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In Winchester Meeting a couple of weeks ago we had a joint Havdalah service, marking the end of Shabbat with the local Reform Jewish community. Our Jewish friends were the hosts, but on Quaker premises. It was a moving and joyful occasion. Prayers were said and songs were sung, in Hebrew and in English. Afterwards we shared cake and tea.
I was in a somewhat rarefied position following the raid on Westminster Meeting House, simultaneously receiving updates from both Quaker channels and activist groups. In addition to being a semi-regular attendee of Quaker Meetings (in fact, my first Meeting was at Westminster), I have been a direct action and civil disobedience activist for about five years, mostly as part of the environmental movement, but increasingly in solidarity with the Palestinian people. At the time of the raid, I was living with one of the spokespeople for Youth Demand, the group that had precipitated it. Youth Demand calls for action on two of the biggest crises of the present time: the climate emergency and an end to arms sales to Israel.
‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light’ Matthew 11:28-30.
More than 100 Friends attended Ireland Yearly Meeting 2025 to explore the theme ‘A Learning Community’. It was appropriate to meet at Friends School Lisburn, which recently celebrated its 250th anniversary. Representatives of Quaker schools brought us up to date on their activities, and helped us understand how we can support them.
About thirty years ago, as Friends considered the revision of our book of discipline, I said that Quaker decision-making was the wound in Christ’s side that I could put my hand in as the proof of God’s presence in our worship. This year’s consideration of Gaza has, for me, been a reminder of that certainty, and proof of the superlative work the clerks can achieve under guidance of the Spirit and upholding. Minute 30, endorsing use of the word ‘genocide’, stands as a testament.
Tier on tier, the light gathers, to fall
on papers, colours, bodies, scattered.
Vladimir nuzzles into the milk
of his red cheeked mother.
Bertha rolls into the body of an elder,
as she sings, Hello! Hallo you! Hello.
What are the twenty-first century virtues which Lucinda Holdforth argues are a threat to our democracy? They are, first, ‘authenticity’, by which she means one’s individual self: genuine, up front. Then ‘my truth’, which is reality as I know it; and ‘vulnerability’, which is the open self and its quest for acceptance. There is another: ‘empathy’. How this functions in the real world is somewhat obscure, but it seems to be restrained by ‘self care’, another core virtue.
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