6 April 2012 £1.70 the DISCOVER THE CONTEMPORARYFriend QUAKER WAY Quakers and advocacy the Friend INDEPENDENT QUAKER JOURNALISM SINCE 1843 COntents VOL 170 NO 14 3 Thought for the Week: Easter Michael Wright 4-6 Meetings for Sufferings 7 Dear prime minister Malcolm Elliott 8-9 Letters 10-11 Adventurous gardening Dori Miller 12-14 Quakers in the World: Europe Growing in the Spirit The group of Friends who visited Buckingham Palace on Ian Kirk-Smith 27 March to deliver Quakers’ loyal address to the monarch 15 Poem: outside Friends House, setting off following Meeting for Worship. From left to right. Back row: Andrew Williams, Policeman, Stoke Newington Siobhan Haire, Jeffrey Dean. Middle row: Michael Hutchinson, Peter Daniels Joy Croft, Keith Walton, Jasmine Perinpanayagam. Front row: Ingrid Greenhow, Julia Aspden, Anne van Staveren, Joycelin 16 q-eye: a look at the Quaker world Dawes, Chris Skidmore. 17 Friends & Meetings Photo: Paul Parker. In Our Time Melvyn Bragg and his guests will be discussing ‘George Fox and the Quakers’ on 5 April on BBC Cover image: Radio 4 at 9am. The programme, In Our Time, will Meeting for Sufferings discussed advocacy and be repeated at 9.30pm and will be available on ‘speaking truth to power’ at their meeting on 31 March. iPlayer. For further details visit: www.bbc.co.uk/ Photo: Averain / flickr CC programmes/b01f67y4 See pages 4-5 and 7. 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 £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 [email protected] [email protected] 020 7663 1178 or [email protected] www.thefriend.org/advertise.asp 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 • News reporter: Symon Hill [email protected] • 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: Janet Scott • 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, 6 April 2012 Thought for the Week Easter mong the astonishing stories of leaders of the former bishop of Durham and now honorary assistant world’s great religions, none is more astonishing bishop in the diocese of Ripon and Leeds, who once than that of Jesus. More than two thousand famously said it ‘was not a conjuring trick with bones’. Ayears ago, a peasant from the northern outback of The explanation that has made most sense to me in Jewish lands became a noted teacher, preacher and recent years is that given in great detail by John Shelby healer. Within a short time he so upset the religious Spong, the retired bishop of Newark, in his book authorities that they planned his arrest and trial and Resurrection: Myth or Reality? The gospel writers, he arranged for his execution by the horrific Roman says, expressed their experience not in the language practice of crucifixion. After his death he was laid in a of history but in the language of the Hebrew Midrash rock chamber sealed by an enormous stone. tradition. You’ll have to read his book to get the full Gospel accounts vary about what happened next – picture of this. but the general conclusion is that on the third day after However, what remains for me is the conviction that his death he was raised to life by a divine act, that he my own and other people’s lives have been changed appeared, conversed or ate with his friends on several by encountering either Jesus the Galilean teacher and occasions before disappearing from view each time. healer in the accounts of his life and ministry in Was he a ghost, an apparition like a mirage, or was this the gospels, or by encountering the Christ of faith the only recorded instance of human resurrection? and of the resurrection narratives. Jesus of Nazareth Who moved the stone? was the title of a book, first challenges, inspires, encourages and sustains my sense published in 1930, which remained popular for many of myself and my sense of the importance of love in years, by Frank Morison. Originally sceptical of the human relationships. claims of Christians about Jesus’ resurrection, he sought I can rejoice with others in celebrating Easter without to prove the flaws in the story and became convinced it taking the gospel readings literally. The sense of new was true. All the major Christian churches declare it to growth, new life, new beginnings is powerful and be true. The shining happy faces of so many singers on enriching. The Midrash tradition encourages us to find Songs of Praise declare it to be true. whatever is valuable and new for us for today in the I find myself out of step with them on this. As a ancient scriptures that are so familiar. young man, I passionately believed it to be true – and All of us who try who try to walk in the footsteps of now I wonder why I did. Nothing in any other part of either Jesus of Nazareth or the post-Easter Christ are life’s experience confirms that such a thing can happen. brought up short by the mirror that Gandhi presents Those who believe it did have to depend on trust in to us. When he was asked why he refused to become a the authority of the church, or scripture, or their own follower of Christ, Gandhi replied: ‘I don’t reject Christ. religious experience to assure them that they encounter I love Christ. It’s just that so many of you Christians the risen Christ in prayer and sacrament. are so unlike Christ. If Christians would really live I do not doubt that something happened and that we according to the teachings of Christ, as found in the cannot now know exactly what it was. His friends were Bible, all of India would be Christian today’. Would that left with the impact of a striking ecstatic experience that that were true the world over. changed their lives. When Christians try to explain it, some believe a physical transformation took place and Michael Wright others offer various explanations, such as David Jenkins, Teesdale and Cleveland Area Meeting the Friend, 6 April 2012 3 Meeting for Sufferings Advocacy strengthened Ministers AND MPS can expect to hear more added that whatever was abandoned, ‘some Friends from Quakers in coming years. At their meeting on will see [it] as really important’. 31 March, Meeting for Sufferings (MfS), the national By the time they reached the minute, the Meeting committee of British Friends, resolved that greater was in unity on giving greater resources to advocacy resources should be devoted to advocating Quaker even if this affected money for other areas. The minute views to decision-makers. recognised ‘that where we ask for greater priority in one MfS asked the trustees of Britain Yearly Meeting area of work, we must accept lesser priority in others’. (BYM) – the organisation of Friends in England, A few Friends spoke of the need for advocacy to Scotland and Wales – to give ‘greater priority’ to be based on work that Quakers are already doing. advocacy when allocating resources. This is likely to One referred to Quakers working in prisons and affect how BYM uses its money and staff. with homeless people. She said that Quakers should The minute declared: ‘Advocacy is an unseen ‘increase the flow of information from that very low process, involving building up relationships with grassroots level’ to other Friends engaged in advocacy. appropriate public servants, ministers and elected Discussion of the need for advocacy arose in part representatives, representing our values as well as the from an offer last year by Southern East Anglia voices of those who are losing power in society.’ Area Meeting. They wanted to fund an extra post The discussion saw several Friends speak of the in Friends’ House, for someone to work with the need for resources to be allocated well if advocacy is parliamentary liaison secretary. to be effective. The minute stated: ‘When we select an BYM trustees said they could not accept the offer issue as our target for change, we need to increase our without guidance from MfS about priorities in knowledge on it’. allocating money. There was a suggestion that it was The minute added: ‘Effective well-timed advocacy inappropriate for Friends in one area to determine springs from our experience and knowledge and the allocation of central resources. Several Quakers cannot happen in isolation but needs to reach across in East Anglia have told the Friend that there is the many areas of concern Friends are engaged in, considerable resentment over what is perceived as both centrally and locally.’ trustees’ unwill-ingness to engage with the Area The discussion arose after BYM trustees asked MfS Meeting’s suggestion. for guidance as to whether they wished to see more The MfS clerk, Christine Cannon, emphasised that resources allocated to advocacy. One Friend said that decisions on detailed expenditure were a matter for MfS should ‘spell it out that we do want higher priority trustees, not MfS.