Author: Wendrie Heywood
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AdventWord 2024: Safety
Supporting Mental Health This Festive Season The word safety often brings to mind physical protection – keeping ourselves safe from harm, accidents, or danger. As we approach the festive season, it’s also essential to think about mental safety – the emotional and psychological security that helps us navigate life’s challenges, particularly during times of increased
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AdventWord 2024: Faithfulness
Faith fullness How can we live a life full of faith? Why do we try to do this? Quakers have a chapter called, ‘Faithful lives’ in Quaker Faith & Practice – our current book of discipline. The entries are often taken from Testimonies written after someone has died, they are more formally called, ‘Testimony to
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AdventWord 2024: Earnestly
The Importance of Being Earnest This is one of my favourite plays. I’ve worked behind the scenes twice, seen it live at least half a dozen times, and seen various movie versions more than that. Often because someone is foolish enough to tell me they’ve never seen it and then taken me up on an
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AdventWord 2024: Redemption
Quaker Redemption What do you do in Meeting for Worship? This is quite a frequent question when someone discovers I’m a Quaker, and that a Meeting for Worship isn’t like their more usual experience of a religious service. It is an hour of silence, or stillness, or expectant waiting – however you want to describe
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AdventWord 2024: Abound
What is Abounding? Abound is not a word I use often in conversation. But when I saw this on the list of words for AdventWord this year, two quotations came to me which I’ve included below. Social Justice is for me linked to the idea of equality and being aware of my own privilege and
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AdventWord 2024: Humility
Humility is a noun Micah 6:8 is one of my favourite Bible verses. I always appreciate a simple to do list – even if they are very hard to do! I find that they link to the Quaker Testimonies to Equality, Simplicity, Truth and Peace strongly for me. Equality is a foundational belief for me
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Quaker A-Z: X is for X-ray
X-rays look through to the supporting structures An X-ray gives transparency and vision that cuts through and sees what is important in an organisation. The end of the year is always a good time to take stock – to review what you’ve successfully completed, where things didn’t develop or complete as expected, or perhaps what
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Quaker A-Z: W is for Who Do you Talk To?
Anyone or Everyone? When I ask – Who do you talk to? – question many trustees look surprised at that question and then tell me that they talk to other trustees and members of the charity/AM. Often they tell me they don’t talk to anyone outside of the charity. But of course by having buildings, and/or being
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Fail or Grow?
Which questions are asked? This blog is the next in my four-part series of outtakes from the Future of British Quakerism Conference. Friday’s review of first the dwindling numbers from the Tabular Statement and then an increase of average age by a year from last year’s survey both added to the general feeling of worry
