Issue 14-06-2024
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Share, alike: Damian Entwistle’s Thought for the Week
Once or twice each month, I join with Sufi friends and attend Zikr – a form of Islamic worship in which phrases or prayers are repeatedly recited for the purpose of remembering God – at the local mosque.
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Eye - 14 June 2024
Four hundred flags! Friends in Exeter recently threw open their doors to celebrate with the local community. Local Friend Laura Conyngham told Eye: ‘Exeter Meeting’s “Fox 400” event was publicised in nearby streets, the High Street and at the university. It attracted young people, young families, enquirers and Quakers, some...
Quakers host atomic bombing survivors
Nagasaki must be the last city in the world to ever experience an atomic bomb, two survivors said at Friends House this month.
Summit or nothing: Claire Pickard-Cambridge attends a workshop on reparations
The thorny subject of reparations for the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans had struck me in the past as a mountain to climb. But a two-part workshop on reparations organised by Quakers in Bristol in February and March cast a new light on reparations – that they should involve far more...
Country pursuits: Finola O’Sullivan visits Central European Yearly Meeting
First anniversaries are always special. Following a minute at what was then the twenty-sixth Central European Gathering (CEG) in May 2023, the youngest Yearly Meeting (YM) in Europe came together again recently, in Budapest, for the first time as Central European Yearly Meeting (CEYM). CEYM First Anniversary Birthday Cake | Photo courtesy...
Heaven
The final man is too good a friend to let me down without the sound of barking madness crowning every news bulletin with the hounds of heaven.
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Quakers and Buddhists walk in peace
Quakers and Buddhists are coming together to organise a second multi-faith silent walk for peace.
Exmouth Quakers mark Refugee week
Exmouth Quakers are celebrating ‘the richness and diversity’ of their local community for Refugee Week. For the occasion, the Friends have invited local businesses to exhibit two poems by David Woolger, a seventy-six-year-old local poet from the Meeting.
Historic Adderbury Meeting House reopens
Banbury and Evesham Area Meeting is shining a spotlight on ‘receptive ecumenism’ this weekend.
QAN celebrates the arts
The Quaker Arts Network (QAN) held its first in-person event since Covid this month. The annual general meeting ‘was an amazing day’, David Fish, from Rugby Meeting, told the Friend. ‘Several of the engagements should have been on my bucket list, they were so good, and the energy of the...
Meeting for Sufferings: Israel and Palestine
In the afternoon of Meeting for Sufferings (MfS) on 1 June, Friends spent time holding Israel and Palestine in the light. Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) is frequently asked to make, or agree to, statements on the conflict, so this was an opportunity to reflect prayerfully on the situation. Stephanie Hunt, from...
Meeting for Sufferings: Area Meeting (AM) compliance and safeguarding
The day ended with a report on the annual returns from Area Meetings (AM) on compliance. To the question of why Quakers need compliance, Friends were reminded of Beth Allen’s answer in Quaker faith & practice (8.25): ‘We need to be an ordinary well-run organisation, with good structures and sensible...
Going Green: Abigail Maxwell finds a party
I am delighted that there will be an election. For me, it is personal. The Conservatives claim that Theresa May’s 2017 proposal for gender recognition was a danger to women and children, and propose to ban schools from teaching the simple truth that some people are trans. They claim women...
Letters - 14 June 2024
‘Cloud of unknowing’ Although rather surprised, I was nevertheless grateful to see Clive Gordon’s reference (31 May) to my letter of ten weeks ago (22 March). My understanding of Quakerism is that it eschews dogma. So any religious dogma held or promulgated to be incontrovertibly true beyond all doubt must, ipso...