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.
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I was born into a Quaker family, so Quaker tenets have always been part of the furniture. There was never a time when I didn’t know Quakerism existed. For me, the question has always been: does it matter? Or, does it make sense? Is it any use? To my surprise and delight, I can say yes to all three.
In early 2022, when Brighton Quaker Sanctuary group realised that there were many asylum-seekers being housed in hotels in Brighton, with very little support, we wanted to get involved. After contacting local groups (Sanctuary on Sea, Care for Calais, Brighton Migrant Solidarity, and the Network of International Women), we decided that, as people were feeling unwell with the food that they were being given at the hotel, we would offer people the chance to come and cook food from their own cultures, working together, and getting to know each other and ourselves. We started in mid-March 2022, initially fortnightly, but then weekly as interest grew. We also ran English classes for about eight months until the council and colleges began to run regular classes in town.
Quakers welcomed the news last week that Trudi Warner will not face prison for her climate witness. The retired social worker faced two years in prison for holding up a sign outside a climate trial last March saying: ‘Jurors, you have an absolute right to acquit a defendant according to your conscience.’
Last month, I went on a walk – the second stage of a longer walk, from Winchester to Canterbury. In December I had hiked from Winchester to Box Hill, along the Pilgrim’s Way. On Wednesday 17 April, the 637th anniversary of the beginning of the pilgrimage in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, I undertook the second leg of the journey, from Box Hill to Canterbury.
The Paris gendarme whimsically dropped
round David’s neck a garland he’d found,
and waved us on. We pedalled stoically
over Normandy as wind plucked cuffs
and panniers, barns hosted us.
Till one night, sleeping in a ruined
chateau guarded by a ghostly widow,
who led us down dark corridors of dust,
Dear Friends, as we move closer to Yearly Meeting (YM), I find myself reflecting on what it means to meet and discern together. YM is a time when we collectively listen to, and seek guidance from, ‘that which is eternal’. I am clear that the journey we embark on is as important as where we land.
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Written by and for Friends on the bench
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