Amersham Quaker Meeting House

At Amersham this afternoon, with others from Chilterns Area Quaker Meeting. It was a welcome opportunity to sit with other Friends in quiet, to reflect on the tragic events in Paris, and hold in the Light all those touched by them.

Our opening worship was a passage from Quaker Faith and Practice  which included the following words:
'All thoughtful men and women are torn at heart by the present situation. The savage momentum of war drags us all in its wake. ...War is hardening our hearts. To preserve our sanity, we become apathetic. In such an atmosphere no true peace can be framed; yet before us we see months of increasing terror. Can those who pay heed to moral laws ...submit to the plea that the only way is that demanded by military necessity?
True peace involves freedom from tyranny and a generous tolerance; conditions that are denied over a large part of Europe and are not fulfilled in other parts of the world. But true peace cannot be dictated, it can only be built in co-operation between all peoples. None of us, no nation, no citizen, is free from some responsibility for this situation with its conflicting difficulties.
...[The] way of peace is not to be found in any policy of ‘unconditional surrender’ by whomsoever demanded. It requires that men and nations should recognise their common brotherhood, using the weapons of integrity, reason, patience and love, never acquiescing in the ways of the oppressor, always ready to suffer with the oppressed. In every country there is a longing for freedom from domination and war which men are striving to express. Now is the time to issue an open invitation to co-operate in creative peacemaking, to declare our willingness to make sacrifices of national prestige, wealth and standards of living for the common good of men.'

These are words from a statement issued by London Yearly Meeting in 1943, during the Second World War - a sobering thought.