Issue 27-09-2019
Featured story
Welcome
Some years ago I visited Holy Trinity Church on Clapham Common in south London. The rector was very proud to show me around, but it was quite unlike a Quaker Meeting house. On the wall were paintings of a series of nineteenth-century gentlemen. Then the rector pointed to an old,...
Top stories
‘I don’t think poetry can be apolitical.’
Your work often deals with your own sense of mortality, and it’s not often we do interviews on hospital wards. Can you tell us a bit about why you’re here? I’m on a treatment that is difficult to provide at home. I’ve got an underlying condition...
‘George soon learned that the quiet voice was always there to help when he needed it.’
George lay on his back in the den in the woods, cuddling Foxy, his white fox that Grampie had bought him in Scotland. Looking up through the leaves, he shouted: ‘It’s not fair; six isn’t too young to go to a funeral. I wanted to say goodbye to...
‘My advice to British people is that you learn to swallow your pride.’
I started working with Quakers in Kenya about ten years ago. In the aftermath of the 2007 election there was a lot of violence. I had to hide family members in my house. More than a thousand died. Many people had been displaced from their homes and Quakers were engaged in...
‘In stillness we can ask ourselves whether there might be seeds of war within ourselves.’
Although Quakers in Britain don’t often preach, they certainly teach, often by example. One of the better known of these examples is set in the 1660s. Margaret Fell, one of the earliest Friends, rode from Cumbria to London to petition the king not to oppress the new Quaker movement....
‘The Divine is like water, tangible but hard to catch.’
Living simply is the ongoing process of trying to bring my life into the flow of a stream. In this image, I picture a stream like the one which flows through my local park – bubbling, leaping, mostly clear, with stones and the odd shoe at the bottom, a few tiny...
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‘What part do I play in making my faith community more reflective of my neighbourhood?’
I am grateful for the bounty that shapes my life. By virtue of birth I have access to a passport, free education, travel, banking, birth control, clean water, a vote, free healthcare, and I can choose how I dress and who I love. These blessings, alongside being white, employed, Quaker...
‘If we have a testimony to Truth, and if testimony is faith in action, how clear is our witness?’
In the latter days of the Soviet Union my hostess in Belarus told me how she made a trip to the West when she was a teenager. ‘It was the most shattering experience of my life,’ she told me. ‘Why?’ ‘Because I discovered that everything I had been told was...
‘In the silence I brought my vanity and thoughtlessness into the Light.’
‘Be honest with yourself. What unpalatable truths might you be evading? When you recognise your shortcomings, do not let that discourage you. In worship together we can find the assurance of God’s love and the strength to go on with renewed courage’ (from Advices & queries 11).
‘The workshop had no foundations, the water supply was weird and the drains even weirder.’
What’s one of the most stressful things you can do in your life? More than getting married, divorced, changing your job or buying a house? I’ll tell you. Buy a ruin and try to do it up. How can you make that even more stressful? Buy a ruin...
Young Friends protest for climate justice
Young Friends took to the streets this week to take part in the global climate strikes. With some students walking out of school, youth activists joined demonstrations across the UK on 20 and 27 September in a week of action calling on political leaders to take urgent action to avert climate breakdown....
1,300 come to Art the Arms Fair
More than 1,300 people attended Art the Arms Fair, the award-winning partly-Quaker-founded arts project which challenged the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) fair this month.
Quaker calls for Midlands AVP group
A Friend from Evesham Meeting has approached Southern Marches Area Meeting with the intention of setting up an Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP) group.
QHA shortlisted for award
Quaker Homeless Action (QHA) volunteers have been shortlisted for a Mayor of London Volunteering Award for a mobile library they run for homeless people.
Welsh government ‘reviews’ arms fair
Quakers involved in Roots of Resistance witness have welcomed the news that the Welsh government has said it will ‘review’ its role in the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair after fierce criticism.
Letters - 27 September 2019
Trust and trustees I have the warmest personal regard for Rex Ambler and John Lampen, who have been inspiration, teachers and guides to me in my Quaker life. Their article and letter (30 August and 13 September) on the danger of losing our distinctive way of making decisions has surprised and puzzled...