the8 January 2021 Friend| £2.00

Hear, hear: Bob Johnson and Hugh McMichael work with prisoners QUAKER NATIONWIDE DAY OF HEALING SATURDAY 6thMARCH 2021 11.00am to 1.00pm A Meeting for Worship for Healing

To be Covid compliant, set aside this time for distance healing and prayer either on your own at home, meet in small socially distanced groups if practical, or arrange your own local zoom meeting. Help to make this a powerful, corporate nationwide day of healing. Focus on a wide range of healing concerns including:- Family and friends, our Quaker community, our Society its conflicts, the environment and All life on our fragile planet.

HOLD YOUR CONCERNS ‘IN THE LIGHT’ RADIATE PEACE, LOVE AND LIGHT.

REMEMBER - ALL HEALING is LOVE IN ACTION.

Further details www.quaker-healing.org.uk [email protected] Supported by the Friends Fellowship of Healing the INDEPENDENTFriend QUAKER JOURNALISM SINCE 1843 8 January 2021 | Volume 179, No 2 www.thefriend.org

News 4 A round-up of 2020 Rebecca Hardy

Letters 6

Light reading? 8 A leap in the dark Abigail Maxwell

Thought for the week 9 A singular third person Paul Oestreicher

Companion planting 10 Contemplating the mystics Anne Watson

Conversation peace 12 The pathology of violence Bob Johnson

Hear hear 14 Listening in prisons Hugh McMichael

Occupational hazards 15 Remembering Palestine Michel Goodwin

Review 16 A Book of Psalms Jonathan Wooding

Friends & Meetings 18

Love liberates us from the prison of ourselves.

Rosie Bailey, 2014

From Quaker faith & practice 16.10 ,

2020 news round-up [email protected]

Quakers grapple with Quaker doctor leading pandemic the Oxfordshire End of 2020 was dominated by Life Care response to the the Covid-19 pandemic. pandemic put together a As the UK ended the year, series of videos for frail and the official death and at-risk people. The Woodbrooke also Woodbridge rate approached 75,000, Quaker-founded Penn announced that it needed sent a ‘statement of Friends continued to Club in London also to make cuts. solidarity’ in July to the meet in ‘blended’ online stepped up, housing five organisers of a local and in-person Meetings. NHS staff. Leighton Park Black Lives Matter BLM protest after white Despite the restrictions School in Reading also 2020 was also marked by supremacist graffiti was in place since March, created thousands of face the Black Lives Matter found in nearby villages Quaker worship and work shields to protect NHS (BLM) movement, and BLM posters were continued, providing frontline staff, an initiative which swept the world removed. Disley Meeting sustenance and support that was supported by following the death of had its BLM banner set for those most isolated. nine schools in Berkshire. George Floyd in the US. on fire (see photo above), Some much-loved The Brighton Friend The Quaker organisation and, in August, Central Friends died with the and composer Sally American Friends Service Edinburgh Meeting virus, while many rallied Beamish – who was Committee (AFSC) House hosted artwork in to help. As the pandemic awarded an OBE in 2020 condemned the police support of BLM. hit and demand surged for – took to the doorstep to violence surrounding Meetings around foodbanks, Quaker Social perform music throughout the killing, branding the country pledged to Action (QSA) offered the ‘Clap for our Carers’ it ‘the consequence of tackle racism and look deliveries and collections. appeals, raising money a racist system that deep within themselves Giles Robinson, from for Help Musicians UK’s disproportionately targets to understand its roots, QSA, told the Friend coronavirus fund. people of colour for with Central Manchester that the delivery driver As the year drew to violence, imprisonment, Friends committing to an for its furniture re-use a close, the effects of and premature death’. anti-racism programme. shop Homestore, Steve, the pandemic were still As people gathered In July, the US group had been collecting being measured. Thirty- to protest, the BLM Friends of Color released donations and delivering one members of Friends movement led to deep an epistle calling on to vulnerable households House staff opted to take reflection over systemic Quakers to heed its across east London. Some voluntary redundancy, racism within the Society. ‘Call to Action’ on the Huddersfield Quakers with more expected, after Quakers joined socially- racial pandemic. ‘To started a community a consultation period in distanced protests with our Friends in the wider network, with 500 November to consider one Friend from St Neots Quaker world, we the members. Meanwhile, how Britain sparking a rally Friends of Color, can’t Friends from Sidcot Meeting (BYM) can meet for racial justice after breathe,’ said the outgoing Meeting supported new financial challenges a session on lockdown epistle of the 2020 virtual elderly residents at Sewell and the shift towards activism prompted her pre-gathering of Friends House, and a Wallingford more local working. to get down on one knee. of Color and their Other Meetings, including families. ‘Friends of Color Clun Valley, held short need respite from the WORDS demonstrations, while systemic racism too often Melanie Jameson, co- found in our American of Quakers in Criminal Quaker community that Justice, spoke out at a often goes unseen by ‘Hard choices to BLM rally in Malvern many white Friends.’ about her experience of The year ended with being a prison tutor in be made’ rural Suffolk in the mid- (BYM) pledging that Caroline Nursey, clerk to BYM trustees, 1980s, where half of the Quakers must tackle at Yearly Meeting in November. population was black. racism, saying that

