2 October 2009
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Testimony to Truth
When as Quakers we say that we have a testimony to truth and integrity, what does this actually mean for us? It sounds grand and rather remote, but most of us probably do grapple with issues of truth and integrity repeatedly in our daily lives, even if we don’t think…
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Testimony to Simplicity
Many Quakers find simplicity an attractive testimony, but it also raises some awkward and uncomfortable questions for us. In what ways is it a positive part of our spiritual journey? What does it actually mean in practice? Is it the same as simple living? Are we going to have to…
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Testimony to Equality
Our testimony to equality stems from our experience of a divine love for all at the heart of the universe. This love is oblivious to wealth, status and power. It was this conviction that led early Friends to refuse to doff their hats to social ‘superiors’; even today Friends tend…
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Testimony to peace
For many people the peace testimony is what marks out Quakers, and it is often admired as a living example of putting faith into action. The basis of our peace testimony is a respect for the dignity and worth of all human life, and an attempt always to reach beyond…
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Meetings
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Integrity in public life
Truth and integrity in the conduct of business affairs was one of the keystones of the eighteenth and nineteenth century Quaker reputation. It is received wisdom that the honest way in which Friends did business underlay their commercial success (although the limits on accomplished dissenters joining the church, the army… -
Simplicity
Quakers have been deeply involved in the green movement in Britain since its emergence around fifty years ago. Friends have tended to join with others in their political engagement rather than work within Quaker projects. For example, Meeting for Sufferings, our guiding body, recently agreed a statement on climate change… -
Equality and social justice
Since 2000 when the first schools began to train staff in restorative approaches, inspired by the philosophy of restorative justice, more and more schools have taken an interest in this innovative way of managing relationships and behaviour. There are many challenges in implementing a whole-school approach since the restorative way… -
Equality
I’ve often envied people who have ‘thunderclaps’ of spiritual insights, revelations that clarify the whole of life and point in new directions. It hasn’t been like that for me. It’s been more of a gradual journey, to arrive on a path that feels right for me and has some spiritual… -
Silence
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Quaker thought in poetry
I’m a Quaker and I’m a poet. Both of these aspects of who I am are full-time. They’re not always compatible. There are things I write that I wouldn’t submit to a Quaker publication. There are facets of my Quakerism that don’t go into my poetry. Like you, I’m complicated.… -
Quaker thought in literature
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Committed relationships
The decision of British Quakers, taken at the end of July, to treat same-sex marriages in the same way as different-sex marriages is the culmination of a long process. Towards a Quaker View of Sex, published in 1963, stated: ‘An act which expresses true affection between two individuals and gives… -
Living the testimonies
A new colleague put his head round my office door late one Friday afternoon. He was not a Quaker and had been hired short-term for particular professional skills, but found himself rather bemused by the Friends House (the base for centrally-managed work of Quakers in Britain) ethos. We somehow manage… -
Peace for all
An extraordinary meeting is to take place tonight. It may be not far from you, but you will not hear much about it, if anything. Four or five carefully selected and trained volunteers will meet and spend an hour or so talking over a cup of coffee with someone that… -
Middle East witness
I can’t believe I’m here again, four years after my last stint in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Much has changed in my own life in four years; most importantly I have three new grandchildren. Yet the occupation is still both depressingly the same and, even more depressingly, changed by hi-tech… -
A view of Quakers
I ‘do God’. Well of course I do. I realise it is really unfashionable for most people these days to do God at all. God for them, it would appear, is folklore stuff, old hat, not in the real world, and there’s a lot of sniggering and laughing and scoffing… -
Circles of silence
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A testimony to Love
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