6 June 2014 £1.70 the DISCOVER THE CONTEMPORARYFriend QUAKER WAY the Friend INDEPENDENT QUAKER JOURNALISM SINCE 1843 CONTENTS VOL 172 NO 23 3 Thought for the Week: God. Holy? Pure? Jill Allum 4-5 News 6 Drones and human rights Rhiannon Redpath 7 Tax justice Barbara Forbes 8-9 Letters Centre. Study Quaker Woodbrooke 10-11 Assisted dying – towards a Quaker view? Cadbury story on film Barbara and Paul Henderson The conflicts faced by the Cadbury 12 Divine love family of Birmingham in the first world Leslie Fuhrmann war were featured in a half-hour film on 13 On the complexity of simplicity BBC One West Midlands on 2 June. The programme, entitled Cadburys Michael Oppenheim at War, was one of eleven regional 14-15 Baptism in the Spirit documentaries that featured ‘untold stories of the war’. Part of Allan Holmes the programme was filmed at the 16 Simple life at the Meeting house Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre. The film is available on BBC iplayer 17 Friends & Meetings http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/ b045gjw5/world-war-i-at-home- cadburys-at-war. Cover image: Meeting for Worship at the British Museum. Photo: Louisa Wright. See page 5. 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. 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Holy? Pure? hat does a word mean? How do we know a Muslim and a Jew attempted answers. Is this a key what thoughts are in someone’s head? If we question? How do you imagine each one answered? are listening carefully, we are listening for the How would a Quaker answer? Wmeaning behind their words, from the smallest child to When George Fox was twenty-six years old, before the cleverest intellectual. the magistrate at Derby, he said: ‘they asked me whether I love doing theology from a phenomenological I was sanctified. I said, “Sanctified? Yes”, for I was in the perspective: what that person, wherever he is, says he paradise of God.’ At thirty-four years of age he was thinks is what he thinks. It’s his truth, so we must listen. talking to a Yearly Meeting: ‘Friends must be kept in the There is no hypothetical truth. We will never all agree. life which is pure, that they may answer the pure life of So, let us ask some questions. Say we start with a God in others.’ Was he holy? Was he pure? He would three-to-four-year-old and ask: What does holy mean? answer, ‘Yes, by the grace of God.’ What does God mean? You will be surprised by the How did he become so sure? I think that his ‘opening’ answers. Simple, direct and honest. Children haven’t at twenty-four, when he got through the flaming sword learnt to be otherwise and give no wordy, intricate into paradise, is the key. I believe that a major event answers, where the hearers switch off after the first two took place for the young George, not unlike Paul’s sentences. I have met so many people who say, ‘When I conversion on the Damascus road. He has already was three, I had a sense of the holy/numinous/mystical,’ heard the revelatory voice saying, ‘There is one, even and they can tell you exactly where they were when the Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition’. Then, the ‘revelation’ came. following year, he has the ‘vision’ of being in paradise Is holiness/pureness possible? George Fox thought knowing ‘nothing but pureness and innocency and so: ‘When I came to eleven years of age, I knew righteousness’. pureness and righteousness’, and, at twenty-four years, I believe this is crucial to Fox, because he put this he said: ‘Now was I come up in spirit through the flaming sword on his favourite seal. Now, if you were flaming sword into the paradise of God’. Jesus thought going to have a seal made, and write 400 letters, surely so. He said to the penitent thief on the cross: ‘Today you you would want your seal to be what you would want will be with me in paradise’ and ‘Blessed are the pure in to be known by – the first thing that would be noticed heart’. Kathleen Ashford, an elder at Beccles for many before the letter was opened. So, a curved sword and years, also thought so: ‘I was four years old when I wet the flourishing letters GF. No one could mistake it! my pants, and knew I had left the Garden of Eden and It was the symbol of paradise. What cost was a letter, could never go back.’ almost always written from prison by someone there Our university, the University of East Anglia, held a to help him, sent out across the country on horseback! ‘Hot Potato’ evening on 19 March with the question, Dear George, if only we could get closer to you, and ‘What does it mean to be pure in heart?’ A Christian, not doubt but believe! Jill Allum Norfolk and Waveney Area Meeting the Friend, 6 June 2014 3 News Jewish worship in York YORK WILL again see regular ‘another room booking’. He themselves Jewish. Jewish services, almost forty years stressed that the Meeting rents ‘York’s Liberal Jewish Community after its last synagogue closed – at rooms to a number of faith groups. now aims to add to what is already Friargate Meeting House. Chris added that local Quaker on offer, by providing regular The first Shabbat morning and Jewish communities had services and a friendly Jewish service will take place on Saturday collaborated on several projects, home to any residents, students 14 June, led by Liberal Judaism’s including a Holocaust memorial. and visitors to the City of York who chief executive, rabbi Danny Rich. ‘We sit comfortably together,’ he identify as Jewish,’ said Community Subsequent services will be held on said. member Ben Rich. the second Saturday of each month. The York Liberal Jewish For Friargate Meeting, while Hebrew lessons and children’s Community is behind the new this remains a straightforward activities are also planned. services. While it is not yet known room letting, Edwards said that Friargate Meeting House how many people will attend, similar arrangements with other manager Chris Edwards told the the Community says that more groups have led to spin-offs and Friend that the move is simply than 200 York residents consider knowledge exchanges. Prisoners need more help MORE NEEDS to be done to help she wants ‘to publicise everything ‘We weren’t sure how the prisoners, asserts a former Quaker that is good and bad about the Meetings would be received but prison chaplain in a new book. prison system’. they loved them,’ she said. Confessions of a Prison Chaplain, She believes that the element Mary, of Stroud Meeting, served by Mary Brown, was published last of Quaker worship most valuable as a prison chaplain from 2000 week and deals with her experience to the prisoners who attended until 2012. She previously taught of the criminal justice system. Meetings for Worship was the in an open prison, and came to ‘One in three prisoners have been silence, which remains in short prison chaplaincy with a particular in care at some point and it just supply in British prisons. It was insight, having spent ten days goes to show that more needs to the silence that attracted a diverse in custody in 1960, as a CND be done to help people with their group of prisoners, including protester. problems, rather than just locking Travellers who could be seen The book covers a range of them up,’ she writes. silently saying the rosary during topics, from Christmas in prison to With the book, Mary said that Meetings, she explained. learning behind bars. Brighton Friends seek ideas for new initiative FRIENDS IN BRighton are seeking ideas from need to be taken into account, we are seeking also to other Quaker Meetings for an initiative that aims to find broader ways of bringing together members of bring together people who hold different views on the different communities into a common space, actually Palestine/Israel conflict. to hear and respect each other.’ They intend to offer Brighton Meeting House as Local Friends hope that the initiative will contribute a place of ‘encounter and sharing’ for local people towards greater understanding and reconciliation. The concerned with the situation.