The Friend is a weekly magazine in which Friends speak to each other and to the wider world, offering their insight, ideas, news, nurture and inspiration.
Nurturing Quaker community, each issue offers a space for Friends to share their concerns, and to support each other in faith and witness.
The Friend: enriching, inspiring and connecting the Quaker community since 1843.
Among Friends, we celebrate that of God in everyone, which includes a reverence for the dignity of each person’s leadings, gifts, and capacity to discern truth. This respect often manifests as encouragement for self-reliance, a DIY spirit, grounded not in individualism but in trust that each of us is guided and equipped by the Light. From early Quaker testimonies of plain living to our modern-day decision-making, we honour the power of a person listening inwardly and acting faithfully.
The work in a charity such as Quaker Congo Partnership (QCP) is rewarding and hard going.
Theodore Zeldin’s An Intimate History of Humanity must surely be on every Friend’s essential non-fiction reading list. It’s a counter-intuitive presentation of history, with a grand hallelujah on Quakerism’s behalf: ‘It may seem that it was foolish to hope that anything would change as a result of a few people practising friendship… The Society of Friends… has indeed fewer than a quarter of a million members… but it has had more influence on how human beings treat each other than any government ever had, of however powerful an empire.’
Eighty per cent of the people in the world have never been on a plane, yet in the UK most of us feel entitled to do just that. But flying is a question, and symbol, of climate injustice. That’s hard to tell friends, including Friends, who talk casually about parts of the world that someone should see, as if a long-haul flight needs no further justification. Years ago I began, for my own protection, ‘unfriending’ people on Facebook who posted photos from exotic locations. The more warmly I feel towards that friend, the more bruised I am. If I bump into her on the high street, we’ll chat, and embrace. But from April to September, people in my town use their holiday as a conversation staple. ‘We really needed it,’ I’ve been told. As if blowing any personal carbon budget is necessary for our health. Yet the idea that it’s damaging to our planet and to humans suffering in this climate crisis is not new to the people I know, who are aware of my climate activism.
Many people are aware that the established order is fraying badly, and are looking for radical new answers. In the US and Europe, this appears to be translating into support for authoritarian political movements. In the rest of the world, a young demographic is restless and seeking justice. Turbulence and change are everywhere. A polycrisis is emerging with four apocalyptic horsemen: climate change, biodiversity loss, conflict, and emerging disruptive technologies. But violent global conflict is not inevitable.
Jacob Dunne served a sentence in prison following his conviction for manslaughter in 2011. The victim of his one punch died shortly after the assault. Jacob has since developed a relationship with his victim’s parents through a restorative justice programme. With their encouragement, he went on to earn a first-class degree in criminology.
Daphne’s bodily design,
the spina bifida Kyphosis, defines
how Sita’s daughter pulls herself
across the carpet.
Her spindly legs are now the steering
shape of a perfect landlocked rudder.
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Whether you are new to Quakerism or have been going to Meeting for years, you’ll find something here to inspire, inform and challenge you.
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Written by and for Friends on the bench
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