Issue 01-11-2013
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Dead or alive?
Have you ever played ‘Dead or Alive’? I used to as a girl and still remember the game’s excitement. You jumped up and wound your legs round the waist of a stalwart adult, who swung you close to the ground. ‘Under the water, under the sea: catching fishes for...
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Growing points
If there is one constant feature of the human condition, it is that we are always in a state of change. We are also each unique; that is, different from each other. In this fascinating situation, it is good to appreciate and to value growing points both in ourselves and...
British Quakers: Mission and message - Quaker community
The rapid initial expansion and significant impact of the early Quaker movement was based on the clarity and relevance of its message and the vigour with which it was communicated and promoted by the itinerant ministers. However, ongoing growth and the long-term survival of the movement owed much to the...
Love gains
Of late, I have been wondering just how much money has been spent on weaponry and warfare since the second world war by successive British governments. Earlier this year I heard on BBC Radio 4 that there has only been one year since the end of the second world war, 1968,...
Working together for peace
It appears that the general perception about Islam in the West is that it is a religion that has no regard for human rights. It is said that Islam permits the use of force to convert others and that it authorises the death sentence for those who renounce Islam and...
Quaker connections
Our Meeting didn’t do Quaker Week this year; we did Quaker fortnight! From 22 September to 6 October, with the unwavering support of our Business Meeting, we extended our outreach by hosting an exhibition of our art. Our outreach committee was set the challenge of attracting more visitors into our Meeting...
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Language and meaning
Some time ago I heard some ministry in which an individual explained his rejection of the word God on the basis that the variety of meanings given to the word renders it useless. Later, one member of the Meeting noted casually that ‘Quakers don’t use the word God very...
War trauma worst for disadvantaged young
Young soldiers recruited from disadvantaged backgrounds are much more likely to return from war with mental health problems than other troops, says a new report published by human rights group ForcesWatch.
New project on Quaker business history
Nicola Sleap has been appointed as researcher to a new PhD research project into twentieth century Quaker business history. The project is the first PhD to be funded by the Quakers and Business Group (Q&B). The research will examine the period from the first national conference of...
Apology requested
Paul Parker, recording clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting was among the twelve senior representatives from churches and Christian organisations in the United Kingdom who, on 24 October, wrote to David Freud, minister for welfare reform, after he failed to ‘affirm that steps would be taken to ensure that the poor would...
A Remembrance Day to remember
On Remembrance Sunday, 10 November, Bradford Meeting and other concerned groups are organising two events as the start of their commemoration of the onset of the first world war.
Back to the future for public money?
Nothing but trouble has come from market fundamentalism, professor Mary Mellor told Newcastle Friends at a public meeting of their Economic Justice Group on 24 October. ‘This system has done us no good at all,’ she said.
Eye - 01 November 2013
Beautiful banners Quakers from East Cheshire, Manchester and Bolton made their presence known at a recent protest with eye-catching banners. Phoebe Spence, of Stockport Meeting, was one of the Friends at the demonstration to save the NHS from privatisation and to protest at the cuts and Trident, during the Conservative...
Letters - 01 November 2013
The numinous I was so pleased to read Michael Wright’s ‘Disagreeing about God’ (18 October) in which he pleads for mutual respect for our various and unique mystical experience. This ‘speaks to my condition’ as I have no way of referring to my own mystical experience. It is ineffable, as...