Issue 12-03-2010
Featured story
Freed to live more fully…
Three years ago, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Recently I learned that the cancer had come back, with a possible secondary, which needed exploration. This gave me a sudden and sharp reminder of my mortality. My heart sank. If it came to the point would I, I wondered, be...
Top stories
Civil partnership, religiously celebrated, moves closer
Quakers are celebrating the result of a dramatic vote in the House of Lords, which would for the first time allow the use of religious premises and religious language in same-sex civil partnership ceremonies. If the proposal becomes law, it would lead to same-sex partnerships celebrated in Quaker Meetings...
An ecumenical Quaker wedding
Being an appointed registering officer (RO) has been one of the most rewarding and interesting ways that I have been of service to our Area Meeting. In these changing times it is a rare occasion if the applicants for a Quaker marriage are both members of the Society. More...
Now is the Time
‘We cannot tackle the threat of nuclear terrorism by simply rehearsing old doctrines of defence. The simple fact is that more nuclear weapons do not make for a safer world. We must instead turn to the universal adoption of common rules and standards, enforced by international treaties. It is crucial...
Children of women in prison may lose contact time
The government has come under fire for a reorganisation of women’s prisons that is likely to result in the children of prisoners having less contact with their mothers. While women’s prisons were previously classified as open, semi-open or closed, the government has turned the two semi-open womenâ€...
The O of Home
The O of Home by Jennifer Kavanagh. O Books. ISBN: 978 1 884694 264 8. £11.99 When I went to Jennifer Kavanagh’s launch of this book at the Quaker Centre I wasn’t sure what to expect. Home – how would I define it? Is it the flat above the Meeting house? Is it a place...
All articles
CND visits fifteen embassies
Members of the Christian Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CCND), including Friends, have called on fifteen London-based embassies to ask what steps their countries are taking towards achieving international nuclear disarmament. CCND’s action, on 1 March, comes ahead of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, due to take place...
Punished for thinking?
Friends have criticised the decision of a military court to sentence a former soldier to nine months’ imprisonment for refusing to participate in military action in Afghanistan. Joe Glenton, 27, became convinced that the war in Afghanistan was wrong after fighting there for seven months. He was convicted on 5 March...
Now is the time for nations to commit to a world free of nuclear weapons, say UK churches
An alliance of UK churches, including Quakers, last week launched a campaign, entitled Now is the Time, to press governments to put all bomb-grade material under international control and commit to making the use and possession of nuclear weapons illegal through a new Nuclear Weapons Convention. The churches are...
Michael Foot: friend of Friends
In the many tributes to Michael Foot, who died last week, few writers thought his Quaker education at Leighton Park School worth more than a passing mention. At his ninetieth birthday party six years ago, I asked how it had influenced him. ‘What I learned from the Quakers’, he told...
Another way?
The media have been fascinated by failings in the 2007 report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. So after another cold winter perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that people doubt climate change is happening. Meanwhile scientists tell us 2009 was the second warmest year on record and saw a...
Letters - 12 March 2010
Lent talks on BBC Radio 4
Novelist Will Self could be labelled an angry old man. But he has charisma and can certainly put over an argument. The ingenious suggestion he makes in the first BBC Radio 4 Lent talks (24 February) is that we are worshipping art rather than God these days. The churches are empty; the...
Eyewitness - 12 March 2010
The Quaker Meeting Place Garden at the Malvern Spring Gardening Show A small corner of the Three Counties Showground in the shadow of the Malvern Hills is not usually the place you would expect to find a Quaker Meeting. However, for four days at the beginning of May that is...