Issue 14-08-2015
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Thought for the Week: All life is sacred
For me a foundation of Quaker faith is the idea that there is no division between the sacred (spiritual, meditative, religious, sacramental) and the secular (material, busy, atheistic, mundane). Quakers aspire to live and have their being within the sacred. Thus we are all priests. We abolished the laity, not...
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Modern day slavery
‘Slavery and Liberation’ was the theme of the North East Thames Area Meeting All Age Gathering held in April. The weekend covered the history, current situation and role of the Quakers in slavery and was led by Quaker, and co-founder of charity Free the Slaves, Kevin Bales. During the weekend...
Human rights
The Human Rights Act (1998) stems from the European Convention on Human Rights (1950). This Convention was set up after the second world war in order to ensure that never again would such atrocities be committed by a state against human beings. The European Convention on Human Rights includes the right to...
Changing lives in Bolivia
It is easy to forget that the education of children beyond the age of eleven is relatively recent in the British Isles. Free, compulsory education up to the age of twelve was introduced only in 1899. In the late nineteenth century all children had access to a ‘primary’ education, but children...
Listening to trauma
In June Charles Tauber reached twenty years living in Vukovar, a town near the Croatian-Serbian border. Vukovar was devastated by violent conflict during the Yugoslav wars of the early and mid-1990s. About 3,000 were killed or went missing, and 22,000 civilians fled the town as refugees. Charles was a GP in...
Lanterns and reflections
I t was morning, ‘going to work and school time’ when the nuclear bomb detonated 2,000 feet above Hiroshima city centre. Two and a half miles away, thermal radiation was twenty times greater than that of the sun. The blast wave travelled the same distance in ten seconds. Some 80,000 people died...
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Hiroshima and Nagasaki remembered
Friends, and others, gathered across Britain on 6 August to mark the seventieth anniversary of the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. More than 200 people attended an interfaith service at Friends House in London. Readings were given by representatives of a number of religions.
Friends mark Hiroshima anniversary in Coventry Cathedral
Coventry Quakers marked the seventieth anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with a service for all faiths or none in the Chapel of Unity, Coventry Cathedral, on 6 August.
Friends back Charities Bill change
The Quaker Housing Trust (QHT) has endorsed an amendment to the Charities Bill. QHT has joined other housing groups in backing a House of Lords amendment to the Bill. This will protect social housing homes under threat from government plans to extend the right-to-buy scheme to include housing associations.
Leaveners partner hosts writers
The P Café in Stirchley, Birmingham, recently welcomed a group of poets from the Leaveners’ ‘Poets’ Corner’ project. Poets and volunteers came together to learn new writing techniques. They ranged from beginners to experienced writers.
Young Friends plan record-breaking Meeting for Worship
This month, for the first time, participants in Friends Southern Summer Events (FSSE) Senior Conference and Junior Gathering will hold a joint Meeting for Worship.
Friends share nominations practices
Fifty Friends gathered recently at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre in Birmingham for the first nominations conference. Participants were drawn from a number of groups concerned with nominations at the Yearly Meeting level. The groups represented included the Nominations Committee, the Committee on Clerks, and the Yearly Meeting Nominating Group. Members...
Whither goeth the bus?
It is not just because I am deaf that I think ‘afterword’ is a very bad idea. I do not know how widely this practice has been taking hold in Britain Yearly Meeting as a whole but it has certainly spread like a rash in our neck in the woods....
Gnosis?
Bits of Truth come as Certainty. Where do they come from? Is that Gnosis? Does Certainty come via Intuition? A Knowingness that its Guidance is from the Holy Spirit? Yes, a certainty that it’s a bit of Truth.
Eye - 14 August 2015
A memorable path A seaweed labyrinth made an impression at a recent gathering. Scarborough Meeting House hosted the Quarterly Meeting of Quakers in Yorkshire on 18 July.
Letters - 14 August 2015
Be still and know God I have meditated for some years on this verse from Psalm 46:10. To start with, the whole verse: ‘Be still, and know that I am God’ and often reflecting slowly and deeply on each word in turn and joining them up as I went along until...