Issue 20-10-2017
Featured story
Thought for the Week: On forgiveness
Do you recall a few years back when someone went into the Amish school and killed all those children? What amazed me was how the Amish community, including the parents of the victims, joined together and gave a public statement of forgiveness, refusing to resort to vengeance. They even attended...
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Keeping safe
No one wants anyone to suffer the pain of suicide in prison and the terrible impact such a bleak death has on family, friends, fellow prisoners and prison staff. Everyone wants to turn back the rising tide of self-harm in our jails. And yet last year 113 men and twelve women...
Light from the darkness
Michael Lambrix was executed by the state of Florida on 5 October. He had been on death row for thirty-three years. He and I had corresponded for twenty-six of those years. Only a handful of people in all human history have spent longer under sentence of death before execution than Mike.
Open-air Friends
When I first became a Quaker some eight years ago I found out about the ‘Quaker Campers’ – and then promptly forgot about them. Some years later, when I rediscovered camping – but of the more comfortable type suitable for campers with a well-worn body and needing frequent trips to the bathroom –...
Images of Christ: The sea of faith
When I was planning this series of articles, however I framed them, this work by William Holman Hunt always kept turning up on the list. It is not because I think it’s a great work – I don’t. It’s clearly intended to be grotesque, but I think it...
Meeting for Sufferings: Sufferings considers Sanctuary Everywhere
Meeting for Sufferings, held at Manchester Meeting House on Mount Street on Saturday 7 October, was asked, as part of the ongoing work on forced migration, to approve a ‘Sanctuary Everywhere Manifesto’. The Manifesto was part of the annual report of Quaker Peace & Social Witness Central Committee (QPSWCC). It was...
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Meeting for Sufferings: Speaking out for Friends
Paul Parker, the recording clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting, spoke about the broader role of communications from Friends House. All of the speaking out, he explained, is done on behalf of Friends and, in doing work on a huge range of issues, ‘we work on your behalf and we have...
Meeting for Sufferings: Reflecting on Yearly Meeting Gathering
At Meeting for Sufferings representatives were asked to reflect on their experience of the Yearly Meeting Gathering (YMG) held at the University of Warwick in August, whether they had attended or not.
Meeting for Sufferings: Exploring diversity
The issue of diversity within the Religious Society of Friends was raised at Meeting for Sufferings. A paragraph of Yearly Meeting’s Minute 38 was sent to Meeting for Sufferings and asked that representatives ‘look at how we can remove barriers and actively seek wider participation in the full life of...
Meeting for Sufferings: Committee on Clerks
A minute sent by Yearly Meeting was considered by Meeting for Sufferings. Minute 23 asked Sufferings to undertake a review of the Committee on Clerks, specifically of their ‘manner of working’, with a view to revising their Terms of Reference.
Meeting for Sufferings: QPSW’s work
Helen Drewery talked about the annual report of Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW).
QSA leader wins top award
Judith Moran, director of Quaker Social Action (QSA), has won the Outstanding Individual Achievement award at the 2017 Charity Times Awards held on 4 October. This comes just two weeks after she was highly commended in the CEO of the Year category at the Third Sector Awards.
Peace protestors ‘admonished’
Three peace protestors, including Hull Quaker Sam Donaldson, have been ‘admonished’ by a Scottish court after taking part in a nonviolent blockade of the UK’s nuclear weapons storage facility in the summer.
Grenfell Tower witness
Friends joined for a Quaker Meeting for Worship on Saturday 14 October and stood in solidarity with all those who had suffered from the Grenfell Tower fire.
Eye - 20 October 2017
Elephants and buffaloes George Fox on a motorcycle, a smattering of trumpets and an impressive number of glass coaches are scattered amongst the names of leading Friends in an eighty-yearly-old rib-tickler that recently winged its way to Eye.
Letters - 20 October 2017
The Quaker way I enjoyed the piece by Harvey Gillman in the Quaker Week edition of the Friend (29 September) and took courage and strength from it. His writing in this article and in so many of his pieces speak to my condition perfectly. For me Quakerism is an unquantifiable approach...