Issue 28-11-2014
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Thought for the Week: Remembrance, reflections and reconciliations
The beginning of November is a time for remembering political/military events across Europe. It was an appropriate moment for the return visit to Lünen in Germany by Salford Friends, especially as this was the thirtieth anniversary of the partnership. The focus for the visit was ‘poverty’ – looking at...
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John Porter Rodwell
My grandfather, John Porter Rodwell (1885- 1949) came from a Quaker family with its roots in Leiston, Suffolk, where his father worked for an agricultural machinery company. The family later moved to Lancashire, from where his mother’s family originated, and then moved eventually to Vancouver. John, however, did not go...
An exam factory
Why do we allow the suffering to continue? My spiritual basis for this question is simple: take heed to the promptings of love and truth in your heart when you see children stressed out and working late into the night on their essays, not out of love for the subject ...
A witness for peace
Witney, an Oxfordshire market town once known for making woolly blankets, lies on the doorstep of the Cotswolds. Seven miles to the west is RAF Brize Norton, the air base through which, for a number of years, military personnel have been repatriated. Like Wootton Basset before it, local people have...
Halifax walks promote understanding
Friends in Halifax played a significant part in the fifth annual local Faith Walk that took place as part of Interfaith Week. Twenty participants set off on 22 November from St Paul’s Church in Halifax after a tour and a short talk. They walked to the nearby Kingdom Hall where...
London homeless remembered
The names of 149 people were read aloud at an annual commemoration service at St Martin-in-the-Fields recently. All were homeless or formerly homeless, and all had died in the last year in London. The service, organised by The Connection at St Martin’s, St Martin-in-the-Fields and Housing Justice, brought together everyone...
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Quaker peace witness in Ukraine
Two Friends have recently returned from a trip to Ukraine where they were engaged in peace witness. In May Friends from Russia and Estonia voiced their concern over the situation in Ukraine and expressed an interest in visiting to see how they could help.
Leighton Park School remembers first world war
A concern with the causes and consequences of conflict was at the heart of a series of events organised by Leighton Park School to commemorate the first world war. The events were designed to commemorate the war while reflecting Quaker testimonies to peace and reconciliation. The school has spent the...
QSA in funeral poverty push
Quaker Social Action (QSA) wants UK voters to encourage their MPs to support a Funeral Poverty Bill. The Bill will be presented in parliament on 9 December by Labour MP Emma Lewell-Buck. It calls on the government to carry out a major review of the causes and solutions to funeral poverty.
Jesus Lane joins with Jane Austen
Jesus Lane Meeting in Cambridge recently held a ‘Jane Austen at Home’ event to raise funds for the Quaker Congo Partnership. A seventy-seven strong audience heard actress Emerald O’Hanrahan read a selection of Jane Austen’s work.
War relief photos on show
Photographs from the Friends Emergency & War Victims Relief Committee archive are on display in Friends House, London.
Action on education?
What can we say? What can we do? These two challenges were posed at the start of the Quaker Values in Education conference in August. The ‘Woodbrooke threshings’ was a remarkable experience that has produced much discernment. This discernment was shaped into not only the statement ‘Every person is precious –...
Watford’s Quiet Heroes
On 15 June 1916 Howard Marten was led from a prison cell in Boulogne to stand in front of thousands of soldiers on a parade ground. Howard, a thirty-one-year-old Quaker from the Watford area, then heard an officer declare that he had been found guilty of disobeying an order while on active...
Words: Mysticism
The paradox of mysticism lies in its origin. Muein in Greek means to be silent about, to conceal. In ancient Greece, the sacred mysteries were ceremonies of initiation for the few. They led to ‘out of the world’ experiences which were not to be revealed to outsiders. The word ‘mystical’...
Letters - 28 November 2014
Guide to spoken ministry Barbara Lippitt’s letter (14 November) struck a chord with me. We often work hard to reinvent the wheel when useful documents have already been created by Friends elsewhere in the Yearly Meeting. While I was sending on to Barbara a worship leaflet created in our own...