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Quakerism and faith

Exclusion

One often sees luxury housing developments advertised as ‘exclusive’. The positive implication of this has always puzzled me. Exclusive means someone is excluded: it inspires me to ask who is excluded. And yet when I ask, those around me don’t seem to hear my question as a pointed criticism, as …

Appreciations

I have just spent most of a day thinking about a friend who recently died. I had the opportunity to join her family and friends at her funeral.  I knew – and was content to hear from those who knew my friend longer and deeper – that she was not …

Love and commitments

Someone has died, someone I know who was around my age. I didn’t know her for long, but I feel I had a bond with her. Her way of being made it easy to be close with her. I have been thinking about what will change in the world with …

European Parliament calls for progress towards peace between secure Israel & independent and contiguous Palestine

[Originally published on the Quaker Council for European Affairs website, qceablog.wordpress.com] As an inhabitant of the Brussels ‘bubble’, I would say that every week brings something interesting. This year has been particularly eventful with the elections for the European Parliament and then the restructuring of the European Commission. This final …

The spiritual roots of social change

[originally published on qceablog.wordpress.com] I was recently invited to participate in discussions on the role of religion in public affairs. The discussions were fascinating: depending on the religion from which one views the question, the answers differ. The question is, how can religion play a role in increasing environmentally and economically …

What do we know?

I am a curious person. You probably are, too. Most people are curious, although some learn to express their curiosity about others through speaking our judgements. If you look behind the criticism of someone’s shoes, their lifestyle, their choice of work, often you can see the unvoiced curiosity: how do …