Issue 18-and-25-12-2020
Featured story
Thought for the week: Christmas belongs to us all, says Bernard Coote
Cancel Christmas? Alarm and fear were in those words, which made headlines earlier in the pandemic. It was unthinkable. Christmas is so deep in our history and customs, religious or otherwise. Friends have long had questions and insights about its observance. They deserve a sharing together.
Top stories
Can Friends fully embrace the holiday season? A ‘Quakerly Christian’ perspective by Geoff Pilliner
As a well-seasoned Quaker, I find Christmas presents problems. Not Scrooge-like problems but spiritual challenges. Early Quakers did not believe in holy days and feast days, believing that every day is sacred, and kept their shops open on Christmas Day against all the rules and customs of the time, but...
Born to be wild? Tim Gee finds another way to tell the oversweet story of Christmas
At this time of year, the Christmas story is hard to escape. In advent calendars, cards, school plays and nativity sets, the story of Jesus’ birth is everywhere. One Quaker response is to ignore all this – after all Christ is born in our hearts every day. But I take a...
The coming of the Light: A ‘protean’ understanding by Derrick Whitehouse
Walk in the Light, wherever you may be! Walk in the Light, wherever you may be! In my old leather breeches and my shaggy, shaggy locks, I am walking in the glory of the Light, said Fox. This joyful and well-known chorus is the song by Sydney Carter, which conveys...
There’s something about Mary, says Marisa Johnson
For the current issue of the Friends Quarterly I wrote some reflections on Mary, the mother of Jesus. I explored my personal connection to her, and how her story has resonated strongly in my life. But here I want to focus on Mary herself, and what the mythology that surrounds...
Poetry for Christmas
‘Asylum seekers’ Poem by Rainbows Children’s Meeting Mother and child are fleeing in the night. The brutal soldiers search for them behind, And in the sky ahead, the stars are bright. The tired donkey follows Joseph’s light, ...
All articles
Quaker centenarian raises £40,000
Newbury Quaker centenarian Ruth Saunders, inspired by Tom Moore who famously raised £32 million for the NHS by walking 100 laps of his patio in the days leading up to his 100th birthday, has gone one further by completing the final lap of her marathon. She walked the final two laps at...
‘Chilling’ effect on campaign groups
The UK government is making it harder for campaigning voices to be heard, staff from Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) have said. Writing on the Quakers in Britain website, Grace Da Costa, public affairs and advocacy manager for BYM, sets out the impact of what the blog describes as the ‘chilling...
Friends call for more black history lessons
A Scottish Friend involved in one of the four South-East Scotland Area Meeting study groups set up to explore racism has said that there should be more taught about British black history on the UK school curriculum.
‘Tough time’ for prisons
The challenges facing prison staff and chaplains throughout the pandemic was explored in an online Quaker workshop this autumn.
Friends explore slavery and the City
Friends in London took part in a walk around the capital last month aimed at deepening their understanding of the capital’s links to slavery. A small group of Quakers joined the Slavery and the City walk; they were brought together by London Quakers and led by the group Six...
It might be a bluer Christmas than usual, but Elaine Bright still has a holiday cheer
Christmas time is coming, the geese are getting fat – and they are not alone. I am finding even my ‘work from home’ casuals are snug. I can’t put a penny in the old man’s hat since I haven’t seen the Euston Road for six months. A summer...
Joseph: Harvey Gillman’s original father Christmas
‘I sit here in amazement of what they will say of me. None of them knew me, except that I was his father. What they mean by father I do not understand. They will write that Mary was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, that she bore a child, that an...
Shepherds’ delight: Rosie Carnall makes a link with the Book of Discipline Revision Committee
Once, when I was an Area Meeting clerk and tired after a Meeting, I put the television on and spent a happy decompression hour watching One Man and His Dog. Green fields, distant humans, and clever dogs herding sheep – it was very soothing. I’ve felt connection with sheepdogs before;...
The magi were outside Jesus’ religious tradition. James Newman-Shah offers reflections from Islam
‘Bismillah ar-Rahman, ar-Rameen. In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful.’ This is the line that opens the Quran and is said by me and my fellow Muslims multiple times daily. Every Surah recited starts with a reflection on God’s compassion and mercy. It has been said that...
King-sized failings: Mark Russ considers Herod
Christmas isn’t good news for everyone. For the Herods of the world, it’s very bad news. We meet Herod in the second chapter of Matthew’s gospel. Here, Jesus is presented as a second Moses. This makes Herod another Pharaoh. He represents tyrants and oppressive political powers. Just...
Making room: Nim Njuguna’s alternative history of the innkeeper
‘I am no longer talking to journalists,’ said Moshe the innkeeper dismissively waving away the inquiring stranger. ‘Not after that sly reporter ended up maligning my name. He probably trashed my reputation and that of My Brother’s Keeper’s inn for life.’
Prophet driven: Rhiannon Grant on Anna
After the main nativity story, Luke’s gospel gives a little coda to the events. Mary and Joseph take Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem to do their religious duty. There, they meet two slightly odd characters: Simeon, a man who has been led to wait for Jesus (rather like...
What can a baby say about power? Howard Grace has an example
My wife Maria is Dutch. She was born during the second world war. German soldiers told her parents that their house would be used to base occupying forces. They had no option but to leave – they were powerless.
Taking care: Lessons from His Dark Materials by Lois Gallagher
As Christmas approaches amid a long Covid-19 winter, some of us are looking forward to the culmination of the BBC’s second series of His Dark Materials. Watching this adaptation of Philip Pullman’s novels, I was interested in the storyline of Will, a young carer, because I work with...
Letters - 18 & 25 December 2020
Wracked with guilt I finished Meeting for Sufferings on Zoom on Saturday 5 December wracked with guilt. When listening to the moving presentation by Britain Yearly Meeting’s Edwina Peart on Friends and racism and the subsequent discussion, I realised that we Friends could and should have made much more of...