4 the Friend 8 January 2021 ,

‘racism exists among vowed to ‘hold politicians NUMBERS Quakers in Britain and and corporations to must be tackled at all account’. levels, individually, in Quakers joined the their committees and Build Back Better (BBB) structures and in the movement in spring £27 billion church’. with London Quakers ‘Although Quaker gathering for a BBB event The amount pledged for roads in the 2020 commitment to racial featuring author and Spending Review. equality and racial justice Quaker descendant Mark is well recorded, there has Thomas, founder of the and said: ‘We will need development workers were been little focus on this The 99% Campaign. Many to maintain pressure on promised to be within in recent years and some Friends supported the nuclear weapons states to reach of all Friends by language (in minutes latest wave of Extinction act responsibly and make 2023, and a new regional and other writings) is Rebellion protests. Bristol nuclear disarmament a hub is to open in Leeds. outdated,’ BYM trustees Area Meeting published political reality.’ Britain Much of the ministry said in a statement. a new booklet to help Yearly Meeting urged reflected on the pandemic Friends respond to the the government not to and its impact, but the Green shoots climate emergency, while boycott the Treaty, with mood remained upbeat. Friends continued their Quaker environmental recording clerk Paul The joy of being together witness on the climate campaigner Chris Parker saying: ‘Love for continued with the emergency, following the Martin from Cotteridge our neighbour is the very online 2020 Swarthmore ominous warnings of the Meeting contributed heart of the Christian way Lecture by social scientist, UN Intergovernmental to a guidebook on of life. How can we love writer and broadcaster Panel on Climate Change climate-related financial someone, and yet have a Tom Shakespeare. report in 2018 that there disclosure. Meanwhile, nuclear weapon, a horrific Almost 2,000 Friends are just twelve years to almost one hundred instrument of death, gathered online to hear limit the most devastating people signed up for a primed and ready for ‘Openings to the Infinite impacts of global ‘Re-imagining Society launch, pointed towards Ocean: A friendly warming. The year ended Sustainably’ online them at the same time?’ offering of hope’, in with disappointment conference in July As 22 January approaches, which Tom Shakespeare as campaign and faith to consider how to Quakers across the UK considered hope in an groups, including rebuild society after the are stepping up their era of pandemic, climate Quakers, said that the pandemic. In January, campaign to put pressure emergency and right-wing government had failed to Huddersfield Quakers on the government to sign populism. put the climate emergency declared a climate the Treaty. at the heart of its 2020 emergency via the Culture Friends welcome Spending Review. BYM Declares Emergency Yearly Meeting online Biden tweeted: ‘We urgently website, which aims to Around 760 Friends US Friends welcomed Joe need a climate plan with provide arts and culture gathered for the first Biden’s US presidential public investment in green providers with a way of online Yearly Meeting in win in November, saying jobs, public services and working towards a zero- November, glad to come that there was much climate justice.’ carbon future. together after months work to be done. The With the 26th of Covid-19-induced Friends Committee on UN Climate Change Breakthrough on anti- separation. ‘This is National Legislation Conference of the Parties nuclear ban exciting, isn’t it?’, said (FCNL) tweeted its (COP26) cancelled There were reasons to Clare Scott Booth, as congratulations to Joe due to the pandemic, celebrate, however, as she opened YM 2020 Biden and Kamala Harris, BYM joined more than news broke in October with an image of The adding: ‘Democracy has seventy organisations in that the UN Treaty on the Light at Friends House prevailed. We can’t wait the COP26 Coalition to Prohibition of Nuclear as a backdrop. Matters to work with you and the launch ‘a year of climate Weapons (TPNW) had considered included some next Congress – there’s a mobilisation from the been ratified by the fiftieth ‘hard choices to be made’, lot to do!’ ground up’. In a statement state. With Honduras said Caroline Nursey, In the UK, Christian released to coincide with signing, the treaty will clerk to BYM trustees, Aid urged Joe Biden to the days when the COP26 enter into international with Covid accelerating swiftly embrace a green climate talks were due to legal force on 22 January. the need for change. This agenda, highlighting take place, the coalition The Northern Friends included ‘a thirty per that, for the first time in highlighted the power Peace Board called the cent reduction in costs, history, climate change of grassroots action and news a ‘breakthrough’ by the end of 2022’. Local was a major election issue.

the Friend 8 January 2021 5 December 2020). I sat down to

theFriend Letters read it a few days after Christmas, 173 Euston Road a time for writing thank you London, NW1 2BJ letters, but this came first. 020 7663 1010 Was it the experience of www.thefriend.org Covid-19 on us all? Perhaps, but The Friend welcomes your views, something seems to have been to [email protected]. Please Subscriptions released, strong and heartfelt, keep letters short. We particularly UK £95 per year by all payment simple yet universal. welcome contributions from types including annual direct A breadth of vision included children, written or illustrated. debit; monthly payment by the clarity and universality of direct debit £8; online only £74 Please include your full postal the Koran and Islam; different per year. Contact Penny Dunn: address, even when sending perspectives on Joseph, Mary, 020 7663 1178 emails, along with your Meeting Jesus and others in the story; [email protected] name or other Quaker affiliation. humility in recognising our continuing complicity with racism In essentials unity, Advertising and exploitation of the world and in non-essentials liberty, Contact George Penaluna: its beings; generosity in tributes in all things charity. 01535 630230 to, and examples of, unstinting [email protected] dedication of human gifts and Woolly hats needed! labour for the wellbeing of others; Editorial Get out your knitting needles! humour, insights, cheerfulness Articles, images, correspondence We have an urgent request from and compassion. should be emailed to the prison chaplains at HMP So thank you to all who work [email protected] Wandsworth. for and contribute to the Friend, or sent to the address above. The residents at this old, cold and for the gift of this issue, prison are exercising outside in which seemed to me so right at Editor prison tracksuits. Indoors it’s not this particular time – light for our Joseph Jones much better with central heating darkness, a light from the infinite Journalist described as ‘ineffective’ at best. source. Rebecca Hardy So, the chaplains have come up Kit Welchman Production and office manager with the project of providing a hat Bury St Edmunds Meeting, Elinor Smallman for every man – 1,476 in total. Suffolk In the coldest sections of the Sub-editor building these hats will even be George Osgerby Thoughts at Christmas worn in bed. These hats can be Tuesday night was cold, wet and Arts correspondent knitted, bought or second hand so windy. At 8.30pm in a pleasant Rowena Loverance long as they comply with prison part of Newcastle a man was Environment correspondent rules, namely: NO black hats; going from door to door trying Laurie Michaelis NO peaked hats; NO hats with to sell dish cloths. I guess his Clerk of trustees ear pieces; NO hats with slogans. sales were few and far between. It Lis Birch However, beanies and bobble hats distresses me that anyone should are welcome. have to resort to hawking like ISSN: 0016-1268 Please send hats to: Visitors this. Centre, Wandsworth Prison, 17 Possibly he had been put out of The Friend Publications Limited Heathfield Road, London SW18 work and on this dark night was is a registered charity, 3HR. Can we rise to the challenge doing what he could to support number 211649 to do something to help ameliorate his family with what little money this disgraceful situation? he might receive. Printed by Melanie Jameson There are so many families in Warners Malvern Meeting, Worcestershire absolute destitution in the north Midlands Plc, Co-clerk of Quakers in Criminal east, and elsewhere, and it seems The Maltings, Justice that our government has little or Manor Lane, no care for them. Bourne, Light for our darkness The Christmas story tells how Lincolnshire Thank you for an inspiring Mary was denied the shelter she PE10 9PH Christmas issue (18 & 25 hoped to find at the inn; the story

