Did our story from Ned Allen, a chorister in the Chapel Choir at Christ’s College, Cambridge inspire you to sing? Alison Breadon of The Leaveners reminds us of the Chamber Music Weekend at Charney Manor in the middle of February.
‘It’s for those who would enjoy tackling some of the gorgeous music from the English tradition so beautifully offered at many Cambridge college evensongs’, she says, ‘but without the pressure of impending performance and with plenty of Quaker worship and friendliness included.’
This year it is the seventeenth such project. ‘There are some who have, I suspect, been coming since the very beginning but new participants are welcomed each year.’ One young participant expected this year will be even smaller than the instrument his father is bringing to play!
And if you want to try your voice, there’s the partnership project between the Leaveners and Woodbrooke which will train Friends who want to lead their meetings in singing groups. That will be at Woodbrooke at the beginning of March.

Eleanor Nesbitt was inspired by our climate coverage to send Eye the following verse –

Future signs

After two thousand years
our futures lie
in entrails again

Our liver scansd,
our lung X-rays
inform our plans.

The flight of birds
now augurs not
our futures only
but the Earth’s.

Too late we note
the plight of polar bears
and dare not hope
they lie.

London’s Evening Standard have really put the cat amongst the pigeons by revealing the newest of social trends ‘the New Quaker’. The reporter, who appears to have no idea that real live Quakers still exist, harks back to George Fox who apparently believed that “all decisions – particularly concerning their wallet – should be made with a good conscience”. Did George Fox even have a wallet, I wonder?

We are told that New Quaker money is worth £8.75 billion. New Quaker pin-ups include Gwyneth Paltrow, Sienna Miller and, possibly nudging him one uncomfortable step closer to our hearts, David Cameron. Helen Kirwan-Taylor touches on a dilemma in all our lives when she writes: “Unlike their Puritan forebears, New Quakers no longer consider it a sin to be rich. Sometimes it seems impossible to avoid that world-destroying jet, or the one-off designer heels or diamond engagement ring – and the New Quakers have been known to succumb”. (would anyone like to join me in picking that sentence apart?)

The marvellous Dos and Don’ts for being a New Quaker include ‘Don’t preach – the original Quakers didn’t believe in it and neither should you” (there they go again with that nasty implication of an extinct race). “Don’t use Brazilian woods and two-foot thick slabs of Carrarra marble when rebuilding your house. What’s wrong with cement?” Well, er, here’s just one example plucked from Google if you’re really interested.

I can’t wait to hear how real Quakers respond to this use of their name and hear at least one stiff letter is already winging its way to the editors' desk. In a way, this is a recognition of an honourable trend: there is no doubt that far more people are now thinking more about what they buy and where it comes from. And one of the ‘Are you a New Quaker’ quiz question tries to flatter - “Quakerism makes you think of: (a) simplicity and decency” (right answer) But trendy and sexy? I’m just not at all sure our Friends are going to like it... comments anybody?

Our recent Climate Change sections gave Caroline Westgate of Northumbria MM cause to reflect on the dramatic rise of the environment in public awareness.

Many years ago she attended a Northern Friends Peace Board week-end workshop led by Mary-Lou Leavitt.
‘We were all committed peace Friends’ recalled Caroline ‘and one exercise required us to list all the different areas of un-peace which we were addressing. Clearly we were all flogging ourselves witless to Save the World because every darn topic under the sun was there on the flipchart.’

Mary-Lou, however, was not convinced and kept repeating – ‘there’s one thing missing.’

‘We were sure that between us we had absolutely everything covered’ said Caroline.

The missing topic turned out to be green issues – ‘completely off the radar at that point, even among activists.’
Today the northern peace Friends would not make such an omission. ‘It would be unthinkable today’ says Caroline. A sign of progress?

Eye was very pleased to hear that the Teddies for Tragedies piece (15 December) got an overwhelming response. Bernice Taylor, who shows not a trace of regret at the deluge she has had to field, stopped counting the phone calls after 50. Should we be overjoyed or concerned to imagine that may soon be more teddies than people? Friends are now being sent a pattern for hand puppets which can reach some of the countries which have custom issues about teddies.
Our first informant, Roger Sanderson, thinks that the answer to world peace may lie in these bears. He says: 'Of course it is a good release for people who want to do something and don't know what else (like many of us). I feel we should perhaps be concentrating on the politicians to increase aid and stop arms sales. You couldn't get Tony Blair to start knitting could you? It might bring the problems home to him. Or at least Cherie?' Eye thinks this is an excellent idea and that it should be taken further. Knitting in parliament! Eye is tingling with anticipation and is even inclined to offer a prize to the first reader to get their MP knitting in the chambers. Apart from keeping them occupied during long debates, it will keep them out of the bar. Temperance, peaceful activity and practical charity – it sounds to Eye like a well rounded Quaker campaign.

How many of you find IT intimidating? Go on, be honest! This week on pages 10 and 11 we have started a process of bringing technology news into the magazine. The editor, whose technophobia is legendary in The Friend office, is planning to throw a lifeline to readers of a nervous disposition (those of you who quake when anything mysterious occurs on your screens). We would like to know how many readers would appreciate a monthly IT problem page written, we hasten to add, by writers who will not dazzle you with technology.
The wonderful Judi Brill (page 11) who calmed many a frazzled Quaker nerve in the cybercafe at Yearly Meeting, is convinced that we can overcome IT jitters and feels that every Quaker meeting could usefully appoint an IT advisor to ease us gently into the new age.
Qeye is currently trialing its own weblog, as you can see. In the meantime, let the editor know of your interest on editorial at thefriend.org – that’s if she can open the emails....

