Issue 14-02-2020
Featured story
‘Is there an affinity between the non-self of Christ on the cross and the non-self of the Buddha?’
On the face of it orthodox Christianity and Buddhism are irreconcilably different. But, in each case, does the human spirit go through the same transforming process? Is there an affinity between the non-self of Christ on the cross and the non-self of the Buddha as he reached for enlightenment? The...
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‘Science tells us to first define our terms. Quakerism says there’s more to life than words.’
In The Future of an Illusion, Sigmund Freud used ‘science’ to demolish ‘religion’. Reading this as a teenager really set the cat among the pigeons for me. Was Quakerism doomed? At the time, ‘science’ was transcendent. ‘God’ less so. Exams required us to prove things scientifically. Get that wrong, and...
‘I don’t want Britain to turn away… I believe Quaker values can infect and benefit Europe.’
So, it’s happened. After nearly half a century, the UK has left the EU. After the pain, it would be easy to turn inwards, to focus on our communities and the many problems that need our local focus. But Quakers don’t go for the easy path. We take...
‘Britain’s exit from the EU should not mean that British Quakers withdraw from Europe.’
On the 15 April 1945, British troops liberated the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. The human misery they discovered showed the darkest, genocidal depths that humanity can reach. Those soldiers, many of whom were deeply scarred by the experience, were quickly followed by workers from the Friends Relief Service, who worked in the camp...
Understanding, Nurturing and Working Effectively with Vulnerable Children in Schools by Angela Green
As a tutor on our Area Meeting’s ‘Peaceful Schools’ project I found a lot of parallels with the work of Quaker Angela Greenwood. We Friends have been talking a lot about the need to really hear what others are saying, rather than just reacting to attitudes and behaviour we...
‘The Woman Who Cracked the Anxiety Code’ by Judith Hoare
This is the story of the Australian doctor Claire Weekes (1903-1990). It is fascinating. Weekes was first a zoologist, specialising in the development of the placenta in mammals, for which she received a doctorate in science. She found a species of lizard which sometimes laid eggs and sometimes gave birth...
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‘Small Things’
I am not sure what they are using. Small things to trick the morning into night? Or to trick the night into morning?
Bayard Rustin pardoned in redress for LGBTQ charges
The Quaker civil rights leader Bayard Rustin has been pardoned for his 1953 conviction under laws targeting LGBTQ people as part of an overhaul of historic gay convictions in the USA.
Central England Quakers forms new climate group
Central England Quakers (CEQ) has discerned that its low carbon work should now continue as CEQ Climate Emergency Action (CEQ CEA) with subgroups and co-clerks. The decision was made at a recent Area Meeting, which followed two special meetings of the former CEQ Low Carbon Commitment Forum. The second was...
QGSDC gathering
Members of the Quaker Gender and Sexual Diversity Community (QGSDC) gathered at Westminster Meeting House this month to hear talks from Britain Yearly Meeting staff ten years after Yearly Meeting committed to campaign for equal marriage. Co-clerk Yvonne Wood told the Friend that the event ‘Quaker Work for Inclusion’ on 1...
QHA winter shelter in second year
Quaker Homeless Action (QHA) has reported a busy season for the second year of its London winter shelter. The centre in a church in Gospel Oak in north London opened a year ago in partnership with the Simon Community.
Friend’s homeless book turned into a play
A Quaker who wrote and self-published a book about homelessness has had his work turned into a play. Norwich Friend Robert Ashton’s Any Spare Change? has been adapted into a short play and performed at the Maddermarket Theatre in Norwich.
BYM on Holocaust Memorial Day
Marigold Bentley, head of peace programmes and faith relations for Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), has said that it was especially important that Quakers participated in Holocaust Memorial Day this year ‘because it is not only seventy-five years since the liberation of Auschwitz, but also twenty-five years since the Srebrenica massacre...
Meeting for Sufferings: Friends consider gender and diversity
Friends came together on 1 February to reflect on the issue of diversity and inclusion following the second conference on the subject, which took place at Woodbrooke last month. Margaret Bryan, the Meeting for Sufferings’ (MfS) clerk, read a reflection from Sophie Bevan, who attended the Woodbrooke gathering as a MfS...
Meeting for Sufferings: Yearly Meeting Gathering 2020
This year’s theme for Yearly Meeting 2020 was announced as: ‘Listening, prophecy and reconciliation: allyship in a climate emergency.’
Meeting for Sufferings: MfS Annual Report is agreed
Friends agreed the MfS Annual Report 2019 to Yearly Meeting 2020 which was revised in the light of comments received before the Meeting.
Letters - 14 February 2020
Calling charity trustees In the current vernacular this is a ‘shout out’ to trustees of all the Quaker grant-making charities to see if there is interest in meeting up at Yearly Meeting Gathering in August. The aim would be to: look at the various challenges we are all facing, now...