We’re in the news

Yes, Friends, as Jez Smith has just pointed out on here, our process is already up and out there on BBC News. Colin Billett had a very brief slot on the Today programme, around 6.50am, and the news item was in the news headlines at 8am on Radio 4, as I understand it.

It seems to me quite a fair report. It mentions that our process is still underway, and what the likely outcome could be. The stock photograph of two little men is particularly unQuakerly, but this is the BBC News website we’re talking about, and it often seems to have been put together in a hurry.

Luckily, I think, most Friends in Yearly Meeting session this morning won’t have seen this report. We will be there to continue our due process of discernment of the right way forward for us. If the end result turns out quite differently from how things have been reported by the BBC, then that is how things should be.

It does let us know, however, that this is a radical decision on which we are embarking, as one Friend said during our deliberations yesterday afternoon. The business we are about here is going to have repercussions in the world which we cannot yet guess at. I’m glad, though, to be a part of this process. I hope we can be true to our Quaker convictions and our Quaker roots as we seek to discern our way forward. In fact, I’d prefer say that I trust we can be true to ourselves.

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