Issue 25-09-2015
Featured story
Thought for the Week: The heavenly banquet
In the entrance to St James’s Church in Piccadilly are some words of welcome: ‘Our community is widely representative of partnered and single people, straight, gay and transgendered, those who have a sure Christian faith and those who struggle with belief… We believe that in the gospel is to...
Top stories
Peacebuilding in Odessa
The ‘White Sail’ summer peace camp, which was made possible by generous funding by British Friends and Meetings, ran from 15 to 26 July 2015 in the ‘Blessed Summer Recreation Centre’, which is forty kilometres from Odessa. There were eight families participating, including eleven parents, eleven children above the age of fifteen years...
From the archive: Hospitals, huts and motherless children
The Friends’ War Victims Relief Committee was very active in the late summer of 1915. These extracts from a report of the Committee, published on 10 September, convey the scope of the relief work of Friends in France and Belgium. A hospital at Sermaize and a convalescent home at Bettancourt in France...
Little notes of love
If we truly believe that there is that of God in everyone and if we hold to our testimony to equality we are challenged to accept openly everyone, even if his or her behaviour or ministry may be different. In our testimony to truth we are challenged to examine ourselves,...
The kindness of strangers
In Genessee Diary, an account of staying for seven months in a Trappist monastery, Henri Nouwen, the Dutch priest, writes about the discomfort of living as a contemplative while reading accounts of torture in Chile and elsewhere. That was in the 1980s. Thirty years later, in different countries, the same...
Generosity overwhelms High Wycombe Friends
High Wycombe Quakers have received so many donations of goods for refugees that they are no longer able to accept anything other than non-perishable food items.
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Reflections on peace at Quaker memorial
Friends gathered in worship earlier this week at the Quaker Service Memorial to mark the United Nations International Day of Peace. Thirty Friends from eight Local Meetings met at the memorial, in the National Memorial Arboretum, Staffordshire, on Sunday 20 September.
Plaque honours Quaker scientist
A blue plaque commemorating the life of Quaker scientist John Barlow was unveiled at his former Edinburgh home on September 14.
QCEA calls on the European Union
The Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) is appealing to the European Union (EU) to halt military operations and to create safer ways for people to seek refuge in Europe.
Poetry speaks of displacement
The Quaker arts group Leaveners is harnessing the power of poetry to develop awareness of displaced peoples.
Friends gear up to share their faith
Next week, Friends will mark both Quaker Week (3-11 October) and World Quaker Day (4 October). During Quaker Week, members of Britain Yearly Meeting will share personal faith journeys. Online and on posters, five British Friends will reflect how, beginning with stillness, their faith becomes action.
Friends prompt peace messages
Wilmslow Friends marked the United Nations International Day of Peace with a stall at their local artisan market.
A clear policy
Across the world millions of people have poor prospects of a secure life in their countries of birth. Some of them risk everything in an attempt to migrate to countries which are more secure and affluent.
Poem: What make me human?
I lie in bed and caress my ribs, the smooth ebony as hard as piano keys. Questions overwhelm. Why? I am two people. I am a thousand people. I am a pathetic, broken soul, battered by the pain of the world; fighting a furious civil war with myself where there...
Letters – 25 September 2015
Life and death My childhood experience was very different from that of Anne Wade (4 September), leading to different conclusions. In rural New Zealand it would have been absolutely unthinkable to let a flock of elderly ewes (sheep) starve slowly to death as their teeth drop out one-by-one from old age. ...