Issue 18-09-2020

Featured story

‘We have no choice but to respond to the fear.’

FREE 17 Sep 2020 | by Paul Henderson

The impact of Covid-19 is going to be profound. Quakers are responding energetically, the Build Back Better campaign being an excellent example. But are we sufficiently engaged in probing the deeper significance of the crisis? Quaker history tells us to live adventurously to address questions of universal significance, with ‘the...

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Top stories

‘Few today have to make the choices my grandparents’ generation did.’

17 Sep 2020 | by Antony Barlow

'My grandfather spent his life proclaiming pacifism at a time when opinion in the Society of Friends was very divided.' | Photo: Images: left, John Henry Barlow; right, Ralph and Joan Barlow with the author (left) and his brother David 1942.

When I started to go through my parents’ wartime correspondence, I had little conception of how relevant it would be to Friends today. Pacifism is of course at the very heart of Quakerism, and if people know only one thing about the Society it is this. But proclaiming pacifism is...

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‘The printing press that we shut down represents so much that must change.’

17 Sep 2020 | by Sue Hampton

'The protest was defined by inventiveness, humour and boisterous spirit, with solidarity and song...' | Photo: by Tom Oldham, courtesy of XR.

I wrote this piece from a jail cell, following my arrest at the ‘Stop the Press’ Extinction Rebellion (XR) protest. I joined a blockade of the News Corps Printworks, home to The Sun, The Times, and The Daily Mail. I wrote it in case I was interviewed with a solicitor,...

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‘One rainy day, in a forest far away, two little birds came out to play.’

17 Sep 2020 | by Andrew Rutter and Jake Buchanan

‘Fred woke with a start and looked around – his sister was nowhere to be found.’ | Photo: Linocut of birds and ferns.

When the Covid lockdown was introduced, I wrote to a handful of children in our Meeting, sending them this linocut of birds and ferns. I asked them if they would enjoy using their imaginations to write something based on what they saw. Jake, aged twelve, replied with a story he...

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‘He cannot understand why a country that champions human rights treats him this way.’

17 Sep 2020 | by Claire Meyer

'Refugees are Human Beings' | Photo: courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

The Britain Yearly Meeting briefing on ‘Build Back Better’ includes a call for ‘A humane immigration and asylum system’ and for the government ‘to allow people from migrant backgrounds to access work, housing and healthcare’.

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Friends send creative inspirations

17 Sep 2020 | by Rebecca Hardy

‘Flow’ | Photo: courtesy of Peter V.

Quakers have been sending art for a creative project launched by the Book of Discipline Revision Committee (BDRC) to illustrate what faith and practice means to them.

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All articles

Friends House staff consultation ends

FREE 17 Sep 2020 | by Rebecca Hardy

Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has said that it is ‘not likely to announce any decisions imminently’ following staff surveys to consider ‘a wide range of cost-cutting measures’.

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UK risks surge in homelessness, says MP

FREE 17 Sep 2020 | by Rebecca Hardy

The politician Thangam Debonnaire MP, who has spoken previously about the influence of her Quaker roots, has warned that without proper safeguards in place, the UK faces a deepening homeless crisis with renters facing eviction just as the economic fall-out of Covid-19 bites.

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Holidays for Syrian refugees

17 Sep 2020 | by Rebecca Hardy

Friends from Minehead Meeting organised holidays for five Syrian refugee families this summer despite the pandemic. The Quaker-founded Minehead and District Refugee Support Group, led by members of Minehead Meeting, continued fundraising during lockdown for its programme of seaside days and mini-breaks through postal donations, virtual tea parties and a...

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Friends and MP raise tourism as concern

17 Sep 2020 | by Rebecca Hardy

A North Wales Build Back Better (BBB) group set up by a Friend from Porthmadog Meeting has agreed with its local MP that tourism in the area is a particular concern.

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US Quaker school disbands union

17 Sep 2020 | by Rebecca Hardy

More than 1,000 parents and alumni have signed a petition urging a Quaker school in the US not to disband a staff union, amid claims that it is betraying its Quaker values. The row broke out after Brooklyn Friends, a private Quaker school in Brooklyn, sent out an email on 14 August...

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Passion and Partings: The dying sayings of early Quakers, by Jane Mace

17 Sep 2020 | by Judith Roads

This is an extraordinary little book that defies classification. Piety Promoted was a collection of volumes from the seventeenth century, full of ‘the dying sayings of many of the people called Quakers’. Jane Mace has with great care put together a sample of these words to enable us to look...

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Credo? Religion and Psychoanalysis, by Patrick Casement

17 Sep 2020 | by Neil Morgan

What is the relationship between our emotions and our spiritual life? In this short book, an eminent psychoanalyst describes the relationship between psychoanalysis and religion in his life.

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The Good State: On the Principles of Democracy by A C Grayling

17 Sep 2020 | by Nick Wilde

Quaker decision making does not work in the same way as democracy, exactly. Friends get the ‘sense of the meeting’ and, if we do not agree, we wait until we do. Politics isn’t like that. Winston Churchill famously said that democracy is the least bad way of conducting politics...

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Psalm 119

17 Sep 2020 | by Jonathan Wooding

O Lord, thou hast dealt graciously with thy servant Butterflies are happy for our garden. Something coppery there, a Small Heath, and a Wood White skipping, luciform.

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Letters - 18 September 2020

17 Sep 2020 | by The Friend

A great blessing In Carlisle we have been holding regular Meetings every Tuesday using Zoom. These have varied between opportunities for chat, talks and prayer. Usually there are about eight people present, but a variable eight.    One of our members who has recently had his ninety-ninth birthday says...

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