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.
