Issue 19-04-2019
Featured story
Thought for the week: David L Saunders has a ‘be’ in his bonnet
Walking down Charing Cross Road to a meeting, my attention was grabbed by a wayside pulpit outside a steeplehouse. It had these four words: ‘Do less, be more.’ Such posters, normally of the ‘wages of sin is death’ variety, do not speak to me, but this one was different. It...
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‘After six weeks carrying heavy photographic plates, the expedition reached Príncipe.’
It started with an article in a travel magazine. Remote volcanic islands that we’d never heard of, just off the coast of West Africa. The photographs promised lush tropical plant life, pristine beaches, unusual rock formations, and a gentle pace of life. The last thing we expected to find...
‘Although I had known the truth from the beginning, I shared their pain.’
If Friends need to know how being transgender feels and works, I have some practical experience that I can offer, from the perspective of a trans person’s partner. I met J when we were both volunteers at an educational charity. He was a tall man, rather overweight, very intelligent...
Carrying the cross
‘And they compelled a passerby coming from the country, Simon the Cyrenian, the father of Alexander and Rufus, so that he might carry his cross.’ (Mark 15:21) The execution squad, seeing that one of their prisoners is unlikely to reach the death hill unaided, haul out one of the Passover crowd...
Elegy for Spring
One day, when none recall how slowly leaves uncurl from buds’ bright stickiness,
Quaker bares all in House of Commons
A Quaker was one of the twelve partially naked Extinction Rebellion (XR) protesters who stormed the House of Commons public gallery on 1 April in order to urge politicians to take action on climate justice.
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BYM renews call for state of Palestine to be recognised
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has reaffirmed its 2014 call to the UK government to ‘honour its commitment to the two-state solution and recognise the state of Palestine without delay’. The call follows Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement that he intended to annex Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine, if he was elected for...
Quaker exhibition in Brussels on migrant women
Quakers and Action for Women are holding an exhibition of photographic portraits of, and taken by, migrant women inside the European institutions. The SEEN exhibition is being exhibited for a month at the Jacques Delors building, where the Committee of the Regions meets, following a week on display in Quaker...
Friends at ‘United We Stand’ conference
Friends were present at a one-day conference in Wales designed to bring together organisations working with diverse communities in Wales to help create a united stance.
QSA helps Guardian cover funeral poverty
Quaker Social Action (QSA) was involved in a video shown on The Guardian website last week highlighting the misery of funeral poverty. The film covers the harrowing journey of Amanda as she tries to arrange her son Rahim’s funeral. After days spent chasing funeral homes and faced with unaffordable...
Meeting for Sufferings: Yearly Meeting financial report
Linda Batten, treasurer of Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), presented the accounts from the financial report for the year ending 31 December 2018 at Meeting for Sufferings on 6 April.
Eye - 19 April 2019
God is… Gabrielle Scott, of Muswell Hill Meeting, shares a poem inspired by a moment of stillness in a storm with Eye. God is in the spaces between keep still and listen there are gaps a background of holiness where the divine is present a still point fixing existence that...
Letters - 19 April 2019
A divine choice I am setting myself a task. From each issue of the Friend I intend to single out a phrase or idea that helps one’s quest towards wholeness. Harvey Gillman’s ‘divine commonwealth’ (12 April) is the opening choice. The phrase suggests continuity between all spiritual beings in...