A member of Bunhill Fields Meeting attended Yearly Meeting and kindly provided this report. Are you still reflecting on Yearly Meeting? We’d love to hear your thoughts quill@quakersinlondon.org.
Yearly Meeting session in May 2026 had main sessions on ‘What unites us as a Spirit-led community?’ and a following one ‘As a Spirit-led community, how can we handle conflict well?’.
There was a lot of ministry both in Friends House and online. The main aspects I picked up were the need for us to be open minded, kind (without condescension), accept everyone’s views, listen attentively, recognise that there are language difficulties with other Quakers and other faiths, know that the Spirit moves through us (but isn’t us), recognise that we can feel battered and vulnerable, and that the fruits of the Spirit are action. We need to find opportunities to describe our feelings on God (which could involve singing). A wonderful analogy was given that when we look up through the tree canopy God is the light flowing through the leaves – we and the leaves are finite, but God is infinite light and indescribable.
What I took away from these sessions is that language for all of us is so important, but slippery and difficult, and doesn’t always communicate well. By chance in the Bookshop I found Jane Pearn’s 2017 booklet on The Language of Leadings, a reflection on faith, action and concern. It is the result of an Eva Koch scholarship looking into the important Quaker idea of Concern. This is a wonderful introduction to slippery language and investigates Quaker thinking on the two main Yearly Meeting sessions. I have bought three copies for Bunhill Library which I hope newcomers will find helpful.
Paul Parker, Recording Clerk, serves as the most senior staff member for the Britain Yearly Meeting, managing staff and supporting meetings. He acts as the senior staff member, often representing the Quaker community on public and social issues. He gave a comprehensive report on the many recent challenges Quakers have faced on the right to protest. Most recently on 21 April 2026 Quakers warned a parliamentary committee that sweeping restrictions on protest are putting British democracy at risk and preventing people from acting on their faith. Several Friends have been charged and imprisoned, with a peaceful Just Stop Oil protester still in prison. This is ironic in the year that we have laid down Meeting for Sufferings (because now we need to tackle this work at Yearly Meeting level). But the hundreds of years old record of Quaker sufferings will continue to be recorded.
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