Stocksfield Quaker Meeting House

10/05/2025

26/04/2025

At Prudhoe this morning letting people know that Quakers exist locally and are having the first meeting in Prudhoe on Monday🙂

23/04/2025

28/03/2025

Police broke into a Quaker Meeting House last night (27 March) and arrested six young people holding a meeting over concerns for the climate and Gaza.

05/06/2024

Upcoming "Friends on Fridays" at Stocksfield Quaker Meeting House. Online and in person. Quaker stories from the Allen Valleys and South Tynedale. 28th June, 2024 from 1.30pm. A touch of local history from hereabouts! Details on the poster. Visitors welcome! Zoom details from [email protected]🙂

31/03/2024

Our readings this morning were from a Friend's common place book. One authored by that Friend, I think, the other from Richard Rohr.

04/02/2024

Today's reading was from "Talking God - daring to listen" by Jacci Bulman, 978-0-7459-8101-7. If this were a quaker book, it could be 12 Quakers on Advices and Queries. The bulk of the book consists of in depth interviews with 11 people who are each given the same 14 questions (scan to follow) which the author then answers her self. Finally she asks "Am I a Christian"? The piece I read in meetings forms part of the author's answer:

"... how we see the Truth of Christ is not pre-set, or exactly defined, for Christians (which is a wonderful thing!). All Jesus asks is for us to follow the light, the way of Love, as best we can comprehend this. To move along on the mountain with him, on the clearest path we can trust.
This for me , was the song of Jesus: to know our belonging to the divine, and to live out that which we truly are - unconditional inclusive Love. This is what it means, for me, and I believe now for many people, to be a Christian.
Jesus Christ lived, and lives on, and the Holy Spirit comes to help us comprehend the sacred Truth of the Light within us, which needs some guidance, and courage, for us to see."

22/01/2024

Yesterday's reading (20th Jan) quoted indirectly from Pablo Casals in “Joys and Sorrows”:

“Sometimes I look around me with a feeling of complete dismay. In the confusion that afflicts the world today, I see a disrespect for the very values of life. Beauty is all about us, but how many are blind to it!

Each second we live in a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that never was before and will never be again. And what do we teach our children in school? We teach them that two and two makes four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the world there is no other child exactly like you. In the millions of years that have passed there has never been another child like you.

And look at your body — what a wonder it is! Your legs, your arms, your cunning fingers, the way you move! You may be a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must cherish one another. You must work — we all must work — to make this world worthy of its children.”

07/01/2024

Today's reading (7th Jan) was taken from the writngs of Isaac Pennington, writing in 1675 "to Widow Hemmings":

"There is a river, a sweet, still, flowing river, the streams whereof will make glad thy heart. And learn but in quietness and stillness to retire to the Lord, and wait upon him; in whom thou shalt feel peace and joy, in the midst of thy troubles from the cruel and vexatious spirit of this world. So wait to know thy work and service to the Lord, in thy place and station; a d the Lord make the faithful therein, and thou will want neither help, support nor comfort."

This was followed by Advices and Queries number 28:

"Every stage of our lives offers fresh opportunities. Responding to divine guidance, try to discern the right time to undertake or relinquish responsibilities without undue pride or guilt. Attend to what love requires of you, which may not be great busyness."

24/12/2023

Today's reading was prefixed by a reference to Advent as a time of preparation for the arrival of new light and then went on to quote:

Isiah 42:1-4

"Behold my servant, whom I uphold,
my chosen, in whom my soul delights;
I have put my Spirit upon him;
he will bring forth justice to the nations.

He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice,
or make it heard in the street;

a bruised reed he will not break,
and a faintly burning wick he will not quench;
he will faithfully bring forth justice.

He will not grow faint or be discouraged
till he has established justice in the earth;
and the coastlands wait for his law.

This was followed by Advices and Queries number 9

"In worship we enter with reverence into communion with God and respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. Come to meeting for worship with heart and mind prepared. Yield yourself and all your outward concerns to God’s guidance so that you may find ‘the evil weakening in you and the good raised up’.

[ Aside - I came to meeting equipped with small pieces of holly and ivy, knowing that I wanted to link Christmas to the return of light at the turn of the year and then to quote one of the biblical references to preparation from Isiah or the new testament. I picked up the bible from the table and it fell open at the page containing Isiah 42 with no searching on my part. ]