Issue 29-03-2019
Featured story
Thought for the week: Judy Clinton blows hot and cold
It was a bitterly cold day. Before leaving the house I togged up with multiple layers of clothing, hat, gloves and scarf, and set out looking like some kind of arctic explorer, just as I used to when, dressed up by my mother, I went out into a Glaswegian winter...
Top stories
‘You have to work hard to see things from a child’s point of view.’
I watched one of your first programmes, Book Tower, as a child. My son loved In the Night Garden. That’s a forty-year span. When someone influences adults for that long they become a household name, but people who create things for children don’t seem to get the same...
‘Who are we, and what do we do?’
A characteristic of Meeting of Friends in Wales (MFW), like many wider Meetings, is its need to squeeze a lot into its agenda. But over its thirty-year history it has developed a welcome brevity. Initial items, such as a statement by the new trustees and various reports, were succinct and...
‘We need to consider why we do what we do.’
On a wet and blustery day, more than seventy Friends from across Scotland gathered at Glasgow Meeting House. While the rugby teams of Scotland and Wales were battling it out at Murrayfield we met in a more friendly fashion, our task being no less challenging, namely to address the question:...
‘What do Quakers believe?’ by Geoffrey Durham
We British Quakers make things difficult for ourselves when communicating our faith. The reasons why have been obvious from my first days attending. We celebrate not having a creed, but this complicates any quick, coherent attempt to explain our ways; we view all statements of Quaker belief with fault-finding suspicion....
‘Strangers’ by The Young’uns
I love our Quaker phrase ‘that of God’. It’s small and beautiful, and knows its limits. It gestures towards something beyond words. We use it as currency for the inexpressible yet collectively understood. We often think of it in terms of seeing it in another individual, but what does â€...
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‘Our Child of the Stars’ by Stephen Cox
What do you do when you have to choose between an alien child and your government? Molly and Gene, the married couple at the heart of this warm and engaging novel, are already suspicious of their government – they’re pacifists in the US during the draft and the cold war –...
Quakers uphold New Zealand after terror attack
Quakers joined others in showing solidarity with Muslim people at a London mosque last week, after the mass shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, which claimed fifty lives. The Bishop of London and other faith leaders in London met at East London Mosque to provide an important message...
Amersham Quakers consider roots of violence
Amersham Friends held their last meeting on the subject of ‘Why conflict? Why violence?’ this month.
Luton and Leighton Friends host Turning the Tide talk
Luton and Leighton Area Meeting (AM) organised a Meeting for Learning this month featuring members of staff from Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW). Tobias Wellner, East Africa programme manager, and Lisa Cumming, Turning the Tide (TTT) programme manager, talked about nonviolent methods to build peace and how these can...
European online Meeting for Worship on 29 March
The Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA), the Friends World Committee for Consultation’s Europe and Middle East Section (FWCC EMES) and Woodbrooke have organised an online Meeting for Worship to be held on the original date for the UK’s exit from the European Union. The Meeting for Worship...
Hitchin Meeting considers Brexit divisions
Hitchin Meeting held a second special Preparatory Meeting (PM) about the political situation surrounding Brexit this month following a concern raised in Meeting for Worship last month. Anthony Cole, the member of Hitchin Meeting who raised the concern, told the Friend: ‘The atmosphere at the Meeting was very subdued, somewhat...
QVA helps Calais refugees
A member of Quaker Voluntary Action (QVA) spent two days in Calais this month volunteering for refugees.
Letters - 29 March 2018
YFGM statement As gender concerned Quakers ourselves, we are writing to express our dismay at the letter by Diane Brewster (22 March). ‘Material reality’ has been used before as a means of delegitimising whole groups of people. It is step one in the well-recognised path to dehumanisation followed by violence. Step...