Issue 12-04-2013
Featured story
Thought for the Week: The light and the dark
The harbour is still. The tramuntana – the wind from the northern mountains across the sea, cool in the winter – has fallen. I sit on a rock and look out on what is one of the deepest harbours in the world, that of Mahon, the capital of Menorca. I reflect it...
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Money and morality
Britain Yearly Meeting 2012 asked Friends to ‘stand in the Light, pray for the emergence of a “good economy”, and practise our opposition to the current system: in our lives and in the deeply spiritual process of putting our money in better places’. Friends from across London gathered at Friends...
Interview: Science and the spiritual dimension
What does your work involve? I am a theoretical physicist, and work at the extremes of that subject, particularly in foundational studies of quantum physics and the concepts of ‘space’ and ‘time’. General relativity is the currently favourable model of space and time – whereas quantum mechanics deals with the ...
Seekers – ‘A miracle of fusion’
On a cold February Saturday, eight Friends met at Glenfall House near Cheltenham to discuss the future of the Seeker Movement. As the day drew to a close, so also, in a painful but honest process of discernment, did we bring to a close this remarkable organisation.
Towards a new covenant
In late March I attended a business event at the Tate Modern entitled ‘Business in Society: Towards A New Covenant’, having been invited by the Quakers and Business Group. I joined this organisation recently, having approached it about my forthcoming book, Quakernomics: An ethical capitalism. The evening event featured...
Peace and conflict
It wasn’t the Odeon, Leicester Square – no red carpet, no ‘A listers’, no paparazzi, no designer gowns – but it was the world premiere of Tony Britten’s (no relation) new film about the development of Benjamin Britten’s pacifist convictions while a pupil at Gresham’s School, Holt in...
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Quakers welcome historic UN vote
Quakers have welcomed the historic vote last week at the UN General Assembly to adopt a treaty to control the trade in conventional arms. The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) was passed on Tuesday 2 April by a huge majority. Member-states voted by 154 votes to three, with twenty-three abstentions, to control...
Quakers join call to G8 leaders
Quakers in Britain have joined other religious groups from across the G8 countries in calling on heads of government to follow the UK in fulfilling existing commitments to spend 0.7 per cent of national income on aid.
Swarthmoor Hall on screen
Swarthmoor Hall in Cumbria, the home of Margaret Fell, features in a new three-part series on BBC Four. In the series, The Century That Wrote Itself, author Adam Nicolson takes an intimate look at the diarists and letter writers of the seventeenth century.
Charity
I live fairly simply, within my income. This creates a problem, as my bank balance consequently tends to grow. My family are self sufficient and will benefit from my estate in due course. My capital reserves in ISAs and other investments are adequate. They are equal to about six...
Eye - 12 April 2013
A quizzical curiosity The ‘Quaker’ family taking centre-stage in the silent comedy, The Oyster Princess, have intrigued a Scottish Friend. The movie follows a spoilt, tantrum-throwing daughter and her father after she decides she simply has to have a real-life prince to marry. How the family came to be named ...
Letters - 12 April 2013
Blood and flesh The NHS Blood and Transplant service is currently coordinating an appeal to members of different denominations to donate blood and to agree to donate organs after their death. When I heard about it, I enquired why Quakers were not included in this appeal and was told Friends...