It's easy to forget to be thankful every day, and having a special day to say thanks - even if it isn't my own country's tradition - seems such a wonderful idea.



This year I am thankful for my faith, which permeates my whole life, even when I am feeling as though I am not being 'Quakerly'.



I am thankful for the new friends I have made, and for the old ones I have kept.



I am thankful, as always, for the roof over my head, the food on my table, the plumbing in my… Continue

This article was brought to my attention a couple of days ago. Journalist Liz Jones, of the UK Daily Mail, attempted a week on unemployment benefits:



http://tinyurl.com/ybvgkwt



I was delighted that she seemed to get so much from the experiment, but astonished by her lifestyle prior to it. I can't imagine having that much debt on top of a mortgage.



If the economic problems help people realise how much they are spending on… Continue

I re-post this blog on three other websites, and from last week's entry I have had a number of responses, all asking me to clarify what I meant in my description of how I see God. I still don't have the mental energy for replying to each one individually, so I am putting my reply into this blog post, and I hope it will explain what I mean.



Firstly, I have for a long time been a kind of Unitarian. The way I understand the Trinity is that, just as I am simultaneously mother, daughter… Continue

I thought it might be interesting for people to see what I said at Quaker Quest about Quaker Worship.



We three speakers had to speak twice during the evening, once on Faith and once on Practice - broadly, what we believe and what we do.



In the Faith section, I started by saying I love Quaker worship because it is unique. I came to Quakers because of the worship - I used to be an Anglican, and then a Methodist, and in both… Continue

There have been several programmes on BBC Radio recently about Tennyson, as this year is the 200th anniversary of his birth. In one, a modern soldier read part of 'The Charge of the Light Brigade'. He explained how well Tennyson captured the confusion of battle, and how he emphasised the bravery of the soldiers and the stupidity of the generals. The young man seemed very touched that someone outside the battle had cared enough about the disaster of it to commemorate it in verse. Paradoxically,… Continue