Issue 21-07-2017
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Connection
One of the commonest big questions that people ask is: ‘What is the meaning of life?’ I think they’re asking the wrong question. This question presupposes that in the beginning there was a meaning and that life came about in order to fulfil that meaning. I think the question...
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Restorative experience
The recent news item in the Friend (23 June) on the Bradford Peace Museum’s programme for schools put me in mind of a wonderfully nourishing experience some of us had recently, engaging with Year Six children from our local primary school. The head teacher, who is an attender at our...
Cause for hope
On 7 July countries meeting at a United Nations conference in New York adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, announced by the UN as ‘the first multilateral legally-binding instrument for nuclear disarmament to have been negotiated in twenty years’.
Images of Christ: Tablets of the law, tablets of the word
Words set in stone have a long history in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. The first version of the Ten Commandments was believed to have been inscribed by the finger of God (Exodus 31:18). Funerary inscriptions from the Roman catacombs are among the earliest visual forms of Christian witness. They are characterised by...
We live in interesting times…
The Friend Publications Limited, publisher of the Friend and Friends Quarterly, is a small independent charity. We have a board of Quaker trustees and a small number of paid staff. We are independent of Britain Yearly Meeting, both editorially and in governance.
Reflections on the ‘Red Book’: Atonement
…faced with the decision, whether or not to approve the epistle. We had laboured for several hours the day before, and it looked as though preferences for wording and other concerns would make it impossible to approve the final draft.
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Quaker activist sent for trial
Quaker activist Sam Walton and Dan Woodhouse, a Methodist minister, had their pre-trial hearing at Blackpool Magistrates Court on 10 July, following their arrest on 29 January for entering BAE Systems’ Warton site in order to disarm warplanes bound for Saudi Arabia.
New booklet on historic Friends’ Meeting houses
Central England Quakers have published an eighty-page booklet based on the recent national Quaker Meeting house heritage survey that was undertaken by Britain Yearly Meeting and Historic England.
Irish Friends send letter of support to Friends in Britain
Ireland’s Yearly Meeting Committee has sent a letter to Friends in Britain expressing ‘sympathy and support following the tragic occurrences in recent weeks in your country.’
Derby Meeting peace vigil
Friends in Derby are holding a peace vigil during July at the industrial museum in the town.
Campaigners seek to appeal ruling on Saudi arms exports
Campaigners have said they will appeal a ‘very disappointing’ High Court decision last week which allows the UK government to continue exporting arms to Saudi Arabia for use in Yemen.
Foodbank initiative
St Cuthbert’s Anglican Church in Lytham, Lancashire, has taken the foodbank idea to a new level by introducing a ‘community fridge’ on church premises. The church is working in partnership with the FairShare and FoodCloud organisations and their local food shops.
Green gunk goodbye
Maggie Guy, Sibford School’s retiring deputy head and head of boarding, had an unusual send-off after she agreed to be covered from head to toe in green gunk as part of the Quaker school’s support for Banardo’s.
Worshipping in Berlin
Sometime last year we decided as a family that we should live life more adventurously; so I gave up most of my work, we put our house up for rent and moved to Berlin. In England we had been an English family with a German mother and we decided that,...
Moment’s benediction
A moment takes place between seeing and knowing we’ve seen. A moment of awe, a small benediction as when I met a fox in the lane, and we paused and looked at the otherness of other.
Letters - 21 July 2017
Jesus and Jews I have noticed one or two references to Jews and to Jesus in recent issues of the Friend which I find troubling. Over the years I have ceased being surprised by inaccurate and misleading comments by several Christians about the Jewishness of Jesus and the evolution and...