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last year
author Henry S. Thompson <ht@inf.ed.ac.uk>
date Tue, 13 Dec 2022 21:36:23 +0000
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228:b6888d7c2019 229:1d1d90cb18b2
1 Maternal grandmothr a Quaker, mother raised Quaker
2
3 Father became a Quaker after the 2nd WW, PoW..., attended Leyburn in
4 Yorkshire.
5
6 Lebanon, then Jordans, and first-day school wasn't for him.
7 A Christian environment, but not a church-goer himself as a young adult.
8
9 'Progressive' school with a Quaker head.
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11 Life decisions propelled him towards using the I Ching, but that
12 didn't last as responsibilities grew.
13
14 1980s, became involved in Palestinian issues, various jobs, ended up
15 as a furniture maker and building trades, then assistant manager at
16 Hadeel.
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18 Started observing Ramadan around the time of the 1st Gulf War: an
19 active, pervasive engagement with religious practice, studied Arabic.
20
21 Learned the 1st Sura, the cornerstone of his practice. The nature of
22 this as prayer that begins with '...merciful' is so different from the
23 caricature of Muslims as fanatics.
24
25 Came to MfW at P&M for four or five years, impressed by the depth of
26 some of the Quakers he has met. Made the transition from a "committed
27 non-Attender" to acknowledging he _was_ an attender. Really
28 appreciated Quaker decision making in contrast to other experiences of
29 committees.
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31 Membership: Last autumn, Lebanon was for his father's job as Head at
32 Brummana, mother a Trustee, who visited regularly, and she asked him
33 to consider taking on that role. Applied but not appointed, but the
34 experience made him think again about membership, see the
35 achievements, the remarkable work that has been done by Quakers.
36 Andrew Clark, friend of his mother, awesome what one can achieve,
37 leaves us a bit ashamed by comparison: working of the Kingdom of
38 Heaven.
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40 "Friends of Truth" can be goal and a daunting challenge.
41
42 "What I think of God" is not relevant, what matters is what 'he' has
43 to say to me about how to live my life.
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45 Wife is as it were a lay preacher in the Zen temple in Portobello.
46 There are a lot of connections between their practice and scriptures
47 and ours.
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49 Gets into trouble for telling the truth.
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51 As leaving QMH in Ramallah, "are Quakers Christians?" No
52 Christology...
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54 Obstacles? Vietnam, Palestine, now Ukraine, and XR, are
55 difficulties. Worries about the apparent need to take sides: being
56 driven by fear is not a good starting point for decisions.
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58 A member of the crew rather than a passenger.
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60 MfWfB can be an awesome experience
61