Issue 27-06-2025

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 27-06-2025

Thought for the week

No time to waste: Tony D’Souza’s Thought for the Week

by Tony D’Souza

The old man was dying and everybody knew it. He had been dying for some time. The food poisoning was slowly taking its toll on his frail eighty-year-old body. He lay exhausted beneath two trees as the sun beat down. 

Features

The extraordinary truth: Rebecca Hardy talks to Emily Provance, who gave this year’s Swarthmore Lecture

by Rebecca Hardy

How did you feel when you were asked to do the Swarthmore Lecture 2025, organised and funded by Woodbrooke? Were you surprised? Were you at all daunted by the task, or did you feel excited and energised by the invitation? 

I was definitely excited. Maybe a little surprised. The work itself was energising, but I was aware of a lot else happening in the world and other work that I couldn’t neglect, so I spent some time with my support committee working through whether it was the right time. Looking back, my impression is yes, it definitely was. The research I spent so much time doing expanded upon other ministry work rather than taking anything away from it.

Features

Go to law: Claire Bowman tells how CEQ met with police

by Claire Bowman

In the wake of the raid on Westminster Meeting House, Friends from Central England Quakers met with Haroon Chughtai, a superintendent at the West Midlands Police, and Khadija Sulaiman, their head of chaplaincy. The meeting was suggested and arranged by Kamran Shezad, the director of the Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences. Kamran is a well-known local activist, who has been advising West Midlands police on behalf of Muslims to good effect for some time. He knows Quakers well and wanted them to have an equally-good working relationship with the police.

Features

General Meeting for Scotland: Kate Arnot reports

by Kate Arnot

One of the many joys of General Meeting for Scotland (GMS) is that it rotates among the four Area Meetings (AMs). This time we met in Aberdeen, the granite glistening in the infrequent sunshine.

Reviews

Elizabeth Heyrick: The making of an anti-slavery campaigner

by John Hall

I have been studying Quaker history for almost forty-five years, and it has been very unusual to come across a book devoted to a Friend of whom I had never heard. But this was the case with this biography of Elizabeth Heyrick (née Coltman 1769-1831).

Reviews

The Guide to the Perplexed: A new translation

by Simon Webb

How to reconcile science and faith? The question is not a new one, and for one twelfth-century philosopher it was central, as he treasured both his faith and his scientific knowledge very dearly. 

Features

Poem: I shall no longer run from sorrow

by Elizabeth Gray Vining (1902-1999)

I shall no longer run from sorrow

nor seek to avoid him

by going down another street of thoughts.

I shall not try to overcome him with my strength.

News

Quaker settlements preserved by charity

by Rebecca Hardy Two historically-significant Quaker Meeting houses have been bought by a charity dedicated…
News

Quakers fund displaced people in DRC

by Rebecca Hardy Three hundred and eighty households impacted by the escalating war in Democratic Republic…
News

Friends plan Quaker garden calendar

by Rebecca Hardy Central England Friends are organising a gardening project aimed at encouraging Quaker…
News

BYM speaks on Israel and Iran

by Rebecca Hardy Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has released a statement on the escalation of conflict…
News

Scottish Quakers move closer to single charity

by Rebecca Hardy West Scotland Friends have moved one step closer in their transition to a single body:…
Q-eye

Eye - 27 June 2025

by Elinor Smallman Meeting in school ‘A string stretched across the classroom… for students to indicate…
Letters

Letters - 27 June 2025

by The Friend Bad languageHow are we being affected by the language of the media? I was prompted to ask…
Features

Friends and Meetings - 27 June 2025

by The Friend Deaths Colin BELL 14 June, peacefully at home. Aged 95. Husband of…

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