6 the Friend 8 January 2021 of the dish cloth seller will add to understanding is that the fourth which are too high? the significance of this story for me. gospel was written near the end of Most chairs in the UK are Ken Veitch the first century, at least sixty years designed according to European Stocksfield Meeting, after the crucifixion. standards in countries where Northumberland That alone makes it extremely people are taller! unlikely that the author ‘actually Anne MacArthur Friends’ burial grounds knew’ Jesus and was thereby better West Scotland Area Meeting T Roger S Wilson’s letter (11 informed than the other gospel December 2020) asks about writers. Local and global ‘we’ Friends’ burial grounds still in use. John writes in a sophisticated One of the important aspects of Preston Patrick Meeting can’t offer literary Greek and presents Jesus as Quaker activity for the two of one still in use, but we do have the the incarnation of the Greek logos. us is the preference for specific care of an ancient one at Birkrigg, The textual evidence places the personal experience over abstract Gatebeck (not to be confused book at the end of the century. generalities. with the Birkrigg Common one at Each of the gospel writers We (by which we mean the Swarthmoor, where Margaret Fell wrote from their own particular two of us) have been surprised at is buried). perspective, ‘relying on traditional the number of published articles It was used to bury the stories’ and reflecting the views which, perhaps unwittingly, slip Westmorland Seekers, many of of the faction of the early church from a local ‘we’ to a global ‘we’, whom became Friends. Two of the to which they belonged. None apparently speaking for (all?) ‘’, both local farmers, claimed to have known Jesus Quakers in general. John Camm (1605-1656) and John personally. The impact of such articles is Audland (1630-1663), are buried John’s gospel is beloved by considerably weakened as we (the there. millions. Like Mark, Matthew, two of us) find ourselves reacting Their stories are well told in Luke and Paul, John may be said to against being ‘spoken for’, and a book The Rise of The Quakers have ‘known’ Jesus spiritually; but questioning whether and to what – Revaluing the place of Preston having analysed the work of more extent the assertion applies to us. Patrick in the Early Movement than sixty scholars in my book Furthermore, in a community by Peter Lucas, a local historian, Who on Earth was Jesus? I have to which promotes itself as a place which I highly recommend. say it seems extremely unlikely that for ‘seekers after truth’, we (the It sits in the corner of a stony he knew him in the flesh. two of us) find articles consisting field which was recently given David Boulton largely of a sequence of assertions planning permission for a site Kendal & Sedbergh Area Meeting about the past, about meaning, for the burying of biodegradable and about Quakers in general, funerary urns. Racism much weaker than articles which We hope this development might The nightmare reminder of our focus on the lived experience of help draw attention to the history racism occurred forty years ago in the author(s). of our ancient plot, and will stop the large auditorium of Warwick John Mason & Anne Watson the walls being knocked down by University. A young black woman Oxford Meeting, Oxfordshire the cattle in the field. got up to minister. When she sat The first burial in 1691 in down 2,000 white Quakers burst Sydney Carter the ground beside our Meeting into applause. In case someone is misled by the house at Preston Patrick was that The problem persists. A reference to him in your end- of Mabel Camm, John Camm’s distinguished black academic of-year issue (18 & 25 December widow. It is still in use. gently told our Meeting that 2020), I should point out that the Meg Hill Canterbury society, as she songwriter Sydney Carter was not Preston Patrick Meeting, Cumbria encountered it, was a world apart a Quaker (despite the Wikipedia from the one we encountered. Take entry on ‘Quaker music’). John’s gospel heed dear friends… But he did serve in the Friends Elaine Miles (18 & 25 December David Birmingham Ambulance Unit in the second 2020) asserts that John was Canterbury Meeting, Kent world war, and he once told me: the only one of the four gospel ‘I’ve never been a joiner. But if they writers ‘who actually knew Jesus Crossed legs could make me join a church, it in life. The others were relying Could it be that Friends cross would have to be the Quakers.’ on traditional stories.’ This is their legs at Meeting for Worship John Lampen not a view shared by the great because it’s the most comfortable Stourbridge Meeting, majority of scholars. The prevalent thing to do when sitting on chairs West Midlands

the Friend 8 January 2021 7 arkness is not dark to you, and the night is as bright as Light reading? Abigail the day. Darkness and light to you are both alike.’ Psalm Maxwell takes a leap 139:12 lives with me as a statement of the power and in the dark Otherness of God. I quote the version from the Church of England’s Celebrating Common Prayer. I used that book for some time, praying ‘If darkness is evil, or the daily in familiar poetic words. I loved the verse, though I never understood it. That was unimportant: it explains God ‘Dnot by bringing God down to our level but by seeking to bitterness and pain we raise us to God’s. God for me then was a reality apart from me, the Creator of heaven and earth, whom I worshipped find in life, it is covered with beautiful words, alone or with others. Then I felt driven out of the Church of England, and came over by light.’ to Quakers, who gave me Quaker faith & practice. I read ’s journal, and found another great statement: ‘I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an ‘God is with us infinite ocean of light and love, in darkness.’ which flowed over the ocean of darkness.’ If darkness is evil, or the bitterness and pain we find in life, it is covered over by light. Or it is like light, for God. Depressed and unable to go on, I felt I was in encompassing darkness, yet Something put a blanket over me, to keep me warm. ‘Darkness is not dark’ was reassuring. God is with us in darkness. Then I did The Hoffman Process, a personal growth workshop. I had a vision of moving down a dark corridor, with doors off it into incomprehensible, unbearable light and colour. I could not bear the light, so stayed in the corridor, which became darker and more constraining. I pretended, even to myself, that I was someone other than I am, even after transitioning male to female – someone rational and trustworthy, not the fey, eldritch something that shocked others and frightened me. I craved the apparently level, solid floor of the corridor. Quakers told me I had an inner light, which I believed. A light or ‘that of God’ must be good, surely, helping me do what I ought to do, stopping me being bad. So my conventional morality stops me seeing the Light, which is so much greater. My despair grew. Unhappiness was a burden I dragged about with me, heavier and heavier. It was like the rucksack of stuff from my childhood bedroom which sat unopened in my living room for months. I could not look at it. I could not enter silence, alone. The burden would be too much. In worship I explored and grew, but also shook, rocked, sighed and wept, which bothered others. I can’t do it all the time, but if I accept my feelings of pain and hurt, they cease to be a burden. I step out of the corridor into the Light. There is pain and joy at the same time. The psalmist was saying what they knew experientially. I accept the things I cannot change, joyfully, because their darkness becomes like light. The light and colour are only unbearable until I surrender. n

Photo by CherryPhoto by Laithang on Unsplash Abigail is from North West London Area Meeting.

8 the Friend 8 January 2021 see that contributors in these pages have been discussing the term ‘It is what it is’. Friends Thought for the week: might not know that these words are the title of one of the most read and loved poems in Paul Oestreicher on a modern German literature: ‘Was es ist’ [What it is], by Erich Fried. Erich, who died in 1988, was one of my closest friends. He was the singular third person closest to being a non-Quaker Quaker that is imaginable. Erich was born in Vienna to Jewish parents in 1921. After Hitler’s annexation of Austria, he fled to London. ‘The word that best The Nazis had murdered his father but he managed to Iorganise the escape of his mother and a good many other describes him is Jews. He lived in London for the rest of his life. Erich was a natural wordsmith in his mother tongue. He earned his compassion. He hated living by translating Shakespeare, TS Eliot and others. By the late 1960s Erich had become the most popular German folk poet. A radical young German generation sat no one.’ adoringly at his feet. His razor sharp political mind led to many volumes of poetry. It was his love poems, however, that became bestsellers. From the early years of the cold war, Erich was employed as a political commentator by the German service of the BBC, broadcasting largely to an East German audience. That job hit the buffers because his radical critique of both East and West was too much for the Foreign Office. By then, he had more than found his cultural feet. His lifestyle in north London – and his home, open to all and somewhat chaotic – is perhaps best described as bohemian. He married three times and kept close to all his wives, with children from each. The word that best describes him is compassion. He hated no one. Once, a producer at Radio Bremen invited Erich to debate with the leader of the local neo-nazis. When Erich arrived, he found that the director had uninvited the right-wing extremist because it was bad form to expect a Jewish victim to debate with a known anti-semite. Contrary to expectation, Erich was far from pleased. On air, Erich expressed his regret at not having an adversary. After the broadcast, Erich visited the man, who had never before met a Jew. They talked long into the night. Was his mind changed? Whether or not, he (though not his mistaken ideas) was respected. ‘Was es ist’ has outsold any collection of poetry in present day Germany:

