Issue 21-04-2017
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Staying on
Friends have increasingly been addressing, at local and national level, a topical issue of our time – staying on. How do we deal with the end of life and how do we die with dignity? These questions have also prompted thoughtful and occasionally provocative correspondence in the Friend.
Top stories
Let’s talk about evil
In general I find Quakers reluctant to talk about evil. Can we use the words ‘evil’ and ‘sin’ in a way that is helpful and life affirming? The writers of Twelve Quakers and Evil show a strong desire to understand evil and see the good in the perpetrator, but I...
Forced migration
Despite it being April fool’s day, there was an excellent turnout for the London Quakers’ conference on Forced Migration at Friends House. A practically full Sarah Fell room heard Stephen Hale, chief executive of Refugee Action, which provides a wide range of services for forced migrants, set out the...
Images of Christ: The Road to Emmaus
The post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus are for me the most beautiful, but also the most problematical, parts of the Gospels. They have inspired some of the greatest works by some of our most highly revered artists – just think of Titian’s ‘Noli me tangere’ and Caravaggio’s ‘Supper at Emmaus’...
Taking sides
I have been reading the journal of the American Quaker Elias Hicks (1748-1830). For the most part, this journal is about the visits he made to Quarterly and Yearly Meetings at a distance from his own Meeting on Long Island. Many of these movements took place at the time of...
Mental distress
I became interested in mental health when I was quite young, as I seemed to be peculiar in some way I could not explain. This led me to train as a psychiatric nurse, and later to have a great deal of psychotherapy and analysis. So much more about the brain...
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A People of Peace
A moving production on the tragedy of war was given its first performance at Bury St Edmunds Meeting House on 8 April.
Students sing out for homeless charity
A musical collaboration by students of Friends Schools on both sides of the Irish Sea recently raised more than £800 for an Oxfordshire homeless charity.
Oxford initiative on Europe
Some OXFORD Friends with European connections who campaigned for the UK to stay in the EU have launched an initiative to prompt an informed discussion on Brexit.
Faith in practice
Over the last decade or so, David Rubinstein has written a number of booklets on Quaker topics. But booklets by their nature are short-term reads so he has collected and published them as a 300-page book with the title Essays in Quaker History. This will give them the permanence they...
Ouch – don’t block me!
The temptation to block erstwhile Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or WeChat ‘friends’ is strong when they post, what I find to be, objectionable opinions, photos, or YouTube clips about their hates, loves or beliefs.
Thomas and the lost coin
Thomas was the doubter, who felt the wounded hand, And not for single moment was Thomas ever banned. No fire was lit, no stones were thrown, just balm for anxious mood, Great Love was what was found there; a Gospel understood.
Eye - 21 April 2017
A fellow traveller? ‘Pity that Quakerism didn’t start a bit earlier as we might have had an influential Friend amongst our number…’ mused London Friend Rod Harper in a missive to Eye. ‘In Elizabeth Jenkins’ book on Elizabeth I, she makes a comment about William Cecil, who was chief...
Letters - 21 April 2017
Farm animals Several points about current farming practices were made in a recent letter (14 April), that I, among others, find seriously wanting. To state that farmed animals during transportation can have the benefit of seeing the passing scenery is not only doubtful, as those crammed deep within the truck might...