An appeal in our Friendly Email has bought a fascinating batch of Quaker blogs to our attention. Probably the most developed is Quaker Quaker which is a "guide to the Quaker conversation". As it rightly points out and as Judy Tretheway also wrote to us, blogs provide a way to "let our lives speak" and it is blogs like Quaker Quaker which can trace threads and stop the conversation turning into chatter!

This post by Quaker Quaker founder Martin Kellaway explore the ways in which Friends and Seekers use the internet and makes interesting reading, especially in revealing a divide between those embracing the brave new world and those - in the writer's opinion - sticking with their smaller established reality.

A person could spend an enormous amount of time delving around the wealth of links. I will get round to adding them in the end but, for now, I have explored too much. Back to work!

Oh, but first - happy new year to all our readers in Russia! Peter from St Petersburg wrote to say "Living with two Christmas's and two New Years is a very civilised approach to Winter! I recommend it!" We in the office are struggling with January and I couldn't agree more. Maybe it's time for Friends to adopt all times and seasons, instead of none-except-Christmas.

Andrew McClintock, who tells us he has the blood of the Frys, Gurneys and Barclays running through his veins, is looking for information about an early Quaker who was important in the struggle to abolish slavery. Andrew is a member of a committee that is coordinating activities to commemorate the end of slave-trading. In 2007 it will be a century since that vile trade ceased – although a modern version of people trading flourishes still.
Andrew is keen for information on Mary Lloyd (1795 – 1865) who was an outspoken abolitionist. Do you know of any of her descendants who might bring a personal link to the events planned for 2007? ‘There are surely others apart from Mary Lloyd’ says Andrew. ‘There must be descendants of slaves, or indeed, of plantation-owners (who now think better of what their forbears did), who might join in.’
Andrew will be abroad for the second half of January but if you can help him, please let us know and we can pass on your details: editorial at thefriend dot org.

Our Friend Beth Allen has an interesting piece of news from the international scene. It appears that the World Council of Churches is experimenting with a technique rather akin to the Quaker Business Method. ‘This isn’t due to our influence’ Beth quickly adds, ‘but to the growing presence of the Orthodox Churches in the WCC. They too believe that the Holy Spirit can guide discussion and decision-making and they have asked the other churches to develop methods of working which depend on this conviction, rather than making decisions by majority vote.’
At a recent Central Committee meeting (which has one Quaker member from Canada) each member was given an orange and a blue card. An orange card being held aloft meant the member found the proposal under discussion to their liking but a blue card meant that reservations were felt. The Chair was able to get the temperature of the meeting this way, although at first the members were put off by a rather mechanical device.
‘In the past’ reflects Beth ‘Clerks of Meeting for Sufferings have said that they judge by people’s faces how the feeling is going.’

In the Christmas Eye we mentioned that three young Quakers sing in a famous Cambridge choir. Ned Allen borrows our column to explain what music means to him

Term has ended, holiday reading lists have been distributed with seasonal zeal, and I can now look back at what was a busy and rather bizarre number of weeks. And something that stands out is the fact that, not only are there two other Quakers besides myself amongst the first years at Christ's College, Cambridge (and perhaps there are more waiting to reveal their identities!), but all of us – Ned, Lottie and Eily-Meg – are in the Chapel Choir. This seems a little incongruous. On the occasions when a potted description of Meeting for Worship is required, I draw attention to the emphasis we place on silence, and in the concept of silent worship the absence of music is of course implied.

So how has it come about that three Quakers should have found themselves amidst an ensemble whose role it is to provide beautiful anthems and well-phrased psalms for the purposes of worship? While I can only speak for myself, I know what it is that we three share – and that is a love for music. Indeed, despite our obvious appreciation of the silence that Meeting offers, singing satisfies something that Sundays cannot. There is a moment in Mansfield Park when Fanny, in conversation with the cynical Miss Crawford, attempts to explain why it is that Edmund is considering a life in the church: she says it is because he feels it is when a person is engaged in music that his soul is closest to God. While I do not agree with this entirely, neither do I think you have to be an Austen fan or a musician to understand the role that music can occupy in one's life. On each occasion that I've sung with the choir, I have been struck with the beauty that is implicit in the act of singing as an ensemble. There is an unsaid unity about the choir – a communion – and, as our voices echo around the chapel, there is a feeling that we are all moving towards a similar point on the horizon, whether that be a desire for a more peaceful world, or the completion of an essay.

So how do I reconcile the idea of taking part in two distinct kinds of worship? Am I, in some way, being untrue to myself, and undermining the value I see in the silence of Meeting for Worship? Not at all. There is a place for everything in this life that does not do harm, and so it is with the same attitude that I sit on Sundays and that I approach singing in the Chapel Choir. Just as making music binds people, the silence of Quaker worship gives rise to a meeting of minds: Evensong and Meeting for Worship are both precious periods of time in which we may all begin to understand each other a little better. I feel ready to face another week as I alight from the Meeting House on Jesus Lane, and I am filled with a similar sense of hope every time I leave the chapel and the company of the choir. It is strange to think it, let alone write it, but perhaps the qualities of music and silence are the same. In sharing music or a moment of silence with someone, I'm reminded that we're all equal and the same.