Issue 21-05-2021
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Thought for the week: Charles Stevenson is encouraged
Timothy Withers was a faithful member of our Meeting. Because he was so committed, Friends were inclined to give him too many responsibilities. On one social occasion, I happened to observe Timothy with an uncharacteristic red-faced scowl, marching for the exit, even though he had just arrived. I was about...
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Same difference? G Gordon Steel on equality and ability
The 2020 Young Musician of the Year was won by a brilliant seventeen-year-old Chinese player of the marimba. Ellie Downie is an outstanding sixteen-year-old British gymnast and gold medal winner. Ben Towers, at the age of nineteen, has been a remarkable entrepreneur.
Considering equality and truth: Nim Njuguna explores Three mindsets
‘We are seekers, but we are also the holders of a precious heritage of discoveries. We, like every generation, must find the Light and Life again for ourselves. Only what we have valued and truly made our own, not by assertion but by lives of faithful commitment, can we hand...
Come again? Barney Smith takes a second look
I recently re-read Heaven on Earth, that remarkable collaboration between Timothy Peat Ashworth, Douglas Gwynn and Ben Pink Dndelion. They were all tutors at Woodbrooke in 1997 and brought three strands of scholarship together. Timothy Peat Ashworth brought his enthusiasm for the teaching of Paul the apostle and his research into...
A world of difference: Matthew Callow’s Quaker prayer cycles
As an Anglican, I once participated in daily worship which included ‘prayer-cycles’. These were lists of dioceses throughout the world, congregations within the diocese, and communities of religious houses. Initially it seemed mechanistic and felt rather empty but over time it became more meaningful as I met fellow Anglicans from...
Kendal Tapestry Museum reopens
The Quaker Tapestry Museum in Kendal has opened again with a new pictorial guide with large photographs of each panel and detailed explanations. Museum manager Bridget Guest said the tapestry came into being as eleven-year-old Jonathan Stocks chatted to his teacher Anne Wynn-Wilson at a Quaker Meeting in Somerset in 1981. â€...
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Friends successfully lobby for nuclear ban
North Wales Friends have said they are ‘overjoyed’ that Bangor City Council has become the first Welsh council to support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), after Quaker lobbying.
Concerns over Quaker labour practices
A Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) staff member has written to the Friend highlighting ‘a communication gap between Quakers and the people they employ’.
Quaker ‘Question Time’ in Devon
Exeter Quakers hosted a Quaker ‘Question Time’ this month, featuring Exeter MP Ben Bradshaw and East Devon MP Simon Jupp.
‘Grave violations of international law’
Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM) has said that it has been ‘appalled’ by the violence in Israel and occupied Palestine, calling for these ‘grave violations of international law’ to ‘end immediately’.
Shell Seven verdict raises ‘big questions’
Courts can no longer protect companies from ‘climate flak’. This was the conclusion of an article in the Financial Times (FT) in response to the ‘not guilty’ verdict for six of the ‘Shell Seven’ protestors, who included the Quaker Extinction Rebellion (XR) cofounder Ian Bray.
Still Love Left: Faith and hope in later life, by Michael Jackson
This 100-page book is an essential for our ageing Society. It will be an invaluable asset to our elders and ‘caring and supportive Friends’ (or whatever is replacing the name of overseers), or just anyone who is approaching later life with some trepidation. It changed my view from fearing the...
Stories from Palestine: Narratives of resilience, by Marda Dunsky
I have been visiting Israel and Palestine since the early 1980s. It has been an emotional journey. There was the buoyancy I felt when the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993, when there seemed to be grounds for hope. Since then it has been a challenge to express any optimism.
On Reading the Book of Ezekiel in a Quaker Meeting
Foreseen, told in the name of One not (yet) born again, jealous, importunate God landlord of His People: Israel has no need or want to wander, will have found a plot to till and tell in less than honeyed words commanded, script in stone, covenanted, their ark, their brood, all...
Letters - 21 May 2021
A BYM worker’s question ‘Quaker decision-making – which is seen as a form of discernment, a process of coming to see the right way forward for the group – can be slow’, as Woodbrooke’s Rhiannon Grant has said, ‘but tries to include all the voices equally…’ Does that include the...