Issue 28-07-2017
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Hope and possibility
In the spring of 1652 George Fox climbed Pendle Hill in Lancashire and had a vision of a people waiting to be gathered. It was the beginning of a movement that was to become the Religious Society of Friends. Many ‘Seekers’, in those first years, were convinced and in 1654 a ‘Valiant...
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Pales: a living testimony
A few years ago I went to Woodbrooke, the Quaker study centre, for a weekend run by the Kindlers. I found myself sitting next to Lynda Williams and in our introductions to each other told her I was moving to Shropshire. She told me she was from the Pales. Clearly,...
Interview: Catherine West
Could you talk about your background? I grew up in Sydney. My parents were Anglicans and I attended a Methodist school for girls in Sydney. But I felt that experience did not reflect the whole circle of views and the world I was living in – the culture and society of...
Building a movement for peace
On 21 January 2017 unprecedented women’s marches all over the world showed great rivers of hopeful and powerful humanity resisting the ominous growth of exclusive nationalism and the corporate monster eating its own capitalist tail. How, though, can Quakers contribute to a global grassroots movement for peacebuilding, and sustainable human life...
Friends with Jewish connections
A few years ago, at a Holocaust memorial meeting in Brighton, I told the woman sitting next to me that, although Jewish in origin, I was a Quaker. She looked at me disapprovingly and announced that Quakers were anti-Semitic. Needless to say, I found this shocking. I was then told...
From the archive: Prisoners
In its 8 June edition the Friend reported that Yearly Meeting 1917 had sent a message ‘To Our Friends Imprisoned for Conscience Sake’. It read: We thank God for the faithful witness you are bearing to the truth, and to Christ’s Gospel of love. We rejoice that strength has been given...
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YMG 2017: a new ‘look and feel’
Yearly Meeting Gathering (YMG) begins this weekend at the University of Warwick in Coventry, the fourth YMG in the past nine years. This year there will be noticeable changes from previous YMGs.
Storytelling in stitches
The Quaker Tapestry is being exhibited in Friends House in London for the first time in many years.
Northamptonshire Friends’ refuge initiative
Friends in Northamptonshire are involved with a local charity in setting up a new male refuge in the north of the county.
Health inequality in Britain
Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, authors of the The Spirit Level, highlighted the stark reality of health inequality in Britain at a seminar held in Portcullis House, Westminster, on Thursday 20 July.
Four arrests at nuclear base
Four Trident Ploughshares campaigners were arrested on 13 July as they blocked roads leading to the nuclear warhead store at Coulport on Loch Long, Scotland.
Transgender decision
The General Synod of the Church of England has passed a motion on welcoming transgender people.
Words and images in Glasgow
As part of Refugee Week 2017 Glasgow Meeting played host to two challenging plays. Journeymen Theatre performed a double bill: Feeding the Darkness, on state-sanctioned torture, and The Bundle, which tells the story of a woman negotiating the UK asylum system. Simultaneously, we welcomed This Light that Pushes Me, a photographic...
Letters - 28 July 2017
Food for thought I was reading the Friend (14 July) over lunch the other day, a bad habit but it gave me much food for thought! Sometimes we need to stand up and be counted, as James Yeoman said in his letter. At other times we should hold our council, quick...