Issue 12-06-2015
Featured story
Thought for the Week: What canst thou say?
In the opening worship on the Saturday morning of Yearly Meeting I was more than a little disturbed to hear a Friend in ministry assert, with apparent pride, that ‘As Quakers we have no creed or doctrine’. It is true that we have no creed, but misleading to claim that...
Top stories
Cultivating the seeds of peace: Part one
Recently in Uganda I mediated a dispute between a wife and her husband. They were poor smallholders and he was a deacon in the church. One of their three goats was killed by a vehicle, but the police refused to proceed without clear evidence. The wife proposed to get a...
The migrant crisis
Last year more than 3,000 babies, children, women and men were drowned in the Mediterranean, having set out from North Africa in unseaworthy ships operated by pirates in a desperate effort to reach sanctuary in the European Union (EU). Almost all the migrants were driven by wars, political brutality, religious persecution,...
The divine in all
A central Quaker tenet is the divinity in all humans, that ‘we are all children of God’. This has implications for how we want people to be treated and what we do. Sometimes our belief conflicts with the wider situations we find ourselves in. Take torture as an example. Despite...
Human Writes
For most of my life I knew little about prisons and penal systems though I was, for a long time, an activist with Amnesty International. As a new attendee at Meeting for Worship I became aware of Friends’ long-standing concern in this area and made a vague enquiry about Human...
End of Life
A friend from childhood lies in a coma having come off a bike – a silly accident that reminds us that ‘in the midst of life we are in death’. But now our circle of friends is divided: to turn him off or not…? It sounds callous, but that is how...
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Friends call for Yarl’s Wood closure
Friends joined hundreds of protesters on 6 June to demand the closure of Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre and the freeing of the women detained there. John Cockcroft, Sheila Mosley and Chris Gwyntopher of the Quaker Asylum and Refugee Network (QARN) were among the protesters. Speakers included Helena Kennedy QC,...
Fair Funerals pledge launched
A newly launched Fair Funerals pledge is calling on undertakers to help tackle funeral poverty. The pledge was unveiled by Quaker Social Action (QSA) on 9 June. QSA hopes Friends will visit the website to sign the pledge. It asks funeral directors across the UK to make three key commitments.
EAPPI speaks out on forced transfers
The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI) wants Friends to help campaign against enforced transfers on the West Bank.
Quakers join campaign to ‘Reclaim the Power’
Friends were among those who joined a nationwide day of action against fossil fuels on 1 June. The action was organised by campaigning group Reclaim the Power. Crawshawbooth Friend Hilary Whitehead spent three days at a Reclaim the Power action camp close to the RWE npower-owned Didcot power station in Oxfordshire....
Friargate extension shortlisted
An extension to Friargate Meeting House in York has been shortlisted for the Press People’s Award in the York Design Awards. Readers of The Press, a local paper, will vote for the award. Phase one of the Meeting house project is complete, with phase two on track for completion...
Green accolade for Friends House
Friends House was highly commended in the ‘Outstanding Contribution to Environmental Sustainability’ category of the recent Camden Business Awards.
Accommodation grants bolster independent living
The Quaker Housing Trust (QHT) has awarded grants to two projects providing accommodation for older people. Roddam Dene House in Wooler, Northumberland, will provide four flats for the over-fifty-fives. The former manse has been converted into homes that will allow residents to continue to live independently, close to shops and...
Drone protestors’ trial postponed
The trial of four peace campaigners has been postponed until October. The four were due to be tried at Lincoln Magistrates Court on 27 May. They were accused of causing criminal damage to the perimeter fence of RAF Waddington.
Love matters
Now that he has retired from life as a professional economist, David Cadman wants to talk to us about the power of Love. In his book, Love Matters, he tells us ‘in Earth days I am old. And I love according to my age – foolishly, deeply and without condition’. All...
King Canute’s daughter
The village of Bosham, (pronounced Bozzum), lies beside an inlet from the sea near Chichester. Part of its ancient church dates back to Roman times, but the greater part was built towards the end of the Dark Ages, in the Anglo-Saxon period. King Canute (or Cnut) and his family lived...
Eye - 12 June 2015
Running into the Light ‘There is always another race and I might yet be introduced as my mother who ran a marathon.’ So ended Chris Knott’s article, ‘The journey is the destination’ (19 April 2013), about failing to run the Singapore marathon in 2011. Eye is pleased to report that Chris can...
Letters - 12 June 2015
Vocal ministry I was surprised that in the recent discussion of vocal ministry (29 May and 5 June) nobody mentioned physical experiences in this context. When I feel urged to speak during Meeting for Worship, this urge is usually preceded by my pulse starting to race – and then gradually calming down again....