Issue 06-02-2015
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Hunting the Higgs
No wonder they love a laugh, the physicists. What ever they find or don’t, it’s OK. Symmetries of the world just remnants of those which, if perfect, would only have led to no world at all – anti-matter, matter would have cancelled each other out. Maybe. Or maybe not,...
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William Henry Davidson
Hillsborough is a small village in County Down in Northern Ireland. It is twelve miles from Belfast and one of the historic settlements of Ulster. Hillsborough Castle was ‘Government House’ from 1924 until 1973 and is the official residence of the British monarch when visiting the province. It was the venue for...
Peace work in Ukraine
In early May of 2014 Mikhail Roshchin, of Moscow Meeting, and Roland Rand, of Tallinn Friends Worship Group in Estonia, brought a concern to the Europe and Middle East Section (EMES) of Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC). They wished to travel to Ukraine to find out what ordinary people were...
Friends join call for new tax law
The Religious Society of Friends in Britain has joined other faith groups in calling on politicians to end tax avoidance. The recording clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting, Paul Parker, signed a statement in support of a new campaign calling on political parties to promise to act against tax avoidance if...
Friends remember the Holocaust
Quakers across the country took part in Holocaust Memorial Day events on 27 January. York Friends contributed to several local commemorations. Jenny Hartland of Acomb Meeting spoke at a civic event. Jenny’s talk was inspired by this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day theme, ‘Keeping the memory alive’. She talked about...
Scottish Friends hope for sustainability network
Isolated Friends in the north of Scotland are addressing the challenge of living out the Canterbury Commitment to sustainability. Jane Booth writes in a recent edition of The Northern Quaker: ‘Area Meeting recently decided to affiliate with Eco-Congregation Scotland, an ecumenical charity providing support to local churches.
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Cold weather payments help QSA
Some Friends have begun to give their winter fuel allowance to Quaker Social Action (QSA). Five Friends have donated their allowance. The donations were spontaneous, rather than prompted by QSA campaigning. The donors were all people who already support QSA in different ways, QSA told the Friend.
Quaker delivers prestigious sermon at Cambridge University
Janet Scott made the Quaker faith a major theme of the sermon which she delivered in Great St Mary’s, ‘the university church’, Cambridge, on Sunday 1 February. It is a prestigious honour to be invited to deliver the annual ‘University Sermon’ and Janet chose the subject ‘Education for Good News’...
York Friend comments on ordination
Barbara Windle, of York Area Meeting, spoke on Radio Five Live on 26 January about the ordination of the Church of England’s first woman bishop. Presenter Adrian Chiles asked Barbara for her thoughts, as a Quaker, on the ordination.
The Christmas Truce
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) recently offered a play for family audiences (children of 10+) at Stratford-on-Avon based on the 1914 Christmas Truce. Sadly, the run has ended, and there is no plan to bring it to London. For my husband and me it raised the question of how to introduce preadolescent...
Discernment and making decisions
When Quaker Business Method goes well it is an uplifting experience, but sometimes there are difficulties. The first difficulty is the gleaning of the discernments in the minds of Friends. How careless it is of God to put such different ones into Friends’ minds all at the same time, and...
On using this laptop for the first time
I am doing this for practice, nothing more. We practice all the time, preparing for The Real Thing.
Friends Quarterly
The new issue of the Friends Quarterly, the sister publication of the Friend, is published this week. It includes a moving personal testament from Stephen Yeo setting out for his family after him the basis of his belief. David Hamilton considers the nonviolence that Jesus offered as an assertive rather...
Eye - 06 February 2015
Restoration and recipes Quaker cookery books dating back to the 1700s are among thousands of volumes in need of restoration work. Chawton House Library in Hampshire is a research and learning centre for the study of early women’s writing from 1600 to 1830. It is housed in the manor house once...
Letters - 06 February 2015
Cathars and Quakers A very good article ‘Cathars and Quakers’ by Kris Misselbrook (23 January) suggested a spiritual link between the Cathars and the Couflaĩres (with correct spelling) of the Congénies area in the eighteenth century and that the group pre-dated the Quakers in France. There is a further...