New issue of The Canadian Friend & Submissions for the Next

Those who are subscribers to The Canadian Friend, our national journal, should have received a copy in the mail by now.

It is also available electronically:
The Canadian Friend – Spring 2019 (Print-friendly PDF)
The Canadian Friend – Spring 2019 (Screen-friendly PDF)
The Canadian Friend – Spring 2019 (Online Version)

This issue includes articles on early Quaker history, the poetry of prison visiting, news from around the Canadian Quaker family, and a lot more. You can see the full Table of Contents here.

Forms and information on Canadian Yearly Meeting 2019, our yearly gathering, also went out with the issue. This material is also available here:
CYM 2019 Brochure & Forms (Screen-friendly PDF)
CYM 2019 Brochure & Forms (Print-friendly PDF)

For even more information – a veritable cascade of it – on the Canadian Yearly Meeting 2019 gathering, you can visit its webpage:
Yearly Meeting in Session

Next Issue

The due date for the next issue is coming up soon! It is May 10, though extensions can occasionally be obtained by asking the editor nicely.   

Please submit articles between 500-1200 words long. Submissions on any topic of potential interest to Canadian Friends are welcome. (Unusual topics or word-lengths are possible, but best discussed with the editor before submitting).

Photos, artwork, and interesting quotations are also warmly welcomed as submissions.

Send submissions to The Canadian Friend‘s editor, Timothy Kitz, at or c/o CYM Office, 91A Fourth Ave., Ottawa, ON, Canada, K1S 2L1.

For inspiration, or to take a trip down memory lane, The Canadian Friend back issues are available online.  If your library is missing one, you can even download back issues and print them.

Subscriptions

All members and regular attenders of the Monthly Meetings of CYM are entitled to receive a copy of The Canadian Friend. Donations to defray costs of producing the magazine are gratefully welcomed.

The annual individual subscription rate for Canada is $20, $30 for US addresses, and for all other countries $40.

To be added to the subscription list of The Canadian Friend, contact the ">CYM Office.

Advertising

The Canadian Friend also accepts advertising! For rates and details, contact the editor (, again). Please note that and the committees and bodies of Canadian Yearly Meeting (CYM) do not pay for advertising in black and white.

Call for Submissions: June Issue of The Canadian Friend

We’re excited to be finalizing our current issue of The Canadian Friend.  The printing and mailing process starts this week!

The next issue is scheduled for June, and submissions are being accepted.

Theme: Polarization

The world seems to be getting more and more polarized – politically, economically, religiously, etc. The middle class is evaporating, while the 1% gets richer and the rest get poorer and more precarious.

Confidence in liberal democracy seems to be waning, leading to a revival of fascist and revolutionary leftist groups. Even our weather is swinging to extremes as climate change deepens.

How Can Quakers Respond to the World’s Polarization?

What do we make of polarization within Quakerism and Canadian Yearly Meeting (CYM) – between liberal, conservative, and evangelical Friends, for example? What does it mean that CYM has examined the idea of literally splitting through a simulation exercise? When CYM defines itself by taking particular positions on prison abolition, earthcare as a testimony, or Palestine-Israel, is this a constructive kind of polarization or separation from the norm – as opposed to a less-defined, all-embracing position?

Submissions Due April 9, 2018

Articles between 500-1000 words are welcome.  Suggestions and submissions for Gleanings & Quotations, photos, captions for our caption contest (coming soon in the latest issue), and interviews for Meet a Friend are also gratefully accepted – along with anything that might be of interest to Canadian Friends.

To take a trip down memory lane or seek inspiration, The Canadian Friend back issues are available online.  If your library is missing one, you can even download back issues and print them.

Submit

By email:

Or by postal mail:

c/o CYM Office, 91A Fourth Ave.,
Ottawa, ON, Canada, K1S 2L1

Subscriptions and Advertising

You can order a print subscription to The Canadian Friend by contacting the editor. The Canadian Friend also accepts advertising! Send camera-ready or clear, readable copy to the editor, by e-mail. For rates and details, contact the editor (, again).

Call for Submissions for The Canadian Friend Fall Issue: ‘Reflections on the Fallow Year’

Calling all Canadian Quakers to submit your artwork, articles, poetry, reflections, photography and news for the next edition of The Canadian Friend! The fall issue’s theme is ‘Reflections on the Fallow Year’.

Canadian Yearly Meeting (CYM) will not meet all together as a gathered community in 2017, choosing instead to have a “fallow year” from the annual CYM Gathering (CYM-in-session).

The decision was initially considered for financial reasons, but quickly took on deeper meaning: to take the opportunity for rest and renewal, to focus on nurturing community in its different forms, to explore new opportunities for Spiritual growth, to gain fresh perspective on our practices and ways of doing business:

“A fallow year does not mean an infertile or moribund one, but instead connotes rest and renewal. We can consider 2017 as a ‘sabbatical.’ From biblical times the idea of Sabbath, the seventh day, was a day set aside for the nurture of the soul, when the people were called from their own work to do God’s work on God’s day, which belongs to God. In working the land, the people were under obligation to obey this call in the same way for the fallow year – usually every seven years – which was also seen as a Divine message that the land should rest, ploughed and harrowed, but not planted.” (CYM Continuing Meeting of Ministry and Council)

The Fall 2017 issue of The Canadian Friend invites you to share your reflections on the fallow year, and the spiritual practice of taking time set aside for rest and reconnection:

  • What can we as the Canadian Yearly Meeting community of faith learn from our fallow year?
  • Have you ever taken an intentional period of time set aside from daily life for the purpose of renewal – a sabbatical, retreat, or break due to burn-out? What was your experience, and what new insights did you gain?
  • What is your experience of community among Canadian Quakers, and what has this meant to you? Have you had a new or particular experience of community during this past year?
  • What can the Biblical practice of taking time for Sabbath, for sabbatical, or to lay fallow teach us today?
  • Have you had a new experience or discerned new awareness as a result of CYM’s fallow year?

Deadline for submissions is September 25th (note the revised deadline).

All submissions are welcome. (Don’t forget visual content!) Send your contribution to: .