The Friend

Last month the new single charity for Quakers in Wales and the Marches held its AGM. Helen Oldridge & Lesley Richards reflect

Helen
Lesley I was thinking of that poem you shared a year or so ago, about a river finding its way to the sea.  

Lesley
Oh yes, ‘The river cannot go back’ by Kahlil Gibran. It imagines the fear of the river as it approaches the sea, fearing it will be swallowed up, but finding that it hasn’t disappeared into the ocean, it’s actually become the ocean itself. 

Voice of doom: Tony D’Souza on an era-defining term

Doomscrolling is ‘the activity of spending a lot of time looking at your phone or computer and reading bad or negative news stories’. I do it more often than I should. The minutes turn to hours and time slips by imperceptibly as if in a dream. That’s the worst thing about it. Doomscrolling robs me of time I could have spent doing something meaningful. It is time wasted in a fear-filled reverie. 

Thank you for the music: Sue Johnson hears The Fire and the Hammer

Wow. The radical, transformative experience of George Fox, which powered the beginnings of our Quaker movement, was brought right into my heart, thoughts and feelings at Central Manchester Meeting House last month.

Picking Up Signals

We are encouraged in Advices & queries to take heed of the promptings of love and truth in our hearts. The Quaker poet Jane Pearn regards these promptings as signals. Dealing with signals requires the sensitivity to detect them, and the capacity to interpret them. Pearn is gifted with each of these abilities, as revealed by this fine collection, which faces up to many of truth’s challenges with courage, intelligence and humour.