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 Quakers 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 Yearly Meeting 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-clerk 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 Britain Yearly Meeting 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’.