It is nonsense says reason It is what it is says love It is calamity says calculation It is nothing but pain says fear It is hopeless says insight It is what it is says love It is ludicrous says pride It is foolish says caution It is impossible says experience It is what it is says love. n

Paul is from Brighton Meeting (though stranded by Covid-

Erich Fried, photo © Jörg Briese Fried, Erich 19 in Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand).

the Friend 8 January 2021 9 Companion planting: Anne Watson contemplates the mystics ‘The rose and the cabbage unfold together within .’

uring the recent curtailments and then becoming a monk and advising other people of daily life I have been how to redeem themselves? There are several mystics who grappling with a difficulty have gone through this kind of life change and then tell that has been nagging at me us, in their writings, what Christianity should be, or can for some time. In early life be. But one passage grabbed me. Merton had attended a I realised that I could be Quaker Meeting and been unimpressed by some ministry swept along by a tsunami about someone’s holiday in Switzerland. He wrote: ‘I of religious awareness, and went out of the meeting house saying to myself “They are that this could affect my life like all the rest. In other churches it is the minister who choices. I was unconvinced that being swept along in hands out the commonplaces, and here it is liable to be this way would bring me happiness. So, while I half- just anybody”… If I had run across something by Evelyn admired those who allowed themselves to be swept, Underhill it might have been different.’ DI stubbornly refused to go with them. I wanted to So I began to read The Mystic Way by Evelyn Underhill. experience the fullness of life, some of which would She wrote more specifically about Quakers in other be denied me, or made difficult, if religious discipline books, but it was good discipline for me to read her – holiness – was to dominate my life. I was not a bad generalities about mystics in this one. These weren’t just person, I merely followed my own hunches while people who had behaved badly and ‘come to good’ as trying to live in a way that allowed human love to contemplatives, but also other variants, such as Julian of grow. I did my best, in the world as it is, not to harm Norwich, Francis of Assisi and George Fox. others. I felt that commitment to a totally spirit-led Underhill takes the reported life of Jesus as an life would be like falling over a waterfall and losing example of many people called ‘mystics’. They espouse a aspects of myself. I thought I could probably work mysterious unity with divine guidance and a wholeness of out what love required of me intellectually, without perception that permeates their mind and behaviour. This submitting to an unknown. I wanted to be free to starts with illumination beyond words. Fox wrote that ‘all choose my Teacher when I was ready, but did not creation gave another smell beyond what words can utter’. think about how to recognise readiness. That is why Many report similar experiences, but that is only the my analogy for spiritual development is not a journey start of a process. What am I supposed to do with such but an unfolding – sometimes like a cabbage, worthy an experience? Is doing what I can for the environment and dutiful; sometimes like a rose, fragrant and its sole use? For Jesus, the next move after illumination beautiful. Ready or not. was to go into solitude for a while and, while there, face I cannot recall now why I started to read Thomas temptation. He began preaching and behaving in ways Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain but when I did I that broke the strictures of his society, acting with love was not impressed. How could I learn anything from rather than in the law. Of course this attracted opposition, this story of a misbehaving man making a mess of life and he explained his actions to the disciples in terms of

10 the Friend 8 January 2021 Photo by Agnieszka Kowalczyk on Unsplash

a higher law of love and equality and redemption. This more than this analysis, because contemplation arises in teaching led to his crucifixion, and to confusion among silent worship, thus combining the natures of these two the disciples about what they could do next. ‘ends’ of the mystic pathway. They are not separate. This For many people, this pathway – of illumination, is what prevents me from getting lost in the tsunami. solitude, temptation, teaching, being with others, facing The rose and the cabbage unfold together within opposition, undergoing self- Quaker life. George Fox and other Friends saw this, and ‘I wanted to be doubt and frustration, and Quakers have institutionalised the connection. then a dramatic destruction Friends worship together. The disciplines of worship free to choose of their sense of self followed and of discernment are how I decide whether what I say my Teacher by ‘resurrection’ – is a way and do is spirit-led. They help me listen to ministry with of achieving unity and an open heart and mind, sustaining the connection. when I was wholeness. In the writings Meetings for Clearness also sustain the connection. ready, but did of the mystics there are two In our traditional writings and practices Friends are not think about different ways to complete assured that discernment tests words, decisions and this path. We can become actions. I am invited to wonder whether I am mistaken; how to recognise contemplative – individually I might ask whether I am swept along in truth or in readiness.’ or separately from the world fashion; others’ experience and testimony can teach me; – or we can live life as it I also learn from my own experience; I strive to discern is in the world but become more loving, more giving, what love, evidenced through peace, justice, truth, more communal, less judgmental, more generous of sustainability, simplicity and equality, requires of me. heart, and more joyful and creative. So I need not hold What is more, I can share all this with others, support back from that tsunami. Instead I could push aside my them in sufferings, frustrations and uncertainties and unwillingness to submit and make room for the Spirit. can celebrate the illuminations and resurrections that This is what Evelyn Underhill saw in Quakers. Rather provide the Light. No one need be alone. than put faith in a liturgy that mimics the life of Jesus, It is a delightful relief and joy to realise that, while Friends try to follow his actions: sharing food (real and wondering about what I was missing, I had not been metaphoric), loving all, appreciating creation, being paying full attention to the background unfoldings humble, acting with courage, charity, and not attaching that have always been going on among and alongside ourselves to possessions or to aspects of self that can Friends, and which sustain the spirit-led life. be beneficially abandoned. She also saw the Quaker I look forward to the time when we can once again understanding of God as inward, the battery that makes share tea and biscuits, and rejoice that many have found such a life possible, as well as outwardly manifested creative ways to share the metaphorical bread and wine. n through actions. Of course you don’t have to use the word ‘God’ here, but I do. There seems to me to be Anne is from Oxford and Swindon Area Meeting.

the Friend 8 January 2021 11 Conversation peace: Bob Johnson on the pathology of violence ‘The fifty murderers I worked with confirmed for me the validity of the .’

