Issue 05-07-2024
Featured story
Family matters: A Quaker parent’s Thought for the Week
It’s going to be a wonderful Quaker summer. It begins here with the 400th anniversary of the birth of one of our founders, George Fox. We Friends can be wary of celebrating special days, but we know that Fox believed that ‘times and seasons’ were appointed by the ‘Lord...
Top stories
A good man is hard to find: Joseph Jones on the many faces of George Fox
He believed he should ‘be as a stranger unto all’, but there are a lot of people who have tried to get to know George Fox. Given the wide range of conclusions they’ve reached about him, however, it seems that he was probably successful. Was his messaging, as Henry...
A great revelation: Tony D’Souza recounts a ‘spiritual genius’
George Fox was a truly great man. I know this because his spiritual discoveries have transformed my life. But it is only now, after many years, that I have discovered how profound these changes are. Let me explain.
‘In commemoration of George Fox’: an edited extract from the tercentenary celebration in the Friend
Of George Fox it cannot be said, to use his own words, that ‘the dead make dead ways for the dead to walk in.’ His spirit is alive today, perhaps more alive than at any time since his death. His immortal message is as greatly needed all through the world...
Quakers get ready for general election
London Quakers were involved in an interfaith hustings last week just nine days before the general election.
A little more thinking: Rebecca Hardy speaks to Green Party’s Paul Dawson ahead of general election
How do your Quaker testimonies and Quaker faith inform your political work? Carl Von Clausewitz, a Prussian general and military theorist, once stated, ‘War is the continuation of politics by other means.’ For me politics is the continuation of my faith by other means. The key testimony for me is...
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Quakers celebrate George Fox
Quakers around the country are celebrating the 400th anniversary of George Fox’s birth this month. Friends marked the occasion with social activities including visits to the village Fenny Drayton where the Quaker co-founder was born, and appearing in a recent episode of Songs of Praise at Swarthmoor Hall. As...
Search for kindertransport foster families
An IT pioneer and philanthropist has led a call to find British foster families who took in Jewish refugee children on the Quaker co-founded kindertransport.
Letchworth Friends spotlight Quaker roots
An open day for George Fox 400 held by Letchworth Friends shone a spotlight on the garden city’s Quaker roots.
Norwich Friends hold peace camp
Norwich Quakers organised a peace camp last month to coincide with Refugee Week.
George and the Flying Foxes, by Christine Hayes
This little book, in twenty-nine short chapters, and with illustrations, is for Quaker teenagers. It is written in a racy style, full of conversations. Some of the characters are themselves Quaker teenagers, George in particular, but also Freddie and Rosie. From the first chapter they interact with Axl, Guy and...
Eye - 05 July 2024
Fox’s finery Eye delights in hearing about Friends’ creativity for Fox400 celebrations! Friend Frances Warns shared this photo of her granddaughter’s doll dressed as George Fox. Frances writes: ‘It was the centre piece for our coffee morning which we had to celebrate the 400 years since his birth. We...
Letters - 05 July 2024
Meeting for Sufferings I am surprised and saddened to read correspondence in the Friend relating to the future of Meeting for Sufferings (MfS) that suggests that we are doing perfectly well as we are. If that were the case, why would MfS itself have discerned that the time is right...
Come to my house
Some would number us in lost accounting piles: a wind toppled abacus of old Quakers. Our vestments of truth may be frayed to lace, the burlap of equality clotted with centuries of mistakes. Some ask, ‘What was it all for anyway, The yea and the nay, the quiet hours millioned...