Issue 08-04-2016
Featured story
Thought for the Week: The abacus
It was the first time that I had to open the Meeting house to our Newbury Friends on a Sunday morning. I was chuffed. What a privilege! I had the keys, got some milk, three balls of vibrantly yellow chrysanthemums – ready to go. Carolyn said the flowers were meant to...
Top stories
Quaker renewal: The Quaker way
The Quaker faith in Britain today is experiencing a period of questioning and reflection. It is a time of challenge and opportunity. Craig Barnett offers a personal assessment of some key concerns in a new monthly series. Over recent years many Friends have diagnosed a crisis in Britain Yearly Meeting....
A Field of Wheat
A Field of Wheat is based in Lincolnshire and takes an imaginative approach to raising issues of concern about the land today and, in particular, the challenge of climate change. The idea behind the project comes from a shared curiosity about what it would feel like to be in and...
Testimony, morality and aeroplanes
What is testimony? It is to do with bearing witness to the truth: to truth that we have experienced, seen or heard directly. It may be spoken or written, as when we bear witness to specific events for legal purposes. Giving testimony is also what early Friends were doing when...
Prayer beyond belief
God is a creation of the human consciousness: this is a credo of the Sea of Faith Network that I find to be singularly liberating. No longer am I bothered about how a Supreme Being can permit so much suffering. We are the stewards who can exercise caring and compassion,...
Be kind
‘Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.’ - Plato Why are we so slow to learn? Plato said the words above about 400BC. Geoffrey Durham quoted these words in an article published in an edition of the Friends Quarterly in 2012: ‘What it means to be a...
All articles
Meeting for Sufferings: Risks and logos
Some of the risks now faced by the Religious Society of Friends in Britain were highlighted at Meeting for Sufferings held at Friends House, London, on Saturday 2 April. Ingrid Greenhow, clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) trustees, spoke to the minutes of the February 2016 trustees’ meeting. BYM treasurer Peter Ullathorne...
Meeting for Sufferings: Living out our faith
Britain Yearly Meeting is moving through a three-year arc, ‘Living out our faith’, Meeting for Sufferings clerk Ethel Livermore explained in the papers. At Yearly Meeting 2015, Sufferings was asked ‘to take the work on social injustice forward, coordinating the work of Local and Area Meetings [AMs] who might wish to...
Meeting for Sufferings: Minutes from Meetings
A number of minutes from Area Meetings were brought to Sufferings. A concern over the use of the phrase ‘Quakers in Britain’ came from Cambridgeshire Area Meeting. A response from recording clerk Paul Parker was included in the papers for Meeting for Sufferings, and the minute was forwarded to Britain...
Meeting for Sufferings: QWRC renewed
Anne Bennett, clerk of the Quaker World Relations Committee (QWRC), spoke to its first annual report.
Meeting for Sufferings: Concerns are a concern
Meeting for Sufferings clerk Ethel Livermore described testing concerns as ‘something that a lot of Friends struggle with’. Her thoughts were echoed by Friends, one of whom described bringing forward a concern as ‘quite a bruising experience’.
Meeting for Sufferings: Ireland Yearly Meeting
Each year, Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) sends representatives to other Yearly Meetings in Europe.
A confident Quaker voice
More than fifty Yorkshire Friends recently gathered in Cloughton, near Scarborough, for their 2016 Easter Settlement.
Rathfarnham Friends shine a light on climate justice
Rathfarnham Meeting in Dublin hosted members of the local community at a candle-lit vigil for Earth Hour last month. Around twenty people took part in the hour-long vigil, which included readings and reflections about the environment and prayers for climate justice.
Online exhibition highlights matters of conscience
Friends House Library’s new online exhibition gives an overview of the introduction and impact of the Military Service Act, which came into force in March 1916.
Extremism
Many factors contribute to extremism. One is the belief held by some, from diverse religions, that by their actions they are serving God. Many people in the world, including Muslims, are appalled by the barbaric actions of Isis. How can people think they are acting in the name of God?...
Eye – 8 April 2016
The provenance of the price tag Eye has discovered that Friends had a hand in pricing becoming more equal. A tag indicating a fixed price was considered revolutionary at a time when haggling with the shopkeeper was the norm. The Oxford Handbook of Pricing Management says that Quaker merchants ‘are...
Letters – 8 April 2016
Talking about God Diana Lampen writes (25 March): ‘The one thing I feel is not acceptable is discounting someone else’s experience.’ In the light of a recent conference at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre, I assume Diana means both ‘theist’ and ‘nontheist’ experiences if these are sincerely held. Perhaps we...