Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Friends and Conflict


It may not surprise you to hear me say Quakers are not good at conflict!  I believe this is because our reputation as “Peacemakers” and “Peaceful People” have attracted many who dislike conflict and may erroneously believe that belong to a Friends Meeting means the absence of conflict.  I think overall Friends do not have good conflict skills.   Part of this has to do with some aspects of our Faith and Practice that do not seem to actually help conflict resolution practices.
1)      The underlying assumption of Quaker business practice is that we will listen for God’s will and follow it and that is how decisions will be made.   The problem is that too many of us are not doing that but instead following secular business practice of listening to our own thinking and then trying to persuade or push others to follow that thinking.
2)      We are supposed to trust the work of our committees and generally accept their work as it is brought to Business Meeting.  Two problems here: 1) are our committee really doing the work and also listening for divine guidance   and 2) if they have our we trusting the process and their work?
3)      The general advice for conduct in Meeting for Worship for Business is that we listen worshipfully to what others say and only speak if lead.   This means that it is not considered appropriate to do “rebuttals” of what others have said, or to speak repeatedly. 
4)      This particularly presents a problem if people say things in Meeting for Worship that are untrue.  This leaves no good way to address misinformation since it places one into a position of “rebuttal of a previous speaker”.
5)      It is common in our committee structure that some committees may have confidential information about the situations of some members or about issues creating conflict in the Meeting.  The fact that everyone does not have the same information creates problems for the clearing of conflict.
6)      In other kinds of group conflicts created by people living with mental health problems or very difficult personalities are usually handled by people higher up in a hierarchal structure taking some kind of action to reign in their behavior.   We live most of our lives in these other structure and thus when in Friends Meeting seem to look around for the ‘adult in the room” when someone is misbehaving rather than speaking out about it (as our eldering tradition would suggest.)
7)      Good conflict resolution practice suggests that we listen to each other, reflect what we have heard for accuracy and then look for common ground and ways to address each others concerns.   While sense of the Meeting also seeks to hear all of us and look for a common way to address our concerns – when individual members become upset with each other because of what is said in business meeting our practice does not allow for that direct immediacy that might cool and calm the conflict.
8)      Good conflict resolution practice also suggests that we have boundaries and that when those are violated that we protect or reassert our boundaries.  Because we have a non-dogmatic faith it asserts for less things as absolutes or truths than most religions – and even those it does: non, violence, equality, integrity, etc it does not tell us what to do when someone violates those cherished beliefs.  Some thing about our stance as a non-dogmatic seeking faith, or the lack of hierarchy seems to make us very reluctant or slow to say no, to defend our community agreements and our shared practices when they are violated.
9)      A time honored practice among all humans who hate conflict is to simply avoid it.  So as the conflict rages on more people stay away from Meeting or Meeting for business.   We hope that someone else will solve it.   But who will that be?  We govern as a group.

So what’s a Quaker to do?  I don’t want this article to simply be a catalogue of Quaker shortcomings when it comes to conflict.  As best I can see it here are our ways out and forward as they related to the numbered problems above.
1)       Return to the true practice of Meeting for Worship for business.  Educate our whole group about worship grounded God directed decision making.  The clerk must be diligent and careful in who is called in and when silence is called for and in reminding of the group of what we are doing.
2)      This educating about the true guidance behind our work must extend to our committees there must not be committee reports brought to the floor that all members of the committee are not in consent of.  We must nominate committee clerks that will conduct committees with consensus and members who are willing to operate from that basis. Then we must remind each other on the floor of business meeting that we are not there to redo their work on the floor of business meeting.  We must trust our committees and the nominating process that created them.
3)      If the clerk does not call on people who are making rebuttals or are speaking too often this helps to eliminate such behavior in Meeting for Worship for business.   We must also check ourselves before we speak.  Out of what spirit are we speaking.
4)      I am baffled about this one frankly.   I would hope that if we are listening for the word of God someone would be given words of truth to speak next that are not a rebuttal but in my own efforts to not engage in rebuttal I have remained silent after things have been said that I know to be untrue.
5)      I think committees do have to consider carefully what information they release, when and for what purpose.  I think in general it is good to keep the whole body as informed as does not violate the privacy or vulnerabilities of some of our members.
6)      This is a very challenging area for Friends and I think Friends are both compassionate but also generally aware of what they don’t know when it comes to people with mental health problems.  We either need to get outside advice from mental health professionals or simply insist on normal boundaries that we ask of others.   We do not do folks with mental illness favors by treating them differently than others, allowing them to break norms and boundaries and accrue resentments from the body.  We have to stop looking for “someone else” to handle it.  We must each think clearly about what makes sense to say and do and know we are the adult in the room.
7)      My Meeting recently passed a conflict resolution minute affirming out intention for interpersonal conflicts to be addressed and not be allowed to fester and poison the communal waters for all.  It identified a list of trained mediators and asked folks to first try to talk directly with those they have conflict with and if they cannot or if that did not to use this list of mediators for help talking with the other person.   I would suggest that unresolved interpersonal conflict is a key ingredient in Meeting Conflicts and that we need to create more of these one on one dialogues intended to use best conflict resolution practice (also so described in the Bible) to address the conflict.
8)      Quakers need to get MUCH clearer about our collective boundaries.  I have often joked that it might take someone practicing animal sacrifice in the middle of the Meetinghouse floor before we would rise up and say no.  Even then some Friends would be looking around to see that someone else besides themselves would speak.  It would help if individual committees got clear about behaviors that are and are not acceptable within their area of attention.  (Could the property committee be clear that we do not allow practices that damage the building.  Could worship and ministry be clear that we do not allow other forms of worship to occur during our worship?   Would either of those boundary clarifications empower someone to say no to the animal sacrifice example?)  This is where we need to return to our eldering practices – if we could speak early and lovingly to those who we feel are engaging behavior that is disruptive to the community we could resolve many things.  This is your sacred community – if you won’t speak for it then how will it remain sacred?
9)      Well as already alluded to above.  If you want the sacred community you will have to stop avoiding the conflict and stand for the faith and practices you want.

For those readers who have been paying attention….yes it has been two months since I posted.  The conflict in my Meeting has been wearing me down.   It has real costs when Friends abdicate their part in working on the problems in our Meetings.   I pray we can all tune up regarding conflict.   There is hidden in it the silver lining of the chance to find and reassert our true values, return to our real practices, and come to new agreements with each other that serve us better.