Issue 24-05-2019
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Thought for the week: Siobhan Haire prepares for Yearly Meeting
I am writing this five days before Yearly Meeting begins. The last few weeks have involved meetings with the clerking team, phone calls with members of Agenda Committee, writing introductions, reading epistles and testimonies, and worrying about draft minutes and emails – so many emails! You’d think that by this...
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‘Quakerism is premised on an excruciatingly beautiful vulnerability.’
Who are you and can you tell us a bit about your background? My name is Eden Grace and I am a member of New England Yearly Meeting, but I have been non-resident for fourteen years. The first nine years of that I was living in Kenya and working among...
‘A voice within him told him more bloodshed was pointless.’
At Yearly Meeting Gathering in Warwick 2017 I spoke to Cecile Nyiramana, clerk of Rwanda Yearly Meeting. She encouraged me to go to Rwanda, and also asked me to do some of my workshops on ‘Anger Management with Art’ for Quakers there. She had heard that I had done similar work...
‘These claimants are being discriminated against.’
I recently returned from a trip to 1652 country. In Brigflatts Meeting house we were told of the steadfastness and convincement of the early Friends. At Lancaster jail we heard graphic detail of the cruel punishments they received, and the courage with which they endured, or sadly did not endure, their...
Winging a prayer: ‘Our Father.’ (Matthew 6:9)
I n the middle of the sermon on the mount Matthew sets the prayer which Jesus teaches his followers. Putting it here is deliberate and significant. Matthew is presenting Jesus as a new Moses. Like Moses, he has escaped death at the behest of a cruel king; he has been...
Brief Answers to the Big Questions by Stephen Hawking
Stephen Hawking was working on this book until the time of his death. It contains a valuable introduction by a friend and scientific collaborator, Kip Thorne, and a fond memoir by his daughter, Lucy.
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Quakers mark International Conscientious Objectors Day
Quakers around the country marked International Conscientious Objectors Day last week with vigils, ceremonies and arts events. Friends gathered for a ceremony at the ‘commemorative stone’ in Tavistock Square in London on 15 May, which was just one of many events that took place all over the world. In countries in...
Northern Friends Peace Board sets up new working group
Northern Friends Peace Board (NFPB) has set up a new working group to support Quaker action against nuclear weapons at what it describes as ‘a time which is clearly particularly dangerous’. According to Philip Austin, NFPB coordinator, the group is hoping to raise awareness of and take action on ‘a...
Bid to publicise Quaker composers
The Quaker author John Lampen has reached out to Friends asking for help in supporting and publicising Quaker music including what he calls ‘closet’ Quaker composers.
Chester Quakers explore economy and climate justice
The Chester Quaker Economic and Climate Justice Group hosted a talk this week exploring how moving towards environmental sustainability could simultaneously bring real improvements in human wellbeing.
Art’s role in fighting climate change and driving action
The ground-breaking anti-war artist Peter Kennard made a passionate case for the role of art in communicating and driving climate action at the launch of the Grantham Art Prize last month.
QCEA question EU military spending
Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA) joined thirteen other civil society organisations last week to express their ‘deep concern’ about proposed EU military spending in the form of the European Peace Facility (EPF).
Letters – 24 May 2019
Kindertransport Odd that the Friend’s report (10 May) of the eightieth anniversary of the Kindertransport ‘rescue effort’ nowhere records that the children rescued were Jewish children, whose families were later murdered in the Holocaust. If the Nazis had occupied Britain, those children and all the other British Jews would also...