Issue 23-01-2015
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Thought for the Week: Keep the memory alive
The 27 January is the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Holocaust Memorial Day, held annually on this day, will be commemorated in homes, schools and communities both nationally and internationally. This year the theme is ‘Keep the memory alive’. Holocaust Memorial Day is a day when...
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Cathars and Quakers
Cathars and Quakers both grew from a strong desire to find a personal spiritual reality. This, in many ways, reflected that of the earliest Christians and was not found in the orthodox church. Both met with persecution. It is more a product of their different historical times that the Cathars...
From the archive: Enlistment: a case for disownment?
From early in the first world war there was discussion amongst Friends about the attitude to be taken to members of the Religious Society of Friends who enlisted in the armed forces. By 1915 the debate was becoming fierce and it eventually reached the Yearly Meeting. The essential question, which should...
Friends mark Auschwitz anniversary
Quakers are among those marking Holocaust Memorial Day, and the seventieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, on 27 January. The theme of Holocaust Memorial Day 2015 is ‘Keep the Memory Alive’. A key feature of the commemoration will be the telling of personal stories.
Mosques and swords
In 1969 I was a student in Paris, disillusioned with organised religion and excited and alarmed by the revolutionary fervour of post-1968 France. One day, on a wander through the fifth arrondissement, I chanced upon the main Paris Mosque. I remember my amazement at the beauty of the mosaic tiling and...
Charity and restraint
Those who claim journalistic privilege in seeking the right to satirise religion, and religious figures, may have never viewed the original cartoons that enraged some Muslims to the point of murderous madness. During the Paris massacre I was in Europe and viewed with horror and sadness certain cartoons that some...
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QHA dishes up 1,000 meals
Volunteers at the Quaker Homeless Action (QHA) Christmas Shelter served 1,103 hot meals over the festive season. The shelter, held annually in the Union Chapel in Islington, North London, was open from 3pm on 23 December to 10am on 30 December. Volunteers spent 22 December setting it up.
Quaker election website goes live
The new Quaker election website, ‘Quaker Vote’, was launched on Tuesday 20 January. It was developed by Britain Yearly Meeting’s advocacy and public relations team to help Friends engage with the election and influence debate.
Australian Quakers divest funds
Australian Friends are to move their investments from funds that damage the earth. More than 200 Australian Quakers, gathering in Melbourne for Yearly Meeting, agreed to remove their corporate funds from the country’s ‘big four’ banks. They also called on individual members and Meetings to do the same.
Friends House vigil continues
A vigil has been held outside Friends House for the third consecutive Monday.
DramaQuest 2015 theme announced
The Leaveners have announced the theme for the next DramaQuest. This year’s annual summer residential event will focus on ‘Child Heroes’, looking at the stories of children who have made their mark. ‘Child Heroes’ was chosen because it is highly relevant, ‘since society still faces discrimination, inequality, injustice, violence...
Child of our time
It is hard to explain anti-Semitism. The Christian church once held the Jews responsible for the death of Jesus, despite the fact that his execution was carried out by Roman authority. Antipathy toward the Jewish race has persisted throughout European history, denying citizenship and restricting Jews to ghettos where they...
See you soon Caroline!
During the first two years of the second world war America was a neutral country and American Quakers, unlike British ones, were able to conduct relief work in mainland Europe. A glimpse into the records has enabled Bernard Wilson, a Canterbury Friend, to write a young person’s novel about...
Eye - 23 January 2015
For the love of the sky A campaign to save Luke Howard’s house was launched by the Tottenham Civic Society in December. In a paper written in 1802 Luke Howard, aka ‘the namer of clouds’, proposed many of the cloud classifications still in use today. The Bruce Grove house in...
Letters - 23 January 2015
Silence Gwen Jones (9 January) asks what I meant by ‘quiet undistracted worship’ (5 December 2014). I used the word ‘quiet’ not silent because I have rarely, if ever, attended a Meeting for Worship that is absolutely silent. Quietness, for me, betokens a state of inner receptivity, an openness to what is and...