3 August 2018 £2.00 theDISCOVER THE CONTEMPORARYFriend QUAKER WAY Home the Friend INDEPENDENT QUAKER JOURNALISM SINCE 1843 Contents VOL 176 NO 31 3 Thought for the Week: Being a peacemaker Eleanor Nesbitt 4-5 News Faith and action 6 Polyamorous Quakers ‘Politics’ cannot be relegated to some outer place, but must be recognised A Friend as one side of life, which is as much 7 Priesthood the concern of religious people and Roger Seal of a religious body as any other part of life. Nay, more than this, 8-9 Letters the ordering of the life of man in 10-11 Friends in Wales: a community, so that he may have the chance of a full development, is An inspiring day and always has been one of the main Martin Morely concerns of Quakerism. 12 Paulette Meier: Lucy F Morland, 1919 Music ministry Quaker faith & practice 23.06 Ian Kirk-Smith 13 Hemel Hempstead tercentenary Audrey Pitchforth 14-15 Younger Friends: Home Catherine Handerson 16 A negotiator’s toolkit Joe Burlington 17 Friends & Meetings Cover image: Photo: Terry Hughes / flickr CC. See pages 14-15. The Friend Subscriptions Advertising Editorial UK £88 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] £7.40; online only £71 per year. Articles, images, correspondence For details of other rates, Tel 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 • www.thefriend.org Editor: Ian Kirk-Smith [email protected] • Production and office manager: Elinor Smallman [email protected] Advertisement manager: George Penaluna [email protected] • Subscriptions officer: Penny Dunn [email protected] Sub-editor: George Osgerby [email protected] • Journalist: Rebecca Hardy [email protected] • Environment correspondent: Laurie Michaelis [email protected] • Arts correspondent: Rowena Loverance [email protected] Clerk of trustees: Paul Jeorrett • ISSN: 0016-1268 • The Friend Publications Limited is a registered charity, number 211649 • Printed by Warners Midlands Plc, The Maltings, Manor Lane, Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH 2 the Friend, 3 August 2018 Thought for the Week Being a peacemaker he city of Coventry is delighted to be preparing to be the UK City of Culture 2021. Coventry is known internationally, too, as a City of Peace and Reconciliation and it’s also a City of Sanctuary, welcoming refugees Tand asylum seekers. Here, in Coventry, as in localities throughout the UK and, indeed, worldwide, we daily experience how our local community is stronger and more vibrant thanks to its diversity. In the 1640s, a Leicestershire weaver’s son, George Fox, contributed a thread to our city’s rich religious history, noting his visits in his Journal. He recalled one intense discussion of religion with a local cleric, which ended acrimoniously, with the priest ‘in a rage’ because he had accidentally trampled on his flowerbed! George Fox was, of course, the key founding figure of the Religious Society of Friends, whose members are now better known as the Quakers. One central Quaker concern is peacemaking, often through active conflict resolution, which is usually carried out behind the scenes and away from the cameras. Quakers are also committed to equality and justice, truth and integrity, and to a simple lifestyle that respects the environment. Today’s news – and every day’s news – is a prompt to work harder for a peace-filled world in which these qualities are strongly interwoven. We tend to think of peacemaking predominantly in terms of the international stage – the ending or avoidance of wars between and within nations. Striving for peaceful cooperation is demanding: demanding for international negotiators and for more local mediators and activists. Educating for peace is challenging. For Quakers, peacemaking begins at home, and in our families. We need to support each other – and, at the same time, to be self-aware. Peacemaking and inclusion start with us – and they start deep within ourselves. To quote New Zealand Quakers in 1987: ‘We must relinquish the desire to own other people, to have power over them, and to force our views on to them.’ Being a peacemaker means acknowledging our own prejudices and negative thoughts. It means we try not to stereotype other people or assume that they are to blame. Instead, I believe, it’s about committing ourselves to resolving conflict, wherever that may be – perhaps in our own immediate family. It’s about bringing a strong, creative peace into all our relationships with others. Eleanor Nesbitt Coventry Meeting A revised version of the ‘Thought for the Day’ broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 19 July. the Friend, 3 August 2018 3 News Solidarity with cycling Friends Photo: Sally Ingham. FRIENDS have been coming together in solidarity with dignity’ and affirms Quaker testimonies on equality and Quakers who are currently cycling through Britain to social justice. London as an act of witness over their concerns for the The ‘Ride for Equality and the Common Good’ began welfare state in a ‘Ride for Equality and the Common at Swarthmoor Hall in Cumbria on 22 July and will Good’. conclude in London on 3 August. Meeting houses have read out a ‘Quaker Declaration In 2017 Friends from Kendal and Sedburgh also for Equality and the Common Good’ that the cyclists are organised a walk as an act of witness against cuts in the taking to 10 Downing Street. welfare system. Southern Marches and Mid-Wales Quaker Camp read The cyclists are covering twenty-five to thirty miles a out the Declaration in full at the start of their Meeting day and enjoying the hospitality of Friends in Meetings for Worship on 21 and 22 July, as did Bolton Friends. along the way. A copy of the Declaration is available on The action is based on a belief ‘in the right of all to the website of Kendal and Sedburgh Quakers. Quaker gives ‘Thought for the Day’ A FRIEND has spoken about 19 July about the fact that the city Eleanor Nesbitt, who gave the Quakers and peacemaking on BBC is to be the UK City of Culture Swarthmore Lecture in 2003, is a Radio 4’s ‘Thought for the Day’. 2021. She stressed the importance member of the British Association Professor Eleanor Nesbitt, of welcoming refugees and asylum for the Study of Religions, and a from Coventry Meeting and the seekers, particularly as Coventry is a founder member of the Punjab University of Warwick, spoke on ‘City of Sanctuary’. Research Group. (See page 3.) FWCC ‘Living the Change’ FRIENDS World Committee officially joined by Quakers in sustainable lifestyle and can make for Consultation (FWCC) has July. It was initiated at the UN changes in some of these high- joined a new project involving a Climate Conference in 2017 by the impact areas: transportation, home global community of religious and US-based multi-faith organisation energy use, and diet. spiritual institutions to champion GreenFaith. ‘We are advocating a flexible and sustainable living. Susanna Mattingly, sustainability thoughtful approach. We need to The ‘Living the Change’ communications officer of FWCC, keep asking ourselves whether we initiative includes Buddhist, told the Friend: ‘Living the Change can do things more sustainably and Catholic, Christian, Hindu, Jewish is a great opportunity for those take incremental steps towards a and Muslim networks and was of us who need to adopt a more more sustainable life.’ Twentieth anniversary reprint Correction HEAVEN ON Earth: Quakers and the Second Coming, IN THE 13 July edition of the Friend the story ‘March first published in 1998, has been reprinted as a twentieth against Donald Trump visit’ contained a mistake. anniversary edition. The book, by Ben Pink Dandelion, The sentence ‘A Quaker contingent to the main “Stop Timothy Peat-Ashworth and Douglas Gwyn, outlines Trump” demonstration met at Friends House on 13 the idea of Quakers understanding their experience in July and marched from Portland Place to Trafalgar terms of fulfilling Pauline prophecy around the Second Square’ should have read ‘Some Friends are gathering Coming. It goes on to look at how Quakerism has in front of Friends House on 13 July before marching adapted over the years as a ‘Second-Coming church’. from Portland Place to Trafalgar Square’. 4 the Friend, 3 August 2018 reported by Rebecca Hardy [email protected] Quaker MEP calls for ‘People’s Vote’ MollY Scott Cato, Green Molly Scott Cato, who is a She added: ‘We must push for MEP and Quaker, has called for a member of Stroud Meeting, said a People’s Vote on the final deal ‘People’s Vote’ on the final Brexit about the call: ‘With revelations between the EU and UK – with an deal between the UK and the EU. about criminal behaviour by the option of exiting from Brexit and The South West of England Leave campaign, manipulation remaining in the EU.’ and Gibraltar’s Green MEP, who of voters through social media, Molly Scott Cato has also stepped claims that Brexit no longer has unworkable Brexit plans from up her campaign with the launch any legitimacy, delivered the robust the government and now cabinet on 23 July of a website, ‘The Brexit message in Exeter on 24 July when resignations and a government Syndicate’, revealing the ‘murky she gave a presentation at the in meltdown, it is clear the network of powerful and secretive Exeter Community Centre in St EU referendum result has no organisations’ that she says are David’s Hill.