Issue 12-03-2021
Featured story
Thought for the week: Pat Carney-Ceccarelli watches this space
Our spirituality and our mental health are equally rooted in our personal experience. During times of personal and collective upheaval, can we make space for each other in our Quaker practice? Space that might transcend ordinary conversations into truly compassionate ones? Space for humbly sharing experiences like grief, shame, anger,...
Top stories
Something to give: Harry Albright remembers David Firth former editor of the Friend
I was very sad to learn of the death of David Firth, one of my predecessors at the Friend. David was always very supportive of me as a young editor. He lived not far from Friends House and would often visit. He was always very kind, and he was aware...
Quaker wins award for scientific modelling
A Quaker from Settle Meeting has won an award for her contribution towards science.
Meeting the challenge: All Friends in an Area Meeting need to consider its future, says Mary Aiston
Is your Area Meeting (AM) a vibrant and thriving spiritual community? What will your AM look like in five years’ time? Ten years’, twenty? What proportion of your AM’s energy, money and capacity is spent running the AM itself? Is it easy to find Friends to serve as trustees?
Still life: David L Saunders on a foundational element
I’m always disappointed when I hear the emphasis in descriptions of our worship put on ‘silence’; I am always encouraged when I hear the emphasis put on ‘stillness’. The one is essentially negative: the absence of words. The other is positive: it is about presence and being. Silence is...
The Life That Never Ends by Quaker Fellowship for Afterlife Studies
This is a delightful anthology of Friends’ experiences. For ease of reading, it is arranged under different headings: ‘As Death Approaches’, ‘After Death Communications’, ‘Near Death Experiences’, ‘Animals and Afterlife’, and there are also some miscellaneous experiences.
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Staff say goodbye as The Penn Club finds new home
The entire staff team at the Quaker-founded guest house The Penn Club was made redundant last week, only days after the club revealed that it had found a new home.
BYM announces Yearly Meeting dates
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has announced the dates for the 2021 Yearly Meeting Gathering (YMG) which will be held online due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Big increase in attenders, says Woodbrooke
The numbers of people signing up for Woodbrooke courses increased by over a third in 2020, the Quaker centre has reported.Total attendance for its online worship in 2020 was also more than 18,000.
Leighton Park School recognised for outreach work
The Quaker school Leighton Park has been awarded the 2020 Award for Outstanding Local Community Involvement.
The Life That Never Ends by Quaker Fellowship for Afterlife Studies
This is a delightful anthology of Friends’ experiences. For ease of reading, it is arranged under different headings: ‘As Death Approaches’, ‘After Death Communications’, ‘Near Death Experiences’, ‘Animals and Afterlife’, and there are also some miscellaneous experiences.
The Glorious Journey, by Liam Kelly
I did not have the good fortune to see the film on which this book is based. Its principal characters are Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, then pope, and Jorge Bergoglio, the current pope (then cardinal). It starred Anthony Hopkins as Ratzinger and Jonathan Pryce as Bergoglio.
Breathtaking: Inside the NHS in a time of pandemic, by Rachel Clark
This book is about faith. Not faith in God, but faith in medicine, and faith in one’s fellow professionals. ‘You have to promise me something… you’ll make sure you won’t catch it. You, the nurses, all of you here.’ This is from one of two sons watching...
One of the “quiet heroes”
Many Friends will have their own memories of David; previous contributors, former trustees, other colleagues and obviously members of Friends House Meeting. I can’t imagine anyone not liking and respecting him.
Eye - 12 March 2021
A pop of pep An episode of BBC1’s Bargain Hunt, which aired on 19 February, saw a former student of a Quaker school snap up a bottle of pop with Friendly associations at Oswestry Showground. Bargain Hunt sees pairs of contestants challenged to buy three objects in an hour and...
Letters - 12 March 2021
From A beacon of light Last year David Gray, principal of Brummana High School (BHS) in Beirut, and Sami Cortas, clerk of Brummana Meeting, appealed to Friends for support for families at the school affected by the terrible explosion in the summer, and the wider economic problems this country is...