knew little of violence. Certainly I’d never glorious religious insight of them all. It is a conception of been to prison before I went to Parkhurst. enormous wonder, a miraculous piece of insight that – if Even then I was only hit once during we could only propagate it further – would enrich the five years there – and that was entirely whole world. due to my own inadvertence. I did know Some will find such voluble exuberance unQuakerly. something of peace. I was brought up Although helpful for me on my own spiritual journey in a Quaker family. My aunt worked in it shouldn’t be something waved around publically. I Friends House during world war two and fully respect such a position. This is indeed an entirely it was expected that I would register as personal opinion, a belief that I’ve come up with myself a conscientious objector – though the decision was (with indispensible help from others, and especially from exclusively mine. Quakerism, but entirely limited to what I can see at this When I did go to work in prison, it was after moment). And I’m happy to admit that none of us can Ilengthy professional training. I had spent twenty years ever see more than a very small fraction of what’s really as a GP, studying family structures and wrestling going on. with why so many people worried over nothing, or I can only say that the biggest professional challenge I did other irrational things. Perhaps my experience faced in my working life was to unpack one apparently of bombing had something to do with it – York, my simple string of words: ‘peace of mind’. I needed to find home town, was a prime target. I well remember, as a an answer, not only for me, but for my work. I’d wanted to toddler, sitting on a German bomber pilot’s knee, in a cure psychotic symptoms – the holy grail of all psychiatry local prisoner of war camp, singing Christmas carols – since working at The Retreat as a holiday job before in German. We had visited them as a Quaker family. going to university. You might call that ‘cognitive dissonance’ now, being From my training, I knew that childhoods mattered. friendly to someone who had just been trying to kill Freud taught me that. My apprenticeship in family us. medicine enabled me to identify where childhoods went At school fighting was common, so I suppose wrong. When you think about it, it’s only too obvious. violence was always around. In fact, people talked as Teach a child violence, and that’s what they learn. And it if we were only a few steps away from the jungle. So tends to stick with them for the rest of their lives, unless where did this odd search for peace come from? A someone comes along with an alternative (and even then, Peace Testimony of all things? How would that help? such teachers have to be utterly trustworthy and reliable). Surely the way to stop violence was to be even more But there’s something else going on, a deeper pathology violent – to carry a bigger stick. just below the surface. Here we have to get medical. Today, I find the Peace Testimony to be the most The human brain can cope with an infinite number of

12 the Friend 8 January 2021 Photo by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0

challenges – the changes in technology alone since my king that, despite the internecine civil war all around, father’s day testify to that – but there is one challenge they utterly denied violence. What a glorious assertion that defeats it, every time. Terror. Irrefutable scientific of a basic human truth, in vastly more challenging evidence of how it does this became available twenty- circumstances than I have ever had to face. Human five years ago. Play a trauma tape to someone in a brain- beings thrive by cooperation, not by coercion. We need scan machine and their frontal lobes and speech centre to teach everyone, infants onwards, that violence is not simply stop working. Once only ‘wrong’, in Martin Luther King’s heroic declaration, ‘Human beings terror hits, their nervous but myopic, which, for a thinking species, could prove system shuts down and they terminal. are never born can no longer think or talk Quakerism taught me another fundamental. Words violent. They about the worst thing that can get in the way, so let your lives speak. You can read have violence ever happened to them. It’s in the Bible that killing people is wrong, but do you called ‘speechless terror’. And believe it? I didn’t tell the prisoners to stop because the thrust upon terror continues unabated, Bible said so. I had to bring something more direct. them.’ as a result, at least in their But before I could do that I had to find out where their minds. ‘disease’ had come from. They didn’t know. And because It’s like having a stroke. Part of you is paralysed, and of speechless terror, they simply had no way of finding tends to remain so unless you can get physiotherapy. out. They had to learn that their ruinous childhood was This physiotherapy is never easy, and entirely dependent now, in actual practice, over – time for them to grow up. on the enthusiasm, skill and trustworthiness of the Curbing speechless terror allows peace-of-mind to physiotherapist. But when it works, that part of you blossom. This enables the coercive ‘thou shalt not’ to which you couldn’t use before comes back into service. mutate into ‘social delight defeats social harm’. Here’s an This is what I took with me into Parkhurst Prison – incentive not to kill. You can only kill another human though verbal exercises rather than muscle ones. The being when you don’t really know what you’re doing – fifty murderers I worked with confirmed for me the if you could get rid of speechless terror you would see validity of the Peace Testimony. More, they taught me your victim as a source of delight, as every single human where all violence comes from, and how to eliminate it. being ever born is. Human beings, they showed me, are never born violent. What those 1660 Quakers were saying was, grow They have violence thrust upon them and, given half a up and smell the roses – something they’d done, and chance, much prefer to be sociable. devoutly recommended. When will we all catch up? n After years of this work, what do I find? Those early Quakers got there before me. They told the English Bob is from Hampshire and the Islands Area Meeting.

the Friend 8 January 2021 13 have spent three of the last eight days in a local prison, training Listeners. Listeners Hear hear: Hugh operate in every British prison, acting as Samaritans for their fellow inmates. Prisoners McMichael works are at the highest risk of suicide in the general population. This is not because they are in with prisoners prison but because of the poor quality of their lives outside prison. Almost all suicidal prisoners have made previous attempts to take their own lives before incarceration. In other words, it is a population with very high levels of chronic distress ‘The three days I spend and personal trauma. And it is their misfortune that Itheir traumas often lead to criminal acts. This is now training Listeners widely understood, as a result of ‘Adverse Childhood Experiences’ studies. These have now covered tens of are some of the most thousands of people, way beyond what might be criticised as soft left-wing wishy-washy thinking. rewarding of my life.’ The three days I spend training Listeners are some of the most rewarding of my life. The trainees arrive from an environment where they have almost no control over their own lives, in a regimen which has security as its primary aim. They want to help their ‘Suicidal feelings fellow prisoners. Most are nervous, expect to be told are not signs of what to do and say, and to be weakness but tested and pass or fail. The first ‘lesson’ is being are a natural asked to focus on their own consequence of feelings at that moment (as the lives many a model for what they will be offering to others). They prisoners have begin to realise that their experienced.’ feelings matter too. They realise, for example, that the suicidal feelings many of them have experienced are not signs of weakness but are a natural consequence of the lives many of them have experienced to date. Violence, murder, suicide and the early death of siblings (often through addictions) are commonplace. And these are the same sorts of backgrounds shared by the people they will be supporting. We model much of the training on the support they will be offering their fellow prisoners: respect for their autonomy and listening to feelings and stories. Over the three days of training, the Listeners develop from (about) ten anxious individuals into a group with a high degree of trust – this among people who might never have really trusted anyone before. They trust us, the trainers, and might even stop calling us ‘Sir’ or ‘Miss’! I am reminded of M. Scott Peck’s definition of love, being concerned for the spiritual growth of the other. The trainees are as ready and as prepared as they can be to respond to their fellow prisoners’ distress. They have learned that the caring, concern and love they can offer is the greatest gift of all. We are all caring human beings and that potential for loving is present and accessible for us all. n

Photo by Franco Antonio Giovanella on Unsplash Antonio Giovanella Franco Photo by Hugh is from Malvern Meeting.

