Issue 28-05-2021
Featured story
Thought for the week: Kate McNally’s love life
The dictionary defines worship as ‘to pay great honour to’ or ‘to show reverence and adoration for’. The origin of the word is Old English, meaning an acknowledgement of the worth of someone. When I think of worshipping God, this definition makes me uncomfortable. Does God need me to pay...
Top stories
Level headed: Simon Webb on the ‘Gentleman, Leveller, Quaker’ John Lilburne
We’re not exactly the 1652 Country, but up here in County Durham we do have quite a lot of Quaker history, and in better times it’s not unknown for Quaker pilgrims to visit us to see the sights.
Bee in the bonnet: Quakers are stuck in awkward structures, says Frances Voelcker
Following Yearly Meeting (YM) in 2018 various words resonated with me, and various images remained. Others noted ‘bold’, ‘creative’, ‘change’, and ‘vulnerable’. I noticed also ‘finding the balance’; ‘the barriers of our structures’; and ‘wonderful bumblebees’. Did you know that, according to the laws of aerodynamics, bumblebees should not be able...
Room for improvement: Elaine Green on the ‘shameful mantle’ of Quakers and the slave trade
It is an awkward question for Quakers in Britain to consider deeply and truthfully. The record of Quakers who enslaved people in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries feels like a shameful mantle to wear, and it is hard to know how it can be made good by the current generation...
Newport Friends Journey to COP 26
Newport Quakers climbed Fan y Bîg in the Brecon Beacons last month, as part of the Journey to COP26 initiative, where people went on pilgrimages to celebrate the natural world. Three local Friends and two guests climbed to the summit on 10 April to unfurl their recently-crafted Newport Quaker banner,...
Votes of conscience: Frances Voelcker on online hustings
For years, Porthmadog Quakers have arranged public events prior to elections, as a service to the wider community. We invite community and faith groups, as well as individuals, to submit questions in Welsh or English, and share these with the candidates beforehand. We have had between thirty-five and sixty people...
All articles
Police apologise to Quaker after unlawful arrest
A Quaker arrested for protesting during the January lockdown has received an apology from the police, as well as substantial damages.
Paul Parker marks ten years with BYM
Quaker Paul Parker has written about his first decade as recording clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) in an article on the Quakers in Britain website. Recalling ten Quaker landmarks, starting with the 2011 Canterbury Commitment – when Yearly Meeting committed ‘to become a low-carbon, sustainable community’ – he mentions milestones such as...
Quaker continues witness to feminism
Quaker author Lucy-Anne Holmes has interviewed fifty-one women from all over the world for a book about sex. In Women on Top of the World – published in the US this month, following its UK release in February – the Hertfordshire Friend spoke to the women about ‘what they think of during...
Bookings to open for Quaker Gathering
Bookings will soon open for the 2021 Yearly Meeting Gathering (YMG), which is themed ‘For our comfort and discomfort: living equality and truth in a time of crisis’. Online sessions will focus on Quaker work for climate and racial justice, as well as ongoing discernment around gender diverse people.
Friends discuss being an interfaith church
Quakers discussed ‘What it means to be a non-credal church’ last month, as the theme of a webinar run by the Quaker Committee for Christian and Interfaith Relations (QCCIR). The event on 29 April featured talks by Quaker theologians Rex Ambler, Janet Scott and Ben Wood, and was introduced by Marigold...
Given
The words lined up nicely – didn’t they just. Big and small, banging their pans till their echoes rattled in my tight chest, their once-, twice-swallowed meaning doing its level best to squeeze clear of the Light, into the light of day: my throat just a handy device, a dispenser,...
Letters - 28 May 2021
Denzil As a follow-up to the article in the 16 April issue about Denzil, we regret to say that Denzil died alone in his cell on 17 April, just a few weeks before he was due for release on 11 May. He knew he was terminally ill with a diagnosis of cancer, but...