Issue 17-04-2015
Featured story
Thought for the Week: In our being
It is February: wet, blustery, and bitterly cold. A time to gaze out at the garden from behind insulating glass doors, pitying the plants as they shiver in the wind. But a day comes which is just a little brighter, and courage can be found to venture out, stoutly clad,...
Top stories
Transform and restore
At the end of February about one hundred delegates with experience across the realm of criminal justice met at the beautiful Ammerdown Centre, nestled in the tranquillity of the Somerset countryside. As usual, the opportunity to network and compare notes with other professionals and nonprofessionals was a significant benefit of...
A Sustainable Life
A year or so ago I was chatting with a Friend about our Quaker engagement with sustainability. He said: ‘it’s part of our DNA now.’ And it is. It has long been the focus of conversations in Local Meetings about what it means to ‘let your life speak’. It...
The challenge of fiction
‘I am interested in what constitutes loneliness and in the difference between solitude and loneliness.’ Jennifer Kavanagh is best known for a series of thoughtful non-fiction works on subjects such as travel, spirituality, homelessness and aspects of Quakerism. The quote above gave an insight into the link between the authorâ€...
The process of prophecy
My current service with Meeting for Sufferings has seen a change in meeting venue, meeting size and (as the clerk of trustees pointed out on 28 March) a change in tone from mutual uncertainty to confident exploration between Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) trustees and Sufferings. There has been an attempt to...
Refugees
‘Refugees are the human face of international injustice. They are the place – in this country – where we see the real impact of inequality: armed conflict, the inability of failed states to provide a secure home for their citizens, and abusive governments.’ Michael Bartlet, at that time the parliamentary liaison officer...
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Quakers challenge military spending
Friends joined the Global Day of Action on Military Spending (GDAMS) on Monday 13 April. Quaker Peace and Social Witness (QPSW) activists were among those taking part in the annual event. GDAMS was launched in 2011, and is timed to coincide with the release of the annual world military expenditure figures by...
Reading Friends hold inequality debate
Some sixty people, including seven election candidates, recently attended a debate on inequality hosted by Quakers in Reading, Berkshire. All of the main political parties, apart from the Conservatives, accepted Friends’ invitation to take part. The audience was drawn from the wider local community, with Quakers strongly represented, Salim Yakub,...
Retreat online archives project underway
Work is underway to digitise the archives of The Retreat, the York-based mental health facility founded by Quaker William Tuke. The project is a cooperation between the Wellcome Library and the Borthwick Institute for Archives. The first batch of material went online at the beginning of the year. The work...
Quaker questions Justin Welby
The Quaker writer and broadcaster Alastair McIntosh has questioned the role of Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, in blessing a cross that was made out of used shell casings. In a letter to the archbishop, Scottish Friend Alastair McIntosh challenged Justin Welby’s participation in blessing ‘a cross made...
Eye - 17 April 2015
Past Quakers remembered Blewbury in Oxfordshire might be better known today for its Norman church, but a local Friend wants people to know that there was once a Meeting house there, too, and has turned his enthusiasm into stone. Blewbury Meeting House was built in or around 1680, rebuilt in 1713, and...
Letters - 17 April 2015
World war one commemoration I would like to obtain the views of Friends in Britain on the appropriate ways to commemorate the first world war. Like many British towns, Harpenden is twinned with a town in Germany. There is a local town twinning group that organises visits between the two...