Issue 26-08-2022
Featured story
Inside story: Kate McNally’s Thought for the week
We are admonished to love our neighbours as ourselves. I have always understood this to mean that we should wish for them the same things we have, or wish to have: love, community, health, adventure, challenging work, abundance, and so on. This is hard, as we don’t see our...
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Body language: Jan Arriens puts in a good word
There has been some discussion in these pages recently about whether killing off traditional Quaker terminology can take us to a deeper spiritual place. With some diffidence, I feel that it would.
World plenary: Peter D Leeming remembers a 1991 visit to Honduras
The plans for Friends World Committee for Consultation’s world plenary (see Tim Gee’s article, 14 July) are ambitious and exciting. They are also timely. A spirit of separation and exclusion is spreading throughout the world, tearing communities and nations apart. Now, more than ever, faith communities are called upon...
On speaking terms: Joanna Hodgkin travels with Thomas Rickman
One dark December morning in 1807, when young Thomas Rickman boarded the London to Liverpool coach, he faced an immediate dilemma. What words should he use? Should he greet his fellow travellers as ‘You’? Or ‘Thee’ and ‘Thou’?
Peace campaigners share memories for Bruce Kent exhibition
Peace campaigners have shared photographs and other memorabilia for an online exhibition remembering the late Bruce Kent, former general secretary of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
IMHO
Jesus did not appear to me today in a burnt a piece of toast. Nor in the face of the cornbread, nor in the sad black eye of the sunflower. Maybe he was lingering in the musical shadows of children singing in my morning dreams.
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Quakers’ concern over arms dealers at Pride
Quakers have expressed disappointment that some Pride events are still sponsored by arms companies. BAE Systems, a leading arms dealer, was a sponsor of several Pride events, including Leeds and London, this summer. In 2019, BAE Systems sponsored at least three Pride marches in the UK.
BYM grapples with the legacy of colonialism
Quakers are drawing church attention to work by an Oxford museum and a Naga research team to return human remains to the mountainous border area between Myanmar and India, the Naga Hills.
New report explores ‘militarised nature’ of UK policing
A Quaker co-founded group has released a report examining what it calls the ‘militarised nature’ of British policing. ‘A Very British Problem: The evolution of Britain’s militarised policing industrial complex’ focuses on several key areas: the paramilitary policing of protests, border control and counter terrorism. It also looks at...
Saffron Walden Friends open peace garden
Saffron Walden Quakers opened their peace garden to the public, after months of planning and creating.
Name calling: Julia Lim from Crynwyr Cymru/ Quakers in Wales
A rail strike meant that the first planned blended Meeting of Friends in Wales was on-line only again, and thirty-six Friends gathered on Zoom. Key themes were the development of Meeting of Friends in Wales as a Meeting for Friends in Wales, with all that means, and the significance of...
Hidden agenda: Metford Robson welcomes visitors
This year, our town’s annual ‘Hidden Gardens’ project took place despite worries about the possible effect of the pandemic on attendance. It was in aid of the local hospice so we decided to be brave and support it as usual.
The Bullet in the Pawpaw: Theatre and AIDS in South Africa, by Kim Hope
In March 2003 I was on my way to Kuruman Moffat Mission in South Africa. I was going to lead some talks and workshops on art therapy, at a conference of people working in prisons. On the way I had arranged a couple of meetings in Johannesburg with conflict resolution organisations,...
Letters - 26 August 2022
Giving thanks Thank you Derek Guiton (12 August) for your ‘I Am’ poem (especially ‘I am that rusty clapped out bike’), and thank you Michael Saunders (same issue), both for your call for ‘passionate inclusivity’ and for your quotation from John Robinson, author of Honest to God: ‘As for the images...