silence, as we do, and it is clear that, although their testimony was not codified in this manner until relatively recently, their lives spoke to truth, equality, simplicity and peace. They challenged hypocrisy, spoke straightforwardly, did not...
It Keeps Me Seeking: The invitation from science, philosophy and religion
Andrew Briggs is a physicist, currently working in nanomaterials at the University of Oxford. Andrew Steane is also a physics professor at Oxford. Hans Halvorson is a professor at Princeton. The latter’s doctoral thesis was about the foundations of quantum physics, and he spent a year in the Experimental...
Birds
And the springtime, after the long winter. The birds are giving off information, each tweeting like a whistle on a stick. We have them in the gardens inside us.
Cornwall Quakers welcome ‘climate emergency’ decision
As part of their longstanding commitment to sustainability Quakers in Cornwall upheld Cornwall Council in its decision to declare a ‘climate emergency’ on 22 January. Falmouth Quakers welcomed the motion ‘Urgency on Climate Change’, which was brought by Liberal Democrat councillor Dominic Fairman. The motion called on the council to prepare...
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Friends in Zimbabwe tell of violence in troubled times
Friends in Zimbabwe have reported that they have been greatly affected by the violence arising from fuel increases last month. Several people were killed during protests in the cities of Harare and Bulawayo after the government more than doubled the price of fuel overnight.
Protestors celebrate as Birmingham arms fair moves site
Friends in Malvern are celebrating the news that the Defence Procurement, Research, Technology and Exportability (DPRTE) arms fair arranged for 28 March has been ‘chased’ from the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham.
Hitchin Meeting to consider Brexit angst
Hitchin Quakers held a special Meeting for Worship for Business this month to consider ways to heal the divisions in society caused by Brexit.
Exhibition on peace activism at LSE
The history of the peace movement is the subject of an exhibition at the London School of Economics (LSE).
Dundee Meeting to go ‘back home’
Dundee Meeting has decided to return to its five-storey Meeting house after a two and a half year process of discernment.
Letters - 22 February 2019
Blessings and responses I read with interest the article (25 January) and letter (8 February) regarding blessings in church, and the strength Antonia Swinson and Barbara Pensom found through remaining seated. This has given me much to ponder on. Raised a Baptist, I opted out before adult baptism and so never received...