Issue 18-08-2017
Featured story
Thought for the Week: Bramley
‘An apple tree,’ you said. ‘Use it to buy an apple tree.’
Top stories
Silence in the midst of noise
The issues around fracking and other forms of new and intensive fossil fuel extraction can be divisive, with serious moral and ethical dimensions which Quakers are engaged with. Meeting for Sufferings considered the matter from the perspective of climate justice and issued their discerned statement in February 2017: For some years...
Different interpretations
Young Quakers were fully engaged at the University of Warwick from 29 July to 5 August as part of the Children and Young People’s activities programme, and also sharing experiences with Yearly Meeting Gathering 2017.
Yearly Meeting Gathering 2017: Special interest groups
Israel and Palestine Four speakers engaged Friends on 3 August in the interest group about Israel and Palestine organised by the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). Maureen Jack, of the Church of Scotland, spoke about the importance of giving voice to the voiceless and of speaking for the...
Of mice, turnips and generosity
This is what I heard at Yearly Meeting Gathering: There was a village; a couple arrived from far away to live there. The villagers, like villagers everywhere, were suspicious of the incomers and kept their distance, but the couple had their dog, their cat and their mouse for company, and...
The Retreat Lecture: Spirituality, hope and community
The title of The Retreat Lecture 2017, delivered on 1 August at Yearly Meeting Gathering by Bronwen Gray, who has been chaplain at The Retreat in York since 2010, was ‘Spirituality, Hope and Community’. She began her talk with a very apposite quotation from George Fox: Hold fast the hope which anchors the...
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Double first for Sanctuary Meetings in the UK
Llangollen Meeting in Wales and Lichfield Meeting in England have become the first two Sanctuary Meetings in Britain.
US embassy refuses to accept nuclear brinkmanship letter
The US Embassy has declined to accept a letter from a delegation of journalists, writers and peace activists which calls on the United States government to stop its nuclear brinkmanship in the crisis with North Korea.
American Friends report on North Korea
The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has issued a report reflecting on the organisation’s work in Korea over the last sixty-five years. Engaging North Korea – Volume II shares the AFSC’s views on the critical issues it sees as opportunities for dialogue between the US and the Democratic Peopleâ€...
First Quaker marriage at Woodbrooke
The first Quaker wedding at Woodbrooke, the Quaker study centre in Birmingham, took place on Saturday 12 August when Knut Nygard and Naomi Engelkamp were married in the Cadbury Room.
Friends march in Cape Town
The Quaker Peace Centre in Cape Town, South Africa, participated in the ‘Recall President Zuma Now!’ march to parliament on 7 August.
French legal ruling for refugees
French authorities must provide basic amenities to refugees in Calais in the future.
Tesco decision on single-use bags welcomed
Friends of the Earth (FoE) has responded positively to the announcement by leading British supermarket Tesco that it will no longer provide single-use plastic bags – but wants the government to press for more. The campaigning charity is also urging the government and businesses to take similar action on disposable cups...
Friends and Shushary
In 1983, aged seventeen, I went on a Quaker pilgrimage to ‘1652 Country’ in the North West of England and heard a woman called Anne Wynn-Wilson speak about a Quaker tapestry that was just a gleam in her eye! I recently completed another Quaker pilgrimage to ‘1832 Country’, to the Quaker burial ground...
Images of Christ: Standing at God’s right hand
Like Coventry Cathedral, the location of last month’s art work, Llandaff Cathedral in South Wales was heavily bombed during the second world war. When it was repaired in the 1950s, one unusual feature added to the twelfth century cathedral was a contemporary version of a medieval roodscreen, intended to...
Letters - 18 August 2017
The word ‘Quaker’ I was disappointed to read the statement ‘we don’t quake’ (23 June). I have been a Quaker for over twenty years. The first time I ministered, I quaked. Most of the time I quake before ministering. I am suspicious of ministering if I don’t quake. I...