Issue 19-02-2021
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Thought for the week: Jonathan Doering’s flower power
Last year was difficult for everyone in so many ways, and it’s not letting up yet. Economic uncertainty, clashes over the important Black Lives Matter movement, Covid and a bitter presidential election are just some of the images swirling in my brain.
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Generous to a fault: Power and self-care, by Brendan Caulfield-James
When I told my kinesiologist that I was about to go overseas to volunteer fulltime at a Quaker centre, he became quite cross. It’s good to give to others, he acknowledged, but not if it means forgetting to give to oneself. Without this self-care, people can be vulnerable to...
Seeing Iris: A profound Quakerly thinker?, by Jonathan Wooding
In the years since I became part of the Society of Friends, no one has ever mentioned Iris Murdoch as representative of Quaker sensibility and thinking. In that same period of time I’ve also become convinced that our post-supernatural, post-fundamentalist condition is naturally Quaker, and is a reasonable contradiction...
Get the message: Sue Glover Frykman is on the side of the angels
In the BBC’s Trump: A president’s fall, a wildly gesticulating woman screams: ‘I hear a sound of victory, I hear shouting and singing in the corridors of heaven. Victory, victory, victory…Angels are being released right now, angels are being dispatched right now.’ My initial reaction was to...
Blind faith: Michael Crossland on a story of freedom through forgiveness
A problem with listening to Radio 4 as you go to sleep is that you can hear something that jars you awake. This happened when I heard a story that combined my interest in peace with my work in visual impairment.
Social climbing: Abigail Maxwell considers kinship
‘In my love and laughter, joy and pain, I feel kinship with all my fellow humans.’ This is from a prayer at an interfaith gathering, recognising things all people of faith value. It is beautiful. It was a Woodbrooke Meeting for Worship linked to Advices & queries 6: ‘Enter imaginatively into...
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Peace garden in Exeter
Exeter Meeting has created a peace garden funded by a legacy left by late Friend Christopher Holdsworth.
Quakers set up mental health group
Friends have formed a national mental health group in response to the challenges caused by the pandemic. Seventy-seven people attended the second meeting of the Quaker Voices on Mental Health group online on 30 January.
Safeguarding concerns spark review
Safeguarding consultants have concluded that there are no high-risk cases needing further investigation at Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), after thoroughly reviewing historic safeguarding folders.
North Wales citizens’ forums
A Quaker-backed group started by a local North Wales Friend is organising two online citizens’ forums to debate the climate crisis and how Wales can move to a greener, fairer society.
Asylum crisis grows
The inequalities facing people seeking asylum have got worse in the past year, Friends heard at the first open meeting of the Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network (QARN) in 2021.
Difficult Questions About Population, by Roger Plenty and other Quakers
Quaker Concern Over Population (QCOP) was formed in 2015 and granted Quaker Recognised Body status in 2018. Its aim is to remind Friends of the danger of population growth and to explore the means by which it can be addressed without coercion. The group hopes to encourage Friends to overcome their reticence...
The Plots Against Hitler, by Danny Orbach
When people learn that Quakers are pacifist, they commonly ask what we would have done about Adolf Hitler, by which they mean, how would we have resisted him? It is instructive therefore, to find out how people living in Hitler’s regime did it. Such a question is given additional...
Letters - 19 February 2021
Quiet undercurrent The issue of the Friend for 29 January was especially thought provoking and spiritual in very many differing ways. I especially felt connected with all the contributors each in their unique subject matter, but in particular Julianna Minihan drawing attention to Clodagh Grubb’s work on the intrinsic value...