Discover the Contemporary Quaker

6 February 2015 £1.80 the DISCOVER THE CONTEMPORARYFriend QUAKER WAY the Friend INDEPENDENT QUAKER JOURNALISM SINCE 1843 CONTENTS VOL 173 NO 6 3 Thought for the Week: Hunting the Higgs . Anne Cluysenaar 4-5 News 6-7 Peace work in Ukraine John Lampen 8-9 Letters 10-11 William Henry Davidson Janet Ridley 12 The Christmas Truce Diana Lampen 13 Discernment and making decisions Alick Munro 14 Poem: On using this laptop for the and Mikhail Roshchins Rand Photo courtesy of Roland A war-damaged church in the Ukraine. first time See pages 10-11. Roy Stephenson 14 Friends Quarterly ‘I feel that more long-term 16 q-eye: a look at the Quaker world peacemaking Quaker work in 17 Friends & Meetings Lugansk and Eastern Ukraine is not only possible, but needed.’ Mikhail Roshchins Cover image: Lanty’s tarn ice covered. Photo: Val Corbett The Friend Subscriptions Advertising Editorial UK £79 per year by all payment Advertisement manager: Editor: types including annual direct debit; George Penaluna Ian Kirk-Smith monthly payment by direct debit [email protected] £7; online only £59 per year. Articles, images, correspondence For details of other rates, Tel/fax 01535 630230 should be emailed to contact Penny Dunn on 54a Main Street, Cononley [email protected] 020 7663 1178 or [email protected] Keighley BD20 8LL or sent to the address below. the Friend 173 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ Tel: 020 7663 1010 Fax: 020 7663 1182 www.thefriend.org Editor: Ian Kirk-Smith [email protected] • Sub-editor: Trish Carn [email protected] • Production and office manager: Elinor Smallman [email protected] • Journalist: Tara Craig [email protected] • Arts editor: Rowena Loverance [email protected] • Environment editor: Laurie Michaelis [email protected] • Subscriptions officer: Penny Dunn [email protected] Tel: 020 7663 1178 • Advertisement manager: George Penaluna, Ad department, 54a Main Street, Cononley, Keighley BD20 8LL Tel: 01535 630230 [email protected] • Clerk of the trustees: Nicholas Sims • ISSN: 0016-1268 • The Friend Publications Limited is a registered charity, number 211649 • Printed by Headley Bros Ltd, Queens Road, Ashford, Kent TN24 8HH 2 the Friend, 6 February 2015 Thought for the Week Hunting the Higgs No wonder they love a laugh, the physicists. What ever they find or don’t, it’s OK. Symmetries of the world just remnants of those which, if perfect, would only have led to no world at all – anti-matter, matter would have cancelled each other out. Maybe. Or maybe not, if the theory is at fault. And if it is? More exciting still. Whatever we’re made of, it wants to know how it came to be what it is. In us, for a while at least, the stuff of stars gets a glimpse of its own precarious life. Like a single life, that will soon be gone. Universes before, maybe, or after our own, we won’t ever get to explore. They make up what is, though. And here we are! Anne Cluysenaar 1936 – 2014 ‘January 13: Hunting the Higgs’ is from Touching Distances: Diary Poems by Anne Cluysenaar, published by Cinnamon Press. It is used with permission of Cinnamon Press. Anne was a member of Caerleon, Newport Meeting in Wales. the Friend, 6 February 2015 3 News Friends join call for new tax law THE Religious Society of Friends in Britain has corporate tax dodging. The law needs to change so joined other faith groups in calling on politicians to that the loopholes which allow big corporations to end tax avoidance. avoid paying their fair share of tax can be closed. The recording clerk of Britain Yearly Meeting, ‘The proposed legislation has been carefully Paul Parker, signed a statement in support of a new constructed and seeks the best outcome for both the campaign calling on political parties to promise to act UK and developing countries. It is a matter of justice, against tax avoidance if elected. and justice – like love for our neighbour – does not The campaign was set up by faith-based groups such stop at national boundaries.’ as Christian Aid, Church Action on Poverty and the Signatories included Martin Atkins, general secretary Church Urban Fund, Methodist Tax Justice Network of the Methodist Church; Heather Poxon, director and Quaker Peace & Social Witness (QPSW). The of international development at the Salvation Army; church leaders stated: ‘People matter more than profits Alastair Redfern, bishop of Derby; and Joel Edwards, but every year billions of pounds are lost through former international director of the Micah Challenge. Scottish Friends hope for sustainability network Isolated FRIENDS in the ‘[This] will help Local Meetings but our geography and numbers north of Scotland are addressing work with other churches in present particular challenges for the challenge of living out the their locality to promote aware- corporate action.’ Canterbury Commitment to ness of environmental issues and Jane Booth explains that they sustainability. undertake local projects… would like to start a network of Jane Booth writes in a recent ‘Many of us in North Scotland people in North Scotland Area edition of The Northern Quaker: are concerned about environmental Meeting interested in or wrestling ‘Area Meeting recently decided to issues and sustainability, but might with environmental issues. affiliate with Eco-Congregation feel a little isolated and unsure how She writes: ‘Anyone interested Scotland, an ecumenical charity to act on that concern as Quakers. can send me and/or Lynda Mitchell providing support to local As individuals, a lot of us are an email: [email protected] or churches. quietly making lifestyle changes, [email protected].’ Cold weather payments help QSA York Friend comments on ordination Some FRIENDS have begun to give their winter fuel BARbaRA Windle, of York Area Meeting, spoke on allowance to Quaker Social Action (QSA). Radio Five Live on 26 January about the ordination of Five Friends have donated their allowance. The the Church of England’s first woman bishop. donations were spontaneous, rather than prompted Presenter Adrian Chiles asked Barbara for her by QSA campaigning. thoughts, as a Quaker, on the ordination. The donors were all people who already support She said: ‘The Quakers are in the fortunate position, QSA in different ways, QSA told the Friend. if I can put it that way, of not feeling the need for Fundraising and communications manager Sarah any ordained ministry at all. We have had a very Hind said: ‘We’ll spend the money in the same way strong testimony to equality, since the start, in the we spend most donations from Quakers – towards seventeenth century. Women have for a long, long our work helping people living on low incomes make time, been absolutely equal in the Quaker movement… tangible differences to their own, their families and For instance, our chief executive officers have just as their communities’ lives.’ often been female as male, and the people who hold – Sarah added: ‘We work with many people who just for a short time, because we only hold posts for a struggle to keep warm in the winter. We ask those short time – voluntary posts, are again equally divided who take part in our financial education workshops between men and women. We’ve not had a problem to tell us at the beginning what they are worrying with that.’ about. The top four concerns are paying energy bills Adrian asked Barbara whether the ordination of (thirty-nine per cent), paying rent/mortgage (twenty- bishop Libby Lane seemed ‘rather archaic’. three per cent), buying day-to-day items such as food ‘I’m delighted for them, that they’ve made this first (thirty-three per cent) and buying things for their tiny step, but it does seem rather amazing that in this children (thirty-six per cent).’ day and age people haven’t got further,’ she replied. 4 the Friend, 6 February 2015 reported by Tara Craig [email protected] Friends remember the Holocaust QuakeRS acROSS the country took part in Holocaust Memorial Day events on 27 January. York Friends contributed to several local commemorations. Jenny Hartland of Acomb Meeting spoke at a civic event. Jenny’s talk was inspired by this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day theme, ‘Keeping the memory alive’. She talked about the deportation and murder of her grandparents and of The Stolpersteine Project, which places small brass blocks into pavements to commemorate those forced out of Germany to their deaths. Edith Jayne of New Earswick Meeting lit a candle in York Minster. It was one of seventy commissioned by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, designed by Anish Kapoor. During the same service members of the congregation lit 600 candles, to represent six Photo: Edith Jayne. million lives lost. Edith also read a poem. The candles that were lit at York Minster. She told the Friend that forty-four members of her extended family had been murdered in Auschwitz in the Meeting house and sharing Friends’ roles in the late 1944. Edith said it made her feel ‘both very angry Holocaust and after. and desperately sad’. ‘I will never know anything about This year the Meeting house hosted a Havdalah them. I was too young to know them as a child and and culture sharing on the theme of ‘Keeping the there’s nothing left – no memorial, no pictures, no memory alive’. The Havdalah ceremony signifies remains – nothing.’ the end of Shabat and heralds the new week. It was Holocaust Memorial Day was marked in Bristol marked by the lighting of the Havdalah candle, the by a three-hour civic commemoration consisting of sharing of spices, short prayers in Hebrew and singing. film, music and talks. Second generation survivors, Approximately twenty people attended the Havdalah including Marian Liebmann of Redland Meeting, this year, one of them from Lancaster Meeting.

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