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.
‘In worship we enter with reverence into communion with God’ (Advices & queries 9). Great! But then what?
I’m a social media user. You probably are too. In today’s fast-moving society, platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, and X seem the best way to interact with like-minded others, connect with friends, and keep in touch with loved ones overseas. Yet, like me, you may worry about the influence social media has on society. You may be considering deleting your account.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if nature – divinely inspired, if you like – had put a model of transformation at the centre of our being? What if it was also at the centre of the vast majority of other living creatures? If you look at the functions of the heart, my thesis is that nature – or God – has done just that.
In November, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, announced her proposals for restructuring the asylum and immigration landscape. An analysis of these proposals is available from the Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network (QARN) website (www.qarn.org.uk).
The idea for a Quaker evening with readings on the theme of light and darkness came to me while attending a Christmas Eve service with my sister and her family at their Anglican church. The candlelit setting gave a special atmosphere, and I began to think about how this might be translated into an event which would be meaningful for Quakers.
Whatever plagues me in life, I can gain Light over darkness when I have the opportunity to hear someone share their own story of challenges and recovery. Sarah McCammon’s book is such an opportunity.
Today we have incising of potatoes. Yesterday,
we had chopping of onions, garlic, and peppers.
After Meeting for Worship, we shall have shared lunch and then washing up.
But now, before Meeting, we have incising of potatoes.
Miles Davis weaves a necklace of seductive notes via the Bluetooth speaker,
and we have incising of potatoes.
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Written by and for Friends on the bench
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