Issue 01-03-2019

Featured story

Thought for the week: Noël Staples’ four-letter word

FREE 28 Feb 2019 | by Noël Staples

Love: there is probably no more difficult word to define. My 1979 Oxford English Dictionary devotes four pages to it, before loveache, loveage and love-apple, ending with lovingness. The well-known song tells us that it is ‘a many splendored thing… nature’s way of giving a reason to be living’.

Read more

Top stories

‘A secular, feminist reimagining of a prophetic tradition.’

28 Feb 2019 | by Madeleine Ward

'[Victoria Bateman's] dissenting nakedness bears the most striking similarities to the prophetic nudity enacted by Quakers "going naked as a sign"...' | Photo: Edited illustration. Original: iEverest / iStock.com.

It’s been a rocky few weeks in the news. ITV’s political editor recently announced that he now believes no-deal to be the most likely outcome of the ongoing Brexit crisis, while the first global scientific review has warned of an imminent ‘catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems’. Set...

Read more

‘He might well be curious about the radically unfenced Quakerism of today.’

28 Feb 2019 | by Philip Gross

Walt Whitman, circa 1870. | Photo: United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division / Wikimedia CC.

Here he is, this Sunday, in the doorway of the Meeting house. He is wearing his hat, the grey sombrero he kept on indoors in what people saw as the Quaker manner, and the clothes that led an admirer to describe him as the ‘Good Grey Poet’. Will we greet...

Read more

The devil in the detail

28 Feb 2019 | by Janet Scott

Mark the Envagelist by Andrea Mantega, circa 1450. | Photo: The Yorck Project.

And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to proclaim the message, and to have authority to cast out demons. (Mark 3:14-15, NRSV) When Jesus selects companions to be part of his mission to bring about the kingdom of God,...

Read more

Molly Scott Cato thanks Friends for support after arrest

FREE 28 Feb 2019 | by Rebecca Hardy

Molly Scott Cato. | Photo: Bristol Green Party.

Quaker Molly Scott Cato, the Green MEP, has said she was ‘moved’ by the support from Friends following her arrest for an anti-nuclear protest at a military air base in Belgium.

Read more

Quaker children in climate change protests

28 Feb 2019 | by Rebecca Hardy

Pupils from Sibford School on the march. | Photo: Courtesy of Sibford School.

Quaker children and teenagers took part in climate change action that swept the UK on 15 February to protest against the lack of government action being taken to combat the environmental crisis.

Read more

All articles

MP says UK ‘powerless’ to stop bombing civilians

28 Feb 2019 | by Rebecca Hardy

Dorking Friends have said they are disappointed after receiving a letter from their local MP Paul Beresford saying that the UK is ‘powerless’ to act against the bombing of civilians. The response on 21 January came after Dorking Meeting wrote to the Conservative MP for Mole Valley late last year, urging...

Read more

Quakers make music

28 Feb 2019 | by Rebecca Hardy

Fifty-five people attended the annual Quaker Choral and Chamber Music Weekend in Yorkshire last month to celebrate its thirtieth anniversary. Quakers came from all over the UK to hear musicians play at the event at Cober Hill near Scarborough from 15 to 17 February.

Read more

Central England Quakers ‘Show the Love’

28 Feb 2019 | by Rebecca Hardy

Central England Quakers co-hosted an event at Birmingham Central Mosque this month as part of their commitment to working towards climate justice. 

Read more

Eye - 1 March 2019

28 Feb 2019 | by Eye

Fun, reflection and fellowship Fridays have taken on a Friendly theme for one Meeting in Northumberland. Michael Long, of Stocksfield Meeting, told Eye that local Quakers are now into their second year of ‘Friends on Fridays’: ‘Our Meeting house is open to all from 2pm to 6pm (or later) on...

Read more

Letters - 1 March 2019

28 Feb 2019 | by The Friend

What’s in a name? Since the days of George Fox, Quakers have taken ‘the Light’ to be central to seeking spiritual guidance. However, we should never substitute the word for what it represents. Isaac Penington reminds us of this need for clarification: ‘The names are but the signification of...

Read more