Issue 09-12-2016
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Empathy
The hardest thing I have found to conquer in my present family situation is human nature. In recent years I spent time in prison and became estranged from my family, especially my children. The emotional tie to your own blood and the pure need to love and, more problematic, to...
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Enemy aliens
How often do you have the chance of ridding someone you know of a demon that has bound her family for 100 years? My Friday Meeting friend, sometime in 2015, began telling me of her German grandfather, Rudolf, who had been interned as an enemy alien in Alexandra Palace, alongside 3,000 others, from 1914...
Meeting for Sufferings: Drugs, compassion and concern
The Large Meeting Room at Friends House in London hosted a well-attended Meeting for Sufferings on Saturday 3 December with some challenging subjects on the agenda. Young Friends, who were taking part in a youth participation day at Friends House, joined Sufferings for opening workshop and at the conclusion of the...
Meeting for Sufferings: BYM trustees’ report
The percentage of income made up of voluntary contributions from Meetings and individuals that contributes to the cost of running Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) is now down to eighteen per cent.
Meeting for Sufferings: Quaker Recognised Bodies pilot
The first four groups registering as ‘Quaker Recognised Bodies’ were accepted by Meeting for Sufferings. Quaker Recognised Bodies replaces the Listed Informal Groups arrangement to clarify links between external groups with strong Quaker links and Britain Yearly Meeting.
Meeting for Sufferings: The Book of Discipline Revision Preparation Group
Lesley Richards, clerk of the Book of Discipline Revision Preparation Group (RPG), presented their second report to Meeting for Sufferings.
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Meeting for Sufferings: Quaker Council for European Affairs
Elaine Green, representative to the Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA), reported on changes that have been made in its governing structures.
Meeting for Sufferings: Young People’s Participation Day
Thirty-eight Young Friends attended the annual Young People’s Participation Day at Friends House. Meeting for Sufferings heard details of their activities and discussions when the group joined Friends for closing worship.
Friends in Scotland
Forty Friends from the four Area Meetings gathered on the Saturday morning of 12 November in Perth for General Meeting for Scotland with a challenge to rethink and develop a vision for our General Meeting.
Sharing groups
Sharing groups are good experiences. The men’s sharing group I attended at Pendle Hill for a year was wonderful. But should a sharing group claim to be a religion?
Viking economics
The phrase ‘there is no alternative’ came into circulation in the early 1980s. It was used by Margaret Thatcher to justify the economic reforms of her government and enabled acceptance of a ‘new normal’: an economy of cruelty rather than compassion, an economics that ignores the problems and threats of...
Quakernomics
Economics is a ‘closed book’ to me and, at first, I feared that the same might be true of Mike King’s book Quakernomics: An ethical capitalism. But I obtained a copy, enjoyed it, and Sutton Friends later spent a profitable evening studying it. Quakernomics is a catchy and intriguing...
Bad Quaker
‘I’m not proud; I’m a bad Quaker. But I don’t deny it,’ says J Brent Bill. At first I thought: ‘I can relate to this. I’m a bad Quaker.’ From time to time some aggrieved Friend tells me I’m un-Quakerly. So, I guess I must...
Bombs and friendship
You were warned what would happen if you invaded Iraq but you left us facing a predictable fate with bombs. We needed friendship, not an attack.
Poems for peace
There’s something about poetry which reaches directly into the heart in a way which no other medium can. Poems For Peace is a collection which spans a diverse range of poets, each with a completely different style.
Eye - 09 December 2016
Radio Silence A diligent diarist has delved into the past to remind Friends of an early radio broadcast. Eye (11 November) related the reminiciences of ‘the first broadcast of Quaker worship… nearly forty years ago’ by David Winter, former head of religious broadcasting at the BBC. However, Patricia Steel (née...
Letters - 09 December 2016
Quaker Methodists Recently, we heard about Quaker Anglicans – Quanglians – but a friend of mine, researching into early Methodism in the Warrington area, came across a reference to Quaker Methodists in the early nineteenth century. Knowing I was a Quaker, she asked me what I knew about them, but I had...