Issue 28-03-2025

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 28-03-2025

Thought for the week

Psyche out: Margaret Cook’s Thought for the Week

by Margaret Cook

Many of us witnessed the extraordinary scenes in the Oval Office when Donald Trump (aided and abetted by J D Vance) tore into Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine. Their shredding of the visiting president was uninhibited and shocking: two powerful men tearing into a third like hungry wolves. 

Features

Action for change: Catherine Putz on peacebuilding in Democratic Republic of Congo

by Catherine Putz

Since the wars of 1996, violence in the east of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has become normalised. But there are people working for peace, now, amid the military conflict. 

Features

Peace is possible: But Judith Moran & Jez Smith say it can be a changeable thing

by Judith Moran & Jez Smith

Life is a changeable thing, after the clouds, the sunshine; after the winter, the spring; after the shower, the rainbow.

After the night, the morning, bidding all darkness cease, after life’s cares and sorrows, the comfort and sweetness of peace.

Features

Different strokes: Howard Grace on dignity and peace

by Howard Grace

When I read The Dignity of Difference by Jonathan Sacks, the former chief rabbi, what came through to me was that we human beings are extremely varied in what resonates with us. Some like classical music, others hiphop or afrobeat. I was a teacher of mathematics, but not all my students shared my joy or aptitude for the subject! This difference also goes for spiritual propensity – forms of worship and beliefs are many and varied. Having a diversity of religious practices and worldviews give us pivotal contrasts.  

Features

Human resource: Heather Rowlands on a new peace pack

by Heather Rowlands

Peacemakers, a branch of Central England Area Meeting, is delighted to be launching a new improved edition of our popular resource Learning for Peace. This peace education resource for primary schools is packed with activities, games and approaches that can be built into any school or classroom. 

Q-eye

Eye - 21 March 2025

by Elinor Smallman

Supporting local life-drawing

Friends were mentioned in The Telegraph on 16 February in the story: ‘Row as nude models told to put clothes on at life-drawing class.’

News

Quakers uphold DR Congo

by Rebecca Hardy Friends have been upholding Quakers and others living through the war in Democratic…
News

BYM joins Green Investment Declaration

by Rebecca Hardy Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has joined a new global initiative, the Green Investment…
News

Friends criticise government priorities

by Rebecca Hardy Quakers heard from a Friend with experience of being in Palestine at a Northern Friends…
News

Friends mark ten years of the Peace Hub

by Rebecca Hardy Birmingham Friends celebrated ten years of the Peace Hub last month. Over thirty-five…
News

Friends House event galvanises US tour

by Rebecca Hardy The pacifist playwright Michael Mears is taking one of his plays to the US – inspired by…
Q-eye

Eye - 28 March 2025

by Elinor Smallman A puzzle full of peace The Peace Testimony is one of the core expressions of our Quaker…
Letters

Letters - 28 March 2025

by The Friend Soul music Alastair McIntosh’s Thought for the Week (‘On song’, 14 March) had me…

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