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.
When our yoga teacher tells us to put our left feet over here, I’m suddenly back to being a kid, playing Twister. And I’ve started to see some other connections between various games I have played and other things I do.
After my daughter was born, I couldn’t keep from singing. Sure, there weren’t many other ways to entertain her, as our hands were literally full, and it seemed to be one of the better ways to get her to sleep. But that wasn’t really why. In truth I felt a deep need inside, to express the joy I felt. That came out as singing.
Flying four thousand miles to visit a vegetable project in the Western Sahara might seem like a compromise of one’s eco credentials. Maybe so. But I am a gardening fanatic, and when I was offered a unique opportunity to live among the Sahrawi people for a week, and it coincided with the annual marathon there, I found it difficult to turn down.
Oxford young adult Friends gathered at Wallingford Meeting House in March to listen together to our Guide. In times of worship, conversation, rest, and discernment, we felt a new willingness to be led, to name and exercise our gifts, and to support each other to live faithfully. Our hearts were softened, our ears were opened to our Teacher, and our eyes were made more able to see God’s loving hand.
George Bernard Shaw once wrote: ‘There is no eminent writer… whom I can despise so entirely as I despise Shakespeare.’ He wanted to tease and provoke, of course, as well as make a justified attack on what he called ‘bardolatry’. He believed plays should challenge and disquiet their audiences with unfamiliar ideas, and give a clear point of view on social questions. He found Shakespeare conservative and conventional.
The Quaker understanding of healing is rooted in the belief that God’s love is available to all, and that this love brings restoration. For Friends, healing is understood spiritually, emotionally and socially, as well as physically. From the earliest days, Friends have experienced and witnessed this healing.
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Written by and for Friends on the bench
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