Issue 03-04-2020
Featured story
‘Nature has been in long retreat from human rapacity, but the moment we step back a little…’
These are strange times indeed. Far less traffic, many of us at home, and schools closed. After initial elation that he’d be escaping lessons, our son realised that he won’t see his friends for weeks, which has led to some real grief and therapeutic reading of The Stone...
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‘Drugs, made to keep man fit to kill one another, are now being given freely to heal… enemies.’
In December 1921, one of the world’s oldest medical journals, the Lancet, published an advertisement which came from the Religious Society of Friends. Quakers urgently needed a doctor for work in Russia: a terrible famine there was accompanied by illnesses.
‘…one last chance to redesign the global economy before the climate crisis becomes irreversible.’
The road outside Quaker House in Brussels is usually busy with cars, including the occasional motorcade of a world leader unavoidably confronted by the banners outside our building. For now the road is quiet, and Belgium, like most of Europe, is on lockdown. But at Quaker Council for European Affairs ...
‘I had some grounds for thinking stillness, composure, wisdom might come via writing, didn’t I?’
At my first Quaker Meeting in 1985 in Westminster I was handed a pocket-sized leaflet called Silence, an adapted extract from John Edward Southall’s The Power of Stillness. I read this as I sat in the silence of that gathered Meeting, and I could read it now too as I...
‘Here, the jumble of ideas that I’ve had in my head is made almost coherent.’
The trouble with this Quakerism business is it requires each of us to find our own truth. None of this settling for pre-packaged dogma and/or conclusions. We struggle on – and then pick up a book we’ve known about for ages, and there it seemingly all is (or a...
‘Heswall WI kept us supplied with cake; the Rotary Club and Tesco each donated a breakfast.’
Just before Christmas, Heswall Quaker Meeting (HQM) hosted Arklight, a night shelter project. We responded to a plea from Wirral Churches’ Ark Project, a homeless hostel in Birkenhead. With homelessness increasing, the Ark had reached out to churches. Between November 2019 and February 2020, accommodation was offered for up to twelve guests,...
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‘Titles are manifest in a society predicated on the promulgation of undeserved inequality.’
Quakers have long eschewed the use of titles. Early Friends made excoriating commentary on the matter. They made a distinctive break from social norms by refusing to use them. But this practice seems to have lapsed. As if to confirm the neglect, ‘Titles’ does not appear in the index of...
A prayer-poem for a pandemic
May we who are merely inconvenienced Remember those whose lives are at stake. May we who have no risk factors Remember those most vulnerable.
Friends urge action on Windrush review
Friends are being asked to write to MPs about the recommendations made in the damning Windrush report, which has concluded that Home Office ‘thoughtlessness’ and ‘ignorance’ on race contributed to the scandal.
XR Quaker sets up COVID-19 group
Huddersfield Quaker and Extinction Rebellion (XR) co-founder Ian Bray has started a community network to help local people through the coronavirus crisis. Five hundred members joined up to the Meltham Community COVID-19 Mutual Aid Facebook group formed in early March. Several other local Quakers were involved in the initiative.
Jubilee Debt Campaign calls for interest relief
Friends are backing a call by African finance ministers for all debt interest payments to be suspended for their governments in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.
QSA helps with surge of foodbank demand
Quaker Social Action (QSA) has been helping foodbanks cope with the surge of demand caused by the pandemic. Giles Robinson, from QSA, told the Friend: ‘After temporarily closing our furniture re-use store Homestore, our delivery driver Steve has been supporting foodbanks to collect donations and make deliveries to vulnerable households...
FWCC online conference
Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) has released a statement about its first ever online conference on the theme of sustainability. Hundreds of Friends from across the world joined the virtual gathering on 22 February to ask: ‘How does God call us to act?’
Quakers and COVID-19
Huddersfield Meeting attender Philip Carlin passed away last week after suffering in intensive care with COVID-19. The retired priest was an active member of the Roots of Resistance group and regularly took part in peace vigils. Local Friends posted on the Huddersfield Quaker Facebook page: ‘We hold Philip, Jane and...
Eye - 3 April 2020
Friends in Welwyn Garden City Meeting have found a way to nurture positivity, thoughtfulness and creativity as they take action on their concerns. The Meeting has a thriving ‘craftivism’ group, which began in 2018 after Friends Lucy-Anne Holmes and Lesley Smith were inspired by the book How to be a Craftivist:...
Letters - 3 April 2020
Focus minds and hearts I have never voted Conservative in my life and cannot imagine that I would ever do so, though, were I to ask, I might find that ‘some of my best friends’ have voted Conservative. To me this feels like the right time to stand with the...