14 the Friend 8 January 2021 y SatNav doesn’t give an Occupational hazards: option to estimate the time to travel by donkey. But by foot it would take Michael Goodwin thirty-three hours to walk from Nazareth in modern remembers Palestine -day Israel to Bethlehem in the occupied Palestinian territories. The challenges of living under Roman occupation may have felt familiar to modern-day Palestinians. ‘Would the magi be But the modern-day Mary and Joseph, as Jews, do not Mneed to apply for permits to travel in the same way able to travel from afar that Palestinians do – they will be waved through the roadblocks and flying checkpoints that are part of the this Epiphany?’ everyday experience for Palestinians in the Jordan Valley. At the moment, because of the pandemic, the little town of Bethlehem does indeed lie still under a more dreamlike sleep, with a seventy per cent reduction in the tourist trade. But the reality of the separation barrier, the growth of settlements, regular military incursions, and the poverty of the refugee camps, haven’t disappeared. At least there would be room at the inn for them as all the tourists have gone this year, but the shepherds might not be in their fields – the movement of the shepherds I met at Khan al Ahmar is greatly curtailed. As modern-day Mary and Joseph travel through the fields of olive trees around Bethlehem, they may notice that the increased number of settlements has squeezed the land available. Palestinians have had an even more difficult harvest this year, without an international monitoring presence because of Covid restrictions. Would the magi be able to travel from afar this Epiphany? It feels to me that there has been a dearth of international wisdom, so the cynic might conclude that the wise men might just talk about bringing their gifts. They might claim that restricted access into the promised land, and close monitoring at Allenby Bridge from Jordan, makes movement difficult. Anyway, Israel can deny entry, as it has to other international observers in recent years. So, no stable, no shepherds, no kings. Would modern- day Mary and Joseph still need to flee with their newborn child? Right now UN human rights experts are calling for an independent investigation into the killing of a fifteen- year-old boy by Israeli security forces at a West Bank protest this month, saying they are deeply troubled by the overall lack of accountability for the killings of Palestinian children. Over the past three years, ninety-three children have been killed by Israeli forces. It might not be safe, but in fact, Mary and Joseph can’t in any case flee to Egypt as the border through Gaza is closed. Perhaps we should look to the angels and their hopes for the coming of that of Peace. n

Michael is from Aylsham Meeting. He was an ecumenical accompanier in the occupied Palestinian territories for three months in 2019, but writes here in a personal capacity – his views do not necessarily reflect those of the World Council of Churches or the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme

The Walled Off Hotel, Bethlehem, by Gerald Schömbs on Unsplash Gerald Schömbs by Hotel, Bethlehem, Off Walled The in Palestine and Israel.

the Friend 8 January 2021 15 o Friends still know the Psalms? They aren’t mentioned A Book of in the subject index to Quaker faith & practice. Do we still Psalms, by care about Myles Coverdale’s translations of them in the Edward Clarke Book of Common Prayer (transferred wholesale into the King James Bible)? If Quakerism is a flowering from the stem of the Review by Jonathan mediaeval Devotio Moderna – the rediscovery of genuine pious practices such as humility, obedience, Dand simplicity of life, bringing God home to roost in the Wooding individual’s heart – then so surely are such courageous and tragic translators of the scriptures in the sixteenth century. Where would any reasonable dissenter have been without their Englishing of the texts? As a schoolboy, I heard these lines one morning during school assembly, and they’re orienting me forty years later: ‘When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?’ They’re from Psalm 8, verses three and four, in the King James Bible translation, and I still care about them (just as they seem to care about me). But what is a psalm? And why, for most, have they become unnecessary? Is it our post-Christian failure to remember one function of poetry, the one that addresses itself to something beyond ourselves? This function enables the author to advertise the state of one’s self (inadvertently, or otherwise – it’s a gamble), even to seek a renewal of that self. It isn’t a way of engaging in an empirical investigation into the existence of the proposed recipient. Atheists take note: it doesn’t matter if no one’s listening. Give it an embarrassing (or even an ironic) go. What’s the worst that can happen? Edward Clarke certainly knows and remembers the function of the Psalms. He has even learnt to read them in Hebrew, a language he has described as a ‘compacted, gnarly language of the desert, fit for meaningful conversation with a shepherd’. He hasn’t done this to tell us about God, but to advertise the state of his twenty- first century self, placed as it is within the ‘eternal silence of these infinite spaces’, as Blaise Pascal wrote. There’s play and gravitas in equal measure, Clarke being both weighed down with it all, and flying away with the spoils. His preface tells us that ‘These poems are not translations or versifications [of the Psalms]. They are conversations with, and hesitations about, these ancient texts.’ It is a gift to us, and an encouragement too to do likewise – that is, to write our own psalms. So, what does Clarke make of Psalm 8? A Book of Psalms is technically brilliant, ingenious, witty and decorous, so his Psalm 8 does not disappoint. In fact, it is amazingly apposite to the scale of the task involved in putting psalms at the heart of our religious identity. These psalms are not songs of protest but, as Clarke said in a recent webinar, an attempt ‘to get to the

