{"id":740,"date":"2014-11-08T08:00:38","date_gmt":"2014-11-08T08:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/?p=740"},"modified":"2014-10-23T14:05:38","modified_gmt":"2014-10-23T14:05:38","slug":"w-is-for-white-feathers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/?p=740","title":{"rendered":"W is for White Feathers"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><!--\nP { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); }P.western { font-family: \"Liberation Serif\",\"Times New Roman\",serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: \"Droid Sans\"; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: \"FreeSans\"; font-size: 12pt; }\n--><\/style>\n<p>On the 100th anniversary of the beginning of world war I (4\/8\/14) about 2000 Quakers and others associated with them were already gathered in Bath for <a href=\"http:\/\/quaker.org.uk\/epistle-2014\">Yearly Meeting Gathering.<\/a> One way in which we commemorated the day was an all age worship session in the big top.<\/p>\n<p>On each seat as we came in was a cut out paper white feather. <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/White_feather\">White feathers<\/a> were used during WWI to humiliate conscientious objectors and their families. The idea was that in our semi-programmed worship we would reclaim the symbol.<\/p>\n<p>As we sat in silent worship, it was suggested that on one side of the feather we write or draw our response to the question &#8216;what can you do to make the world a happy and peaceful place?&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>I wrote &#8216;Smile. Love. Greet my difficult neighbour. Listen. Share.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Then we were invited to turn the feather over and respond to the question &#8216;what does it means to be a peacemaker?&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>I wrote &#8216;Listening and hearing both\/all sides. Seek courage to speak out.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>At the end, we were invited to place our feathers in large buckets provided for the purpose (I hastily copied my responses into my notebook\/journal before handing my feather in).<\/p>\n<p>Some wonderful, behind the scenes, people, then displayed all the feathers in a huge white dove on the wall of the big top, where it stayed as a reminder for the rest of the week.<\/p>\n<p>It was a powerful exercise, yet accessible to all (some of the children were glad of the &#8216;wiggle room&#8217; where they drew and coloured on their feathers while free to move around on the floor).<\/p>\n<p>I think my response &#8216;seek courage to speak out&#8217; fed into the <a title=\"T is for Transformation\" href=\"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/?p=728\">transformation<\/a> that I wrote about recently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the 100th anniversary of the beginning of world war I (4\/8\/14) about 2000 Quakers and others associated with them were already gathered in Bath for Yearly Meeting Gathering. One way in which we commemorated the day was an all &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/?p=740\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=740"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":742,"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/740\/revisions\/742"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.stephanie-blog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}