Issue 24-06-2022
Featured story
Happy accidents: Meredith Freeman’s Thought for the Week
I came here to write and now I do not know what to say. I am getting hot – a sign of shame. I take off my cardigan. I remove my glasses. I am looking at the keyboard, not the screen. I look up and corecct my spleling.
Top stories
Arms intervention: Laëtitia Sédou says a new campaign threatens advances in ethical investment
In 1758, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting issued a proclamation forbidding its members from participating in the slave trade. By the 1900s, Quakers, along with Methodists and others, also began to exclude other ‘sinful’ sectors, such as alcohol, tobacco, gambling and weapons, from their investments.
A lot on your plate: Tony D’Souza is challenged at a dinner party
It was one of those dinner parties where you regret you came even before you get to the soup. My host, by all accounts a man of good character, and an acknowledged pillar of the local community, had firmly-held convictions. The problem was that he had no difficulty sharing them –...
Friends host black history walk
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) staff from its BAME network hosted a specially commissioned walk last week exploring Quaker and black history in the streets surrounding Friends House.
Blue sky thinking: Robert Ashton visits Houghton Hall
I have a battered copy of Walton Hannah’s controversial exposé of freemasonry, Darkness Visible. Hannah was a clergyman, and was horrified at the strong religious undertones to some masonic rituals. He knew that many senior clergy were Masons and saw this as a conflict.
Amazed: Jacqui Poole looks for truth and integrity in parliament
So our prime minister broke the law, and parliament heard him say things that were not true. Does that matter? As I listen in bewilderment to the news, and the reactions of politicians and the public, it appears that, as a nation, we’re not entirely sure.
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Long prison sentences ineffective, report finds
Quakers have welcomed a report showing that the dramatic rise in long prison sentences does not help victims, offenders or the public.
Banks lobbied to ditch nuclear investments
Quakers have been supporting a campaign to lobby bank and pension companies from investing in nuclear weapons.
Jocelyn Bell Burnell on new Irish bank note
The work of Quaker astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell features on a new £50 note launched in Northern Ireland last week.
1688 Meeting House reopens
Marazion – the oldest Meeting House in Cornwall – is reopening after building works. The Grade 2*-listed building has had its roof replaced, as well as its lintel, shutters and window frames preserved, thanks to the generous donations of Friends.
Just kidding? David & Louise Tinsley on Children’s Meeting
At Children’s Meetings in Lewes, we seek to develop Quaker values with our children, and to involve them in activities that encourage thinking and questioning. But we also want the sessions to be fun and entertaining!
Stories We Tell Ourselves: Making meaning in a meaningless universe, by Richard Holloway
In A Little History of Religion, Richard Holloway, a retired bishop of Edinburgh, devoted a whole chapter to Quakerism. Much of what he writes here will also be welcome to Friends, especially those of us who are more non-theist than theist. The author calls himself a Christian even though he...
Letter from Leningrad
Liebschen, forgive me one last letter out of lands bereft of God. Such frost, such cold, I hardly write through hollow blackened fingers here between the blizzards and those guns, eternal casual guns we live to hate. Eyes iced with bitterness that twists and locks each bone
Letters - 24 June 2022
The Zooming question Recently, through the magic of Zoom, I was able to attend a family funeral held hundreds of miles away. Well, in a sense I was present… Our small Meeting has been split in two by this new technology. I myself am a Meeting house Friend. We gather...