16 the Friend 8 January 2021 metaphysical heart of our problems rather than protest’. were important, after all. I could respond to that Things are pretty much broken, and yet they can break Quaker challenge that haunts all who write, and who free for us, even now: minister: ‘What canst thou say?’ In this spirit too, Clarke engages each of the Psalms in turn, giving them titles And yet the things which we have heard and unique poetical forms, which will remind you of Run out as broken vessels the ingenuity of George Herbert, or of Thomas Hardy. Upon forgotten missals These are not casual or earnest effusions (psalms, not Under our feet: they break like schemes of rhyme spasms!), but well-wrought and hard-earned raids on Through layers of verses to flower in the word. the inarticulate, as TS Eliot’s ‘East Coker’ will have it. Their meaning’s dense inside us, folded up What does Clarke make of Psalm 56, dare I ask? I Like cloth of starlight at the end of time, read it, and I marvel at its response to that remaining In beaks of birds, in case we let it slip. ‘rumour of God’ which troubles our universe. As Clarke writes in his wonderful poetry manifesto, The OK. I need a moment. This is a lucid and layered Vagabond Spirit of Poetry: ‘Poetry matters. It is of offering – see how the ‘word’ is ‘heard’ still across central importance to our culture and we endanger space and time, even though the ‘missals’ have failed ourselves when we forget that. No other art form brings us. ‘Time’ is perfected in a back messages from the silence that is at the heart of ‘If you believe ‘rhyme’, and the memory our being by using the half-material something that of birdsong won’t let us go, makes us human.’ Edward Clarke’s Psalm 56 is a real that God is even beneath the terrifying showstopper, as a great poem must be – it carries a God-built- silence of the starlit spaces – us with it into a parallel (circumscribing?) time-free with-words, a sculpted pebble, or an ark dimension. We’re no longer telling time-bound tales, (a ‘vessel’) dropped into a we’re free as birds: always was and gathered silence. ever shall be Some years ago, I was on The Dove a ‘Poetry & Prayer’ retreat Of David (and that this at Ripon College, at which recognition it was suggested that psalms The silent dove of distant places occupy a kind of middle Alights upon a mast, does not ground – not exactly lyric Is swayed into the dawn upon spell God’s poetry, but poetry which A melody we’ve lost: addresses an ‘other’ of some The sight of her is like a fresh petition redundancy), kind. While enthralled Inside a song of commonplace expressions. then Clarke’s by the divine poetry that was served up, we were all She is that song’s unspoken word, psalter may be struggling to put pen to The gesture of assent, a life-enhancing paper and make our own Which makes assurances of faith supplement to offerings. It’s that sense of Of petition and complaint: presumption, isn’t it? Look The consonant that went again and plucked your ordinary at the giants who have gone The flitting vowel in her imperial beak. devotions, and before; who am I to raise my voice in footling song? And And if you send her out once more, a goad too for religious people, isn’t this She’ll only reappear to your own altogether exacerbated, too? When there is no more sea at last What, should I compete with And doves are here and there: religious self- scripture, with the song of It is the Spirit that moved upon the deep expression.’ creation in Genesis, with the That makes this window through which it might escape. whirlwind-consciousness of the Book of Job, with ‘Yea, though I walk’ and with If you believe that God is a God-built-with-words, ‘Take no thought for the morrow’? Surely not. always was and ever shall be (and that this recognition I was reminded of that retreat this morning as I does not spell God’s redundancy), then Clarke’s psalter read Psalm 56 (prompted by the Church of England may be a life-enhancing supplement to your ordinary Common Worship Lectionary). I did eventually get up devotions, and a goad too to your own religious self- a poem, it turned out, and it was ‘out of’ this very Psalm expression. Clarke should have the last word, also from 56. These are Coverdale’s lines that inspired me to speak The Vagabond Spirit of Poetry, and, as if in self-fulfilling up: ‘Thou tellest my flittings; put my tears into thy prophecy, ‘Poets dispose words, in lines that make you bottle: are not these things noted in thy book?’ pause at their ends, to help you lose yourself to find that Suddenly, I was able once more to ‘take God out of greater self that reposes within.’ n the dictionary’ and ‘listen for God’s breathlessness’ in a poem called ‘The Scholar at Cuddesdon’. My flittings Jonathan is from Totnes Meeting.

the Friend 8 January 2021 17 Friends&Meetings Births Ursula WATTS (née Ward) 8 December. Peacefully at Hartrigg Currently closed Tara Sian GHOLAP 14 December. Oaks, York. Widow of Joshua, mother Due to recent Covid rules Daughter to Rajit and Rachael of Sarah, Jane and Christopher. Central, quiet location, Gholap (née Harrison) of Friends Member of Acomb Meeting, formerly convenient for Friends House, Ross-on-Wye and Gloucester. British Museum and transport. House Local Meeting, formerly Comfortable rooms tastefully Young Friends General Meeting. Aged 94. Memorial Meeting to be announced. furnished, many en-suite. Good breakfast. Deaths Discount for Sufferings Diary and Club members. June Margaret BELL (née Bailly) 21 Bedford Place 17 November. Widow of Patrick. LONDON QUAKERS EVENT London WC1B 5JJ Build Back London Better - Actions offi [email protected] Mother of Richard, David and www.pennclub.co.uk Mathew. Member of St Austell against impoverishment. Mark The Penn Club Meeting. Aged 91. Funeral held in  omas of the 99% Organisation the manner of Friends at Glynn talks about practical work and Valley Crematorium on 4 December. actions against impoverishment 10.30–2.30 via Zoom, Saturday the18 & 25 December 2020 | £2.00 Mary CADBURY 29 December. 16 January. Register at Eventbrite Friend Peacefully at home. Wife of Edward using: https://bit.ly/AAIPLQ Nativity stories: The Christmas characters P Cadbury (deceased), mother of reconsidered Richard, Jim, Philip (deceased) MEDITATIO CENTRE ONLINE and Erica, grandmother and great EVENT Wednesday 27 January grandmother. Member of Oswestry 7.00–8.30 pm. An evening on Meeting. Aged 97. Funeral to be held St Francis and St Clare of Assisi, with in the manner of Friends 2.45pm Dr Stefan Reynolds. Tel. 020 7278 Monday 18 January, livestream 2070, email [email protected] or available. Donations to NSPCC. see www.meditatiocentrelondon.org/ A Memorial Meeting will be held book-online/ when restrictions are li ed. Enquiries to: [email protected] Friends & Meetings Jo FARROW 30 December. Personal entries (births, marriages, Peacefully at Sunhill Court Nursing deaths, anniversaries, changes of Home, Worthing. Member of Little- address, Meeting up, etc.) charged hampton Local Quaker Meeting, and at £41.50 incl. vat for up to 35 words and includes a copy of the Extra copies formerly of Quaker Home Service magazine. Meeting and charity (Friends House). Aged 90. Contact notices, (Changes of clerk, new Ann Holliday, 07950 546621 for wardens, new Members, changes to share funeral details. to meeting, etc.) £34.58 zero rated We have received some lovely for vat. Max. 35 words. Three comments about our Christmas Janet STURGE 30 December in entries £83 (£69.16 if zero rated); issue, for which many thanks. Maidstone Hospital a er a short six entries £120 (£100 zero rated). illness (Covid-19). Daughter of the DIARY NOTICES: £36 incl vat for Additional copies to share with up to 35 words, £30 zero-rated. friends and Friends are available late Paul and Rachel Sturge, sister Three entries £72 incl vat, £60 of Roger, the late Lucy Brown, the zero-rated. 6 entries £108 incl. vat at £2 for one copy, or £1 each for late Ann Burgh and the late Michael, £90 zero-rated. three or more copies, incl. UK p&p. aunt to many. One time art teacher Deadline usually 12 noon Monday. at Friends School Great Ayton. Please send cheques payable to Entries accepted at the editor’s Th e Friend to: George Penaluna, Member of Maidstone Meeting and discretion in a standard house style. Quaker Arts Network. Aged 92. A gentle discipline will be exerted Th e Friend, 54a Main Street, Funeral tba. Information: to maintain a simplicity of style and Cononley, Keighley BD20 8LL. [email protected] wording that excludes terms of endearment and words of tribute. Or email your name and address Guidelines on request. to [email protected] and pay by bank transfer. The Friend, 54a Main Street, Keep in touch... Cononley, Keighley BD20 8LL Off er also applies to 1 January ...be sure to put all your family Email: [email protected] issue, and expires 1 March 2021. notices in the Friend. Tel. 01535 630230

