Issue 25-10-2013
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Unpalatable truths
Denial is a normal way of coping with uncomfortable experiences, such as anxiety and loss. Climate change brings plenty of both, whether through its impacts if it continues unchecked, or through the deep changes in our lives that would be needed to slow it down.
Top stories
Wear it as long as thou canst
Not until he extends the circle of his compassion to include all living things will man himself know peace. - Albert Schweitzer Some taxi drivers like to chat to their passengers, some don’t. It’s a matter of temperament. On a recent journey from Liverpool Street to...
British Quakers: Mission and message - Belief, worship and behaviour
Stuart, in last week’s article, has outlined where Friends have drawn boundaries in the past, but I contend that now there are few, if any, boundaries in relation to three key areas: belief, worship and behaviour.
Welfare cuts: taking action
The effects of government cuts on low-income families, as well as the extortionate cost of borrowing for people with a poor credit rating, have become a significant concern of many Friends in Britain today. It is a concern that has also led Quakers, in every part of the country, to...
Let your life blossom
Once upon a time there was a keen gardener. She toiled long and hard so that her lawns were trimmed, her roses pruned and her borders ‘laughing with flowers’, as the French poet has it. ‘Isn’t God’s handiwork marvellous?’ said her neighbour. ‘Well, yes,’ she replied, mopping her...
A place for mediation
Am I hearing that we want to take this work forward, that we want to intensify our involvement and that we want it to continue at least until 2015? Yes, clerk, that’s what you’re hearing. Those are not the precise words that were said, but they capture...
All articles
Militarisation in everyday life
Newcastle doesn’t have a lot of job opportunities. What incentive is there for a government to put in more job opportunities if the way they are going to recruit their army is out of kids with nowhere else to go? – Saskia Neibig, member of the Woodcraft Folk and...
Quakers concern about RE
Friends in the south-west have highlighted a concern about the future of Religious Education (RE) in schools in England. The issue was raised in a public meeting on education organised by Devon and Cornwall General Meeting and Exeter Area Meeting on Saturday 19 October in Exeter.
Welsh Quakers highlight terror of drones
The terrible damage done to both victims and pilots of drone strikes was raised at a public meeting held at Aberystwyth Friends Meeting House on Tuesday 15 October.
Remembrance Day lecture
Alastair McIntosh, the Quaker campaigner and author, is to give the Movement for the Abolition of War (MAW) annual lecture at the Imperial War Museum on Sunday 10 November.
Rainbows within rainbows
The theme for the most recent gathering of the Quaker Lesbian Group, held at Leicester Friends Meeting House in late September, was ‘Rainbows within Rainbows’. It was explored in workshops, group exercises and conversations.
Epistle: Experiment with Light
Greetings to all Friends everywhere. ‘How far, how deep, how wide can you go this weekend?’ was the question Rex Ambler asked us to consider as seventy-one of us from the UK, Palestine, Finland, Russia, South Africa, Austria, Canada, Sweden, Norway and the USA gathered in the Cadbury room....
Eye - 25 October 2013
Uniting in elbow grease What can you do when walls need repainting, drains unblocking, windows repairing and a safer kitchen… but funds are scarce? Form a Quaker workcamp! Chris and Catherine Thomas and Dawn Beck called some Friends for help when the Pardshaw Young Friends Centre in Cumbria was in...
Letters - 25 October 2013
Disagreeing about God Michael Wright (18 October) describes exactly my own journey over many years within Quakers. However, we reach different conclusions. Michael is led to nontheism. The feeling that certainly God has left and is not dwelling among us leads me, as a theist, to worship God elsewhere, whilst continuing...