Issue 02-10-2020
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‘Should I cultivate my elasticity or my plasticity?’
Some substances are prized for their ability to stretch and twist, returning to their original shape when the forces that distort them have gone. They are pliant and responsive under pressure. Afterwards they relax. Elastic bands, for instance, work because they are trying to get back to their unstretched shape....
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Campaign to save trees
A campaign including Huddersfield Quakers featured on ITV news last week after supporters gathered to protest against council plans to widen one of West Yorkshire’s most congested routes.
‘As our needs intensify, so may our relationship to God.’
I was reminded recently by Kelly Kellum, the general secretary of Friends United Meeting in the US, that a mutual Friend of ours used to say: ‘Don’t ask me how I am doing unless you are prepared to listen to my answer’. This wise Friend reminded us to pay...
‘Benevolence was not some kind of adjunct to ordinary life.’
Before Quakerism, business and benevolence were largely seen as parallel, compartmentalised activities. Other philanthropists had spent the first part of their life making money, and the second part working out the most productive ways to give it away. With Friends, that changed: business and philanthropy worked hand in hand. This...
‘Millions of animals and plants are dying out.’
Did you see David Attenborough’s new BBC show, Extinction: The facts? How did it make you feel? For me, the documentary revealed some heart-breaking truths. Millions of animals and plants are dying out because of the way humans are treating nature. Our demand for consumer goods, particularly meat and...
‘Personal development and the sense of “family” remain.’
Seventy-two participants began with worship, during which Quaker faith & practice 23.10 was read. We were exhorted to live in a state of deepening spirituality through prayer, in the context of witnessing to justice, peace and the integrity of creation. Only God can show us the way out of the mess...
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Quakers urge rethink on Overseas Operations Bill
Friends have expressed dismay that a controversial armed forces bill passed its second reading in parliament last week.
Friends ‘connect dots’
Friends gathered virtually to discuss interconnected European social issues highlighted by the Covid-19 crisis in an ‘online conversation’ set up by Quaker Council for European Affairs (QCEA). Andrew Lane, from QCEA, said that Friends came together for the event on 22 September to ‘discern the bigger picture when it comes to...
Controversial aid for US Quaker school
A US Quaker school was among a group of private institutions that have been recently criticised for accepting federal aid for businesses struggling during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Poems for Peace
Quaker Roots, the network of Friends building a radical response to the Defence and Security International (DSEI) arms fair, held a poetry workshop last week in preparation for their 2021 peace witness.
‘We certainly got to know the children a little better!’
Our children at Hampstead Meeting have been meeting weekly by Zoom, and our young people once a month. The children’s sessions (for our four- to ten-year-olds) are organised from 10.00am for thirty minutes, so that the adults involved are able to join the larger online meeting at 11.00am. Initially,...
Letters - 2 October 2020
Eurosatory 2022 I am grateful to Christopher Hatton for his piece about Eurosatory 2022 (11 September). He reminds us about the folly of war, the irony of caring more about the health and safety of exhibitors of weapons of mass destruction rather than their victims, and the fact that now, more than ever,...