23 August 2013 £1.70 the DISCOVER THE CONTEMPORARYFriend QUAKER WAY Luton and Leighton camp the Friend INDEPENDENT QUAKER JOURNALISM SINCE 1843 COntents VOL 171 NO 34 3 Thought for the Week: A better way? Owen Cole 4 News Be aware of the spirit of God at work in 5 Epistle: Luton and Leighton camp the ordinary activities and experience of your daily life. Spiritual learning Luton and Leighton Area Meeting continues throughout life, and often in 6 Opposing Trident unexpected ways. There is inspiration to be found all around us, in the natural Frank Boulton world, in the sciences and arts, in our 7 Holding to account work and friendships, in our sorrows Mike Derbyshire as well as in our joys. Are you open to new light, from whatever source it may 8-9 Letters come? Do you approach new ideas with 10-11 The hidden illness discernment? Anne Faulkner Advices & queries 7 12-13 Learning from our past, See page 16 looking to our future Roy Stephenson 14 Anthony Benezet Libby Perkins 15 Travelling in ministry: Love, authority and power Thomas Swain Cover image: 16 q-eye: a look at the Quaker world Friends gathering in the quiet space at Luton and Leighton camp. See page 5. 17 Friends & Meetings Photo: Lee Taylor. The Friend Subscriptions Advertising Editorial UK £76 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] £6.50; online only £48 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 editor: Elinor Smallman production@ thefriend.org • 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, 23 August 2013 Thought for the Week A better way? They walked the Pennine Way and Hadrian’s Wall, That summer of ‘09. They saw the cawing choughs Guarding the coastal path. Surrounded by sheer beauty They talked of weddings and of babies. A year went by, the terriers left summoned to Helmand. Trod the desert path and thought of home. Six more days to stay. The greenness of a valley almost Welsh Seduced his mind and blew his legs away With thoughts of weddings and of babies. Ripped in two he lay amid the dust. On English country roads kind folk welcomed him. And in the village church staunch comrades sang his praise. Outside, their fusillade stirred into anger the black dressed mourners high up in the trees. Then all went quiet. Alone, she laid a wreath of poppies On his yet untrodden down grave. A tear watered it. Might there not be a better way? She thought of weddings and of babies. Owen Cole Chichester Meeting the Friend, 23 August 2013 3 News reported by Caroline Humphries [email protected] UK urged to end arms sales to Egypt THE CampaIGN Against Arms crackdown on protesters who people were killed in the Maspero Trade (CAAT) has called for an have called for the reinstatement massacre. It must not be invited immediate end to UK arms sales to of ousted president Mohammed again.’ Egypt, following the recent wave of Morsi. DSEi, one of the world’s biggest violence in the country. Sarah Waldron, core campaign arms fairs, is scheduled for Arms exports to Egypt rose coordinator at CAAT, said: ‘The 10-13 September 2013. Christian sharply in the first quarter of the UK government is supposedly communities across the country year. £45 million of exports were “deeply concerned”. On Wednesday are planning a Day of Prayer on licensed for military helicopter night [14 August] Foreign Office Sunday 8 September to pray for a components and small arms minister Alistair Burt told less militarized and more peaceful between January and March 2013. Newsnight [BBC programme] that society. Quaker Peace & Social This compares to £26 million in the British government is on the Witness is encouraging Friends, total military exports licensed side of the Egyptian people. If that’s and in particular young Quakers, between 2008 and 2012. true, then it needs to stop the arms to take part in a multi-faith candle- According to CAAT, the UK sales immediately – all of them. lit vigil near the ExCel Centre the continued to sell arms to Egypt ‘The Egyptian government evening before the arms fair opens. after the military coup in late June has been a regular visitor to UK Rhiannon Rees, a member of 2013, and only revoked five arms sponsored arms fairs, including Croydon Meeting, who plans to licences in July after dozens were the biennial Defence and Security attend some of the protests, said: killed by the Egyptian security Equipment International (DSEi), ‘How can we say that we “live in forces at a peaceful protest. scheduled to be held at London’s the virtue of that life and power Hundreds have died and ExCel Centre in September. It was that takes away the occasion of thousands more have been injured invited to the last event in 2011, all wars” whilst our taxes are in the security forces’ recent just one month before twenty-eight subsidising this deadly trade?’ Cheltenham Quakers welcome heat wave ChelteNham’S summer heat wave arrived in perfect time for local Friends and their Meeting house. Sixteen solar panels were installing on the Meeting house roof at the end of June – just before several consecutive long hot summer days. Cheltenham Friends’ Meeting House is a well- insulated modern building with an efficient heating system. The panels are expected to generate as much electricity as the building requires. Alison Crane, a local Quaker and prime mover behind the project, said: ‘We chose black panels to match the roof, and just four panels in a line on each of the roofs, which match the roof well.’ She exaplined: ‘Quakers are committed to becoming Photo courtesy of Cheltenham Meeting. a sustainable, low-carbon community. Generating electricity from the sun seemed an obvious choice to reduce our carbon footprint. The electricity we produce is predicted to save 1.8 tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. We hope to save money to ensure that our room hire rates are affordable for the organisations that use the building.’ Cheltenham Friends and their new solar panels. 4 the Friend, 23 August 2013 Luton and Leighton camp Epistle ear Friends everywhere, ‘there is a field beyond dark and light; I will meet you there’ D (amended from Rumi, twelth century Sufi poet) Over a hundred campers, from four months to over eighty years, lived together at Luton and Leighton Area Meeting Quaker camp this summer, in a field in the Severn floodplain, close to Upton-upon-Severn, below the beautiful Malvern hills. Many of us came to camp with a heavy heart, grieving for the loss of our Friend, Aelfi Morris. How would camp be? Our theme of ‘Dark and Light’, chosen at our early June planning meeting, promised exploration of deep but tough themes. The make-up of the camp community shifts over the years. This year, we were again blessed with many young children (including three babies) although we missed many of our teenagers. Camp has been enriched by more young adults, several returning with partners and growing families. We were glad to welcome three of the 2010 Youth Pilgrims. Many of us sought and received strength from our beautiful surroundings – tall trees, ripening grain fields, the Malvern hills – and from the ministry of birds, butterflies, dragonflies and even wasps (for some). We experienced light-filled sunny days, scudding clouds, thunder, lighting and stormy rain – and an enchanting grey mist moving towards our camp at sunset one evening, and enveloping us during the night. There is always a rhythm to our camp – this year, the first week laid a very firm foundation of love and depth of worship before our Saturday evening Meeting for Worship to celebrate the grace of God in the life of our dear Aelfi. About a hundred of us, including visitors, gathered in the serene Quiet Space we had created: some prepared ministry opened the way for ministries showing the deep love and respect for Aelfi and his family, and our collective acknowledgement of the loss of a member of our ‘tribe’. After Meeting for Worship, lanterns led a way to a humungous blazing bonfire, as a rainbow appeared in the eastern evening sky. We acknowledge with gratitude the immense loving work in preparation for camp. The deep commitment to our community upheld us during our twelve days together. Many offered service in all sorts of ways to enrich our time together: music, craft, volleyball, study groups, a Godly play… We were nourished by delicious imaginative meals. There was a sense of lightly worn but disciplined ‘right-ordering’ of tasks: joyful and willingly offered service. Meetings for Worship for all ages were gathered and strong.