Issue 10-05-2024

The Friend

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.


Issue 10-05-2024

Thought for the week

Save your breath: Gerard Guiton’s Thought for the Week

by Gerard Guiton

‘Salvation’ in biblical Greek is the word we use to translate from sótéria and eiréné. The former gave rise to theologies of fall and redemption, while the latter suggests oneness, peace, quietness and rest, four aspects intrinsic to wholeness and unity in Love – for me, salvation’s true meaning.

News

Quakers on trial for arms witness

by Rebecca Hardy

Four Friends are on trial this week for their witness at an arms fair in Telford.

Features

Following the thread: Anne M Jones revisits her time in a Calais Jungle warehouse

by Anne M Jones

I am not really a tailor, but this is a story about tailoring, of sorts, and mostly about the power of the human spirit.

Features

Simply the best? Martyn Kelly’s letter from Chengdu

by Martyn Kelly

Daci Temple in downtown Chengdu neatly captures the paradoxes of modern China. It is a shrine for a religion whose adherents aspire to rise above materialism, but set within a shopping mall. Many of the worshippers carry bags advertising western brands. It is, however, an oasis of sorts, since the sound of construction and traffic is muted rather than silenced.

Features

Illegal deposit

by Rosemary Mathew

What’s the law on loitering?
(with or without intent?)
Does he commit offence, who
summer, autumn, winter, spring,
swings his soiled sleeping bag
into a shop doorway and curls
inside it in a drug-drenched sleep?

News

BYM discusses arms exports to Israel at Westminster

by Rebecca Hardy Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) joined a parliamentary discussion on suspending arms exports…
News

QARN monitors Migrant Help strategy

by Rebecca Hardy Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network (QARN) has highlighted a new strategy launched by a Home…
News

York Friends hold vigil for peace

by Rebecca Hardy York Quakers held a silent peace vigil last week in the middle of the city.
Q-eye

Eye - 10 May 2024

by Elinor Smallman Glimmers Eye has been so moved by Friends’ generosity with sharing their moments of love…
Letters

Letters - 10 May 2024

by The Friend Sadness and sympathies I have often found Tony D’Souza’s articles enlightening and…

Past issues