Issue 31-10-2014
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Love-in-a-mist
A few Sundays back the Friend who brought flowers to Meeting included in her small posy three flower heads of Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena). Love-in-a-mist has pale blue petals and delicate leaves and bracts, but these three flowers had shed all of their petals and the green seed capsules had each...
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White feathers in Devizes
It was a very special Meeting for Worship, as about fifteen of us, including four children, gathered in the dappled shade of the Old Quaker Burial Ground in Devizes, now a leafy enclosure within the larger setting of Hillworth Park. A mature oak at the centre of this historic place...
Wait until Wednesday
In November last year, I gave ministry at my Local Meeting and talked of how I had, at the time, been overwhelmed in my work. I work in schools and local education services, providing coaching and training to teachers, school leaders and support staff. My background is as a teacher –...
QPSW endorses Energy Bill
Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW) has endorsed Fuel Poverty Action’s Energy Bill of Rights. The bill was launched at the Houses of Parliament on Monday 27 October (see above). ‘Quaker Peace & Social Witness is committed to working on energy justice – this means calling for clean not dirty energy,...
Manchester Quakers fight planning decision
Members of Central Manchester Meeting are among those opposing Manchester City Council’s planned closure of the public right of way, Library Walk, in the city centre. The pedestrianised thoroughfare has existed since 1934, connecting St Peter’s Square to Mount Street. It provides the only face-on route to the Meeting...
Disinvestment party at St Paul’s
Quakers were among those participating in a ‘disinvestment party’ on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral (see above) on Saturday 25 October. The event was held to celebrate the growing number of churches and faith groups around the world disinvesting from fossil fuels. Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) was the first...
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YFGM adopts new concerns
Young Friends General Meeting (YFGM) has adopted two new concerns These are in two areas: opposing the renewal of the UK’s nuclear weapons programme, Trident, and supporting mental wellbeing in the Meeting and beyond.
Russian Quakers aim to reach further
Friends House Moscow (FHM) has launched a Russian-language version of its website. Information on the new site, which uses the url quakers.ru, includes books translated as part of the FHM publishing project that is supported by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust.
Bridport Friends witness for peace
Quakers in Bridport held an international peace vigil as part of the Week of Prayer for World Peace. The vigil took place on Saturday 18 October in the recently established Peace Garden at Bridport Meeting House in Dorset.
Threat to nonviolence programme
War Resisters’ International (WRI)’s nonviolence programme is at risk of closure due to a funding shortfall. The programme has been training nonviolent movements internationally for a decade. In that time it has developed both know-how and resources, including its Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns.
Living eldership
Elders are the arteries through which the spiritual life of the Yearly Meeting flows. Long neglected, they have, I believe, become hardened and thus restrict the flow of life. When Alastair Heron was clerk to Yearly Meeting elders he used his position to lead a group to clarify and publish...
Words: Transformation, redemption, salvation
I have been asked on a few occasions whether I have been saved. I have never been asked whether I have been redeemed or transformed. I did use the word transformed at one conference and an elderly Friend was most indignant. ‘Why should I be transformed?’ was her challenge to...
Courtly gallantry
She was the love of my life. Made for each other everyone said. We made plans. Our world was full of promise. But to test me, like knights of centuries past,
The sun of friendship
The idea began in July. The resident warden, while we were plum picking in the garden, suggested a workshop on ‘Renewal and Fun’. I took it to the next Meeting. French Quakers are certainly not against fun. It’s the French language that is lacking. I liked the suggestion – conviviality....
Eye - 31 October 2014
Living adventurously Philip Morris, of Stratford-upon-Avon, is determined to make the most of intrepid opportunities, as he demonstrated earlier this year. He explained: ‘I was helping on the Transition Stratford stall at the River Festival and had just peddled the ball to the top of the tube, generating electricity, when...
Letters - 31 October 2014
Secrecy, surveillance and sovereignty I am certainly grateful (17 October) that the US and UK intelligence services work together to prevent repeats of events such as those of 7 July 2005. But the revelations of Edward Snowden show that US surveillance of other sovereign nations goes dramatically beyond the necessary, even giving Angela...