Issue 02-08-2019
Featured story
‘I’ve made a list of ten things to do, right now.’
Two things came together recently. The first was watching Simon Reeve’s TV series about Russia, in particular the moments he spent watching the melting of Siberian permafrost. ‘When that goes,’ he said, ‘the land gives up its stores of methane. Methane is a far worse climate-changer than carbon. The...
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‘It’s going to be an evolution, but we do need to get on with it.’
You’ve been clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) trustees for six months now. How are you finding it? I’m really enjoying it. If you’re chairing or clerking something, the biggest pressure is always: ‘What is the CEO, or, in this case, the recording clerk, like?’ I have...
‘It made me reflect on the different ways this journey is navigated.’
I was very grateful when several readers of the Friend contacted me after I had written asking for insights from those who, like me, had been Anglicans before becoming Quakers. I used them to contribute to a Festival of Prayer in Cardiff earlier last month. The event began with the...
‘Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst.’ (Matthew 18:20)
Matthew’s gospel sets out to show how the risen Christ is present in and with the church (though the word ekklesia is better translated as ‘assembly’, or indeed ‘Meeting’). We see this at the beginning and end of the gospel. In 1:23 Matthew quotes from Isaiah, ‘they shall call his...
Looking for cows
After Meister Eckhart We went looking for God the way one looks for a cow: expecting warm flanks, soft cheese while all the universe ran away from us, its rivers of milk
‘Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the road to war’, by Tim Bouverie
What is of special interest to Friends in this story, so well told by Tim Bouverie, is the strong inclination to pacifism which existed in Britain between the wars, and the huge efforts of Neville Chamberlain to preserve peace. Bouverie writes: ‘The campaign against the arms manufacturers was continued by...
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Quakers say ‘no-deal Brexit’ is ‘huge gamble’
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has joined six other Christian groups in signing an open letter to the new prime minister describing a ‘no-deal Brexit’ as ‘a huge gamble’ that will hit those in poverty ‘very hard indeed’.
Friends protest at security expo
Quakers from Malvern, Hereford and Worcester demonstrated against a two-day Defence and Security Expo held at Malvern’s Three Counties Showgrounds last month. Friends and supporters held a vigil in a shopping area in Malvern on 17 July before marching to Qinetiq, which they say develops military technology.
Pangolin for Pride
A large handcrafted model of a pangolin painted in rainbow colours (see above) drew visitors to a Quaker stall at a local Pride event, ‘Bourne Free’, last month.
Quakers press for more support to LGBT+ education
Members of the Quaker Values in Education group and the Quaker Gender and Sexual Diversity Community have signed a letter calling on the government to step up its support to schools promoting the acceptance of LGBT+ education.
Don’t put soldiers above the law, says PPU
The Peace Pledge Union (PPU) has urged the UK’s incoming prime minister to reject calls by the Defence Select Committee to introduce a ‘presumption against prosecution’ for British armed forces personnel.
QVA in Calais
Eleven volunteers for Quaker Voluntary Action (QVA) headed for Calais last month to start work at the Help Refugees warehouse. Friends from Meetings in Great Britain and the Netherlands spent the week from 15-19 July translating documents and preparing food for daily distribution in Calais and Dunkirk with the Refugee...
Eye - 2 August 2019
The Hufflepuff hypothesis A light-hearted look at parallels between Quakerism and the Harry Potter books has been penned by Chloe Scaling, who is currently doing an internship in the recording clerk’s office at Friends House, London.
Letters - 2 August 2019
Therapeutic activity Is the experience of being bound up in God a therapy? Do we adopt belief in order to help us cope with life’s setbacks, our imperfections, isolation, mortality and uncertainties? Be honest. The timing of our faith activity would suggest that many of us do. If we...