18 the Friend 8 January 2021 Classi ed advertisements George Penaluna, Ad. Manager, The Friend, 54a Main St, Cononley, Keighley BD20 8LL T 01535 630230 E [email protected] Classifi ed ads retreats miscellaneous Standard linage 63p a word, semi- PERSONAL RETREATS, FRANCE. Make DESIGN AND ILLUSTRATION display 95p a word (rates incl. vat). space to refl ect and be still. Beautiful old Meeting and charity rates 52.5p and farmhouse in rural Auvergne offers Graphic design and illustration for 79p a word respectively (zero-rated supportive, nurturing environment for Quaker Meetings, non-profi t organisations, individual retreats. Simple daily rhythm: small businesses and good causes vat). Min. 12 words. Discounts: 10% meditation; silence; contemplative/artistic on 5 insertions, 15% on 10 or more. inc. posters, pamphlets, newsletters activities. Walking. Organic vegetarian and reports. Cheques to ‘The Friend’ or pay by food. www.retreathouseauvergne.com bank transfer. More info: www.liberationworks.co.uk Ad. Dept, 54a Main Street, Cononley, Keighley BD20 8LL for sale & to let HELP WITH YOUR MEMOIR Email: [email protected] Tel: 01535 630230 CUMBRIA, ALLITHWAITE, near Cartmel Everyone has a story. and Lake District National Park. Detached Let me help write yours, 4-bed house, garage, outbuildings. Flower/ or the story of a friend or family member, vegetable garden plus mature orchard. through interviews written up in a where to stay Sittingroom with woodburner; Morecambe beautiful book. GUESTHOUSES,COTTAGES & SELF-CATERING HOTELS B&Bs Bay views; electric heating; solar tubes to More info: boost water heating. c.1ha. Railway station www.timgeewriting.wordpress.com 1 mile. £375,000. Contact: robinlemare@ SWALEDALE, YORKSHIRE. Superb yahoo.com selection of gorgeous cottages amid QUAKER MARRIAGE CERTIFICATES stunning scenery. Details, photos, virtual and other bespoke calligraphy. Liz Barrow tours. www.catholecottages.com 01223 369776, [email protected] 01748 886366. personal www.lizbarrow.co.uk

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Quaker United Nations Virtual Summer School

5–16 July 2021 Monday-Fridays from 2:30pm – 6pm CEST

Are you 20-26 years old with a keen interest in the United Nations and would like to learn more on peace, Application forms and more info are available at: disarmament, human rights, migration, sustainable quno.org/quaker-un-summer-school-2021 and just economic systems, and climate change? or by emailing: Join other young people in finding out about Quaker [email protected] work at the international level and develop knowledge and competencies relevant to the work of the Deadline for applications: United Nations. Spend 10 days together on a virtual 15 February 2021 programme that will equip you with the skills to think constructively about the value of the multilateral system and international politics.

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the Friend 8 January 2021 19 Recent publications

People’s Climate Empowerment Series A resource to connect people with international efforts that can strengthen climate action at all levels Detmer Kremer (December 2020)

How to be a hero for our children: A People’s Climate Toolkit—A little guide to personal and political action Prepared by Lindsey Fielder Cook (December 2020)

A Quaker Statement on Migration A statement drawing on Quaker foundations and work with migrants and on migration AFSC, BYM, FCNL, QCEA, QUNO (December 2020)

Not Forgotten: Human Rights of Migrants at the 45th Session of the Human Rights Council Najmah Ali and Laurel Townhead (October 2020)

All publications are available at: quno.org/recent-publications.

5 V 179 N 2 ADVERTISEMENT DEPT EDITORIAL 54a Main St, Cononley 173 Euston Road Keighley BD20 8LL London NW! 2BJ T 01535 630230 T 020 7663 1010 E [email protected] the Friend E [email protected] QARN Quaker Asylum and Britain Refugee Network Working to end the Yearly hostile environment Meeting Open Zoom meeting Saturday 23 January Legacy Fundraiser 11am-12.30 Salary: £20,828 (£34,748 pro-rata) per annum – London Log in from 10.30am £17,722 (£29,538 pro-rata) per annum – Regional for chat and time to settle. Contract: Permanent. Hours: 21 hours per week – hours can be worked flexibly • Presentation on current issues: Location: Based at home or at our offices in either Leeds or Status Now for all Friends House, Euston Road, London Borders Bill About the role Detention matters We aim to ensure that Quakers in Britain continues its work for equality • Exchange and questions and for a sustainable and peaceful world. Our new fundraising team was established a year ago to ensure the organisation has the All Quakers welcome capacity to successfully raise income from a range of sources. We For zoomlink contact are looking for an experienced legacy fundraiser to help us do this. [email protected] About you We can provide speakers for your meeting • You will be ambitious with a flexible approach to work and be We are seeking offers of service for excited by the opportunity to develop and launch a new and Steering Group Members and Treasurer. inspiring legacy promotional campaign. Email [email protected] for details. • You will have demonstrable experience in legacy fundraising, www.qarn.org.uk including developing and managing marketing campaigns and maintaining relationships. • You will have a sound understanding of what motivates individuals to leave legacies to charities, organisations campaigning for social change and faith-based bodies. • You will also have excellent communication and interpersonal skills, demonstrating the ability to work collaboratively with a range of different stakeholders, including volunteers. Working for us Quakers are committed to equality and encourage applications from all sections of society. You do not have to be a Quaker to apply for this post, but we expect staff to uphold the values of our organisation. You can expect a wide range of rewards and benefits, including a generous holiday allowance, staff discount at Friends House Café and Restaurant, a season ticket loan, and flexibility that will ensure you enjoy a good work–life balance. For more details of this exciting role and how to apply, please “Several Friends recommended download our application pack at www.quaker.org.uk/jobs. books for learning, notably Black Closing date: 14 January 2021 (12pm) and British: A Forgotten History Interviews: 27 January 2021 by David Olusoga.” Britain Yearly Meeting is committed to equality in all its employment The Friend, 9 October 2020 practices. Paperback available at £12.99 Britain Yearly Meeting is committed to safeguarding children and post free. Send a cheque payable adults at risk and expects all its staff and volunteers to share and to The Friend to The Friend, uphold this commitment. 54a Main St, Cononley, Keighley BD20 8LL. Or email your name Quakers have a faith commitment to equality, and we encourage and welcome applications for posts from all sections of society. You do and address to [email protected] not have to be a Quaker to apply for this post, but we expect you to and pay by bank transfer (bank uphold the values of our organisation. details supplied on ordering).