Issue 08-12-2023
Featured story
World view: Anne Wade’s Thought for the week
It was January 1968. I was twenty-seven, a Quaker for ten years. I was walking along the Dorset cliffs. Everything was grey and still: luminous pearly-grey light, flat grey sea, hard grey horizon, dead grey vegetation and mud. My mind was empty, its chatter stilled by walking.
Top stories
Come to Jesus: Cap Kaylor says there’s a forgotten engine to Quaker spirituality
In his book, With My Own Eyes, the Lutheran pastor Richard Wurmbrand recounts his fourteen years of imprisonment and torture in a Romanian prison, for the crime of preaching the gospel: ‘I was in jail and I fell very ill. I had intestinal tuberculosis, diabetes, heart failure… I was near...
Digital divide: Mike Nellis has more on artificial intelligence
I was unconvinced by Keith Wilson’s computer-generated argument (24 November) that Quaker values could and should be used to shape the development of artificial intelligence (AI). It is magical thinking. The option has never existed for citizens or faith communities to affect the balance of gains and losses in AI.
Climate change ‘possible to stop’, says Quaker expert
Climate change is ‘perfectly possible to stop’, said a leading Quaker environmental expert at Friends House last month.
Our Last Awakening: Poems for living in the face of death, edited and annotated by Janet Morley
A few months ago I was sent, anonymously, this book of poems on the theme of death and bereavement. It is quite extraordinary to receive such a gift out of the blue. If the donor is reading, I am grateful!
Between
Between bullet and flesh, a spirit rising like mist, mostly unseen. Between the thought and the deed a sliver of time that makes the earth quake.
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Quakers welcome sentencing changes
More than 1,800 people who have received Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentences in England and Wales will now be given an end date for their terms, the Ministry of Justice announced last month.
Friend raises climate protest concerns at probationers event
A Cornwall Quaker has prompted probation workers to consider the issue of climate protestors being imprisoned.
Friends House wins venue award
Friends House has won the ‘Best Venue for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion’ award at the London Venue and Catering Awards 2023.
Taunton vigil for peace
Taunton Friends held a vigil for peace on the town’s high street last month, allowing only ‘Quakers for Peace’ banners.
Meeting for Sufferings: 2022 accounts
This month’s Meeting for Sufferings (MfS) began with an unusual first session. Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) was late publishing its 2022 accounts, so all Friends were invited to a midweek online Meeting, in which Paul Whitehouse, treasurer to BYM, and Caroline Nursey, clerk to trustees, introduced the annual financial report.
Meeting for Sufferings: Book of Discipline
Around 100 Friends met on Saturday (sixty or so of them online) for a more typical Meeting. Business began with the usual nominations work, while two new Quaker Recognised Bodies (the Conflict Mineral Campaign, and Rookhow) were acknowledged. Other QRBs were renewed, but not Quaker Concern Over Population. Some Friends have...
Meeting for Sufferings: Review of YM and MfS
After a shuffle break, representatives heard from the group reviewing Yearly Meeting. This group was becoming known as ‘GRYM’ said Sarah Donaldson, the group’s convener, which prompted some non-straightforward laughter in the room.
Welcome sight: Geof Sewell on Thirsk’s refugee support
Thirsk Quakers have been offering support to refugee families for over 100 years. Once, individual Quaker families took responsibility, but for our latest project we have joined an ecumenical group. We need the skills and experience of the local Salvationists, Anglicans, Catholics and Methodists.
Letters - 08 December 2023
Quaker Recognised Bodies In his prepared ministry on the additional day of Britain Yearly Meeting 2023, Paul Parker made a brief reference to Quaker Recognised Bodies (QRB). Sadly, few Friends have heard of them and certainly don’t mention them to newcomers. What a trick we are missing! A QRB is...