Issue 12-08-2022
Featured story
Pig and bull story: Ben Evens’ Thought for the week
Last year I wandered into a rather posh shop. Among the goods for sale was a display of fine china. I was quite taken with the collection of farmyard animals. As I bent over to peer more closely at the exquisite detail, another customer started to edge past me in...
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Peeping at Tom, part one: Deak Kirkham looks at the Gospel of Thomas
The four canonical gospels of the New Testament are familiar: the synoptics (Matthew, Mark and Luke), which, broadly, have a similar structure and share a considerable amount of material; and the Gospel of John which differs in tone, style, theology and arguably in its view of Jesus. But these texts...
Dead end? More from Michael Saunders on ‘death of God’ theology
Following my ‘Back from the death’ article (8 July), some Friends seem to have missed what I hoped was a positive vision. In one letter, a Friend even derided the phrase ‘death of God’ as a ‘weird oxymoron’. But isn’t this ‘weird oxymoron’ already suggested by Christian language about the...
In respect to Gaia: Kenneth Cukier celebrates the life of James Lovelock
Gaia is the Greek goddess of Earth, the mother of life. It was thus a suitable name for a theory that the planet’s natural systems, from air and water currents to wetlands and volcanos, are not discrete phenomena but act as a self-regulating system, like a living organism. When...
French leave: Gillian Metheringham visits Maison Quaker
We knew it would be hot because the forecast had told us so, but even that didn’t prepare us for 40°C. Sheltering in the relative cool of the house, we peered out as the heat blazed on the flagstones and crisped the foliage. Fortunately the Quaker house at Cong...
Walks of life: Anne M Jones hikes with refugees
Last month I went on a five-day ‘Refugee Tales’ walk, set up by the Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group. It is the fifth walk of this kind, inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer’s fourteenth-century account of pilgrims who walked from London to Canterbury. Just as it did 750 years ago, each evening ends...
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Wandsworth Friends share energy ideas
Wandsworth Quakers have issued guidance on reducing energy usage as the UK braces for soaring costs. The note, circulated around local Quakers, says that ‘with prices going up nine per cent a year at the moment… now is the time to look again at how we can save energy in...
‘Good progress’ on diversity and inclusion, says BYM
Edwina Peart, Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM)’s diversity and inclusion coordinator, has said that the Quaker community has made ‘good progress’.
Seventeenth-century life reenacted for Almeley anniversary
Almeley Friends held an enactment day last month for children to recreate life when the Quaker Meeting house opened.
FWCC attends World Council of Churches Assembly
Quakers will take part in a meeting of the highest governing body of the World Council of Churches (WCC) this month in Karlsruhe, Germany.
Quakers call for nuclear disarmament
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has signed a joint letter calling on world leaders to phase out nuclear weapons.
I AM
I am the adder under the stone, I am the mouseling, wary, alone, I am the sea-wave ready to strike, I am that rusty clapped out bike.
Letters - 12 August 2022
Reparations The slave trade was so brutal and horrible that no reparations can make up for it. The present financial situation for so many people in this country is challenging, so now is not the time to think of reparations in my opinion. Quakers have been involved for many years...