Issue 14-10-2022
Featured story
That’s the spirit: Piers Maddox’s Thought for the Week
At the temple gate, when they ask you who, or what, you venerate, what do you reply?
Top stories
Resistance movement: Rajan Naidu writes from prison
In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends – Martin Luther King Jr. I am putting these words together in a small grubby cell – one I am sharing with another prisoner, who is twenty-one years old – in a Victorian wing of...
Making amends: John Lampen on reparations
I have been involved with community projects in Uganda since 1998. So I was interested in Britain Yearly Meeting’s decision to look at meaningful reparations for Quaker involvement in Britain’s colonial past, and the article by Ann Floyd and Lee Taylor on power redressing in Africa (16 September). The piece...
Esther Loukin to deliver 2023 Swarthmore Lecture
Esther Loukin – née Leighton – will give the 2023 Swarthmore Lecture. The co-founder of the disabled-led organisation Reasonable Access, Esther is known for her activism, holding organisations to account on disability access. This includes using legal methods to get National Express to install wheelchair spaces on all their coaches.
Dream away: Matt Rosen with Oxford Young Friends
Oxford Young Friends spent the last weekend of September on retreat in Faringdon, worshipping and reflecting in a community of ‘love and peace and tenderness’.
Inside
Once the lock clangs open I dance alone, obscured by billiard table and bookshelf in the sunlight by the bars where an old, stiff cobweb glints like the wire looping high into bright sky outside. At the foot of the fence old litter clings.
All articles
Quakers launch national truth award
Friends concerned about the decline of integrity in society are launching a national Quaker Truth Award. They are also seeking allies to work on the issue.
Friends respond to prison report
Quakers have welcomed a long-awaited report on indeterminate prison sentences and are considering their response.
Totnes Friends highlight Loss and Damage
Totnes Quakers highlighted the voices of those most affected by climate change on Loss and Damage Day last month.
Yearly Meeting dates for 2024
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has announced the date of the 2024 Yearly Meeting Gathering. The event will be held at Friends House, London and online from 26 to 30 July in 2024.
Meeting for Sufferings: No unity on attenders joining central committees
Meeting for Suffering (MfS) declined a recommendation from Central Nominations Committee (CNC) that would allow attenders to Quaker Meetings to be appointed to central committees (with the exception of trustees). As a general rule, only members of the Religious Society of Friends can formally take such roles.
Meeting for Sufferings: Sustainability Monitoring Group
The afternoon drew to a slightly rushed close due to the previous lengthy session. Caroline Howden spoke on the annual report of the Sustainability Monitoring Group (SMG), which considers how Quakers in Britain are meeting their commitment to becoming a low-carbon, sustainable community.
Compassion in schools: Maria Law reports from Bootham
My mind goes back to my meeting with a lone teacher sat in an empty school. We met virtually and silence surrounded him. It was a couple of weeks into lockdown, and he was missing human contact.
Dovetailing: Gathered notes, by Clare Dearnaley
Dovetailing started life as a multi-dimensional exhibition of sculpture, music and film, held in the peaceful surroundings of Farfield Meeting House.
Letters - 14 October 2022
Quakers and religion I had to live through my own questioning of the meaning of the term ‘God’, before resolving it enough to join Friends many years ago now. One helpful piece of the jigsaw, for me, was to see that belief in a ‘personal God’ did not mean belief...