Conflict in Meetings

Recently I was asked by someone on my Yearly Meetings Faith and Practice committee for suggestions for a new section they are writing on Conflict in Meeting which prompted this blog.

The first thing I think is to realize that many Friends come to us from other traditions and are attracted to our reputation as peacemakers.  I think there is a hope that this means no conflict.  We must surrender our pretense about this.  We have as many conflicts as any other group!  Conflicts happen because people have different needs or point of view. Conflicts happen because there are difficult personalities or personality combinations in any group of people.  Conflicts happen because we have an opportunity for change that we maybe trying to avoid.

For many Meetings the most important thing would be to start to recognize the conflict amidst us.  This means that when someone disappears we do not assume they are busy, or have changed their minds about our Meeting.  We need to have a practice of M&O, Oversite, or Pastoral Care (depending upon what you call this in your meeting) – keeping track of people and doing a friendly check in if someone has disappeared.

It also means that when something is bothering us in Meeting, rather than gritting our teeth and assuming “they” will handle it, and why aren’t “they”  (who is they?) that we decide what committee should be addressing the issue and go speak to the committee stating clearly what our concern is and what if anything we see as a way forward on the issue.

It means that as a community we need to reclaim what eldering is suppose to be about, nurturing people in faith and holding them accountable lovingly if they are behaving in unQuakerly ways.  For example if someone is starting to make people in meeting uncomfortable with their behavior that we speak to them stating clearly what the behavior is and how it effects people rather than hoping the problem will just stop and waiting till a bigger crisis arrives when they upset someone who then also acts inappropriately.

It means that when there is a “difficult” personality in the Meeting, that the committees which are affected need to talk about how to respond lovingly.  This may mean setting clear boundaries for the person, consistent feedback, support so they can observe requirements of the meeting, mediating between them and other Friends they have upset, or naming clearly to community what the problem is.  The committee handling it needs to consider whether there is a mental health issue at hand.  Ignoring this question often leaves the committee under prepared and misguided in their approach.  If it is a mental health issue, consulting with a mental health professional, and tailoring an appropriate response will be more effective and ultimately more loving.

Some examples of this:  One Meeting had a man who was schizophrenic who came and would regularly stand and give long delusional paranoid rambling messages.  Pastoral care first gave him guidelines for appropriate speaking in Meeting.  When he was not able to observe these guidelines, they told him that some of them would meet with him each Sunday in the library for worship until he could observe boundaries.  He came to the library a couple of times and then chose not to attend anymore.

Another Meeting had two people who were very provoked by each other and often responded to each others messages, “arguing” in their responses.  M&W met with each separately reminding them of the ground rule of not responding to each other in Meeting for Worship.  When this did not work they convened a meeting with both present to discuss the problem and their reactions to each other.  While this was not wholly successful either, it is an example of engaging the problem rather than avoiding it.

In a third example a person regularly had “tantrums” during business Meeting – nothing was done, awkward silence followed month after month.  More and more members started leaving the Business Meeting and also the Meeting as a whole.  This is an example of not handling the conflict and the price that is paid.

Sometimes a difficult issue may cause huge conflict over a period of time in business Meeting and when the issue is finally resolved or laid down, there are still hurt feelings and disturbed relations within the Meeting.  Again best to address this directly, sometimes M&O can facilitate healing dialogues with parties especially estranged.  Another practice used successfully by many Meetings is holding a “Meeting for Worship for Healing” after the conflict ends.  Someone reads a brief statement of what has occurred that has left wounds and then the hour is give to worship for healing.  Remarkable messages and forgiveness can arise out of such Meetings for Worship.

I want to recognize also that conflict is different in Meetings of different sizes.  In very large Meetings often things can fall between the cracks because not everyone is even aware of a problem, it is often unclear what committee should address it, etc.  In more medium size ones members maybe stressed with other Meeting demands and find it hard to marshal time and energy around conflicts.  But in small worship groups or Meetings conflict can be really deadly.  There is no “neutral committee” because everyone is involved in some way.  Conflict can threaten to have people leave and this can than threaten the very survival of the group itself.  Those who contribute more to the Meeting, whether energy or money, maybe attended to more than others, etc.   So in small Meetings it becomes especially important to figure out how to pull in outside resources.

Seeking outside resources may mean inviting someone from M&O of Quarterly or Yearly Meeting, or a FGC traveling ministry Friend, or even sometimes inviting speakers or outside Quaker visitors can break up the dynamic and bring new ideas, points of view, etc.  It may mean knowing social service resources available in the community.  In general I think a Meeting has to view realistically the energy and people available within the Meeting and figure out when to pull in outside resources or when they maybe more appropriate.  For example a couple having problems in the Meeting may better be served by a referral to couple’s counseling than by a clearness committee trying to work with issues beyond their skill level.

The Chinese character for conflict also contains the character for opportunity. Perhaps if we approach conflicts in Meeting this way we can also reap its benefits.  Just as we experience in consensus decision making that by listening more deeply to each other we can sometimes to come to more eloquent and complete responses.

Birds of Many Feathers

Benigno Sanchez-Eppler spoke as the Friend in residence at NPYM.  One of the things he shared with us about is both the evolutionary path of salamanders as they went from the south end of the desert in California around both sides and meeting again at the top, and also a certain song bird in the Gobi desert also evolving around both sides and meeting again at the top.  He explains the salamanders change a little in each range while containing outliers in each range like salamanders from the other groups.  But by the time the two groups again meet at the top of the dessert they are too different in their internal structure to mate.  With the song birds he says he finds most tragic that "they do not recognize each others love songs."  He says that scientists however cannot categorize them as separate species because they share the common ancestor and are still genetically far more similar to dissimilar.  (My daughter tells me that scientifically they would be different species but the same genotype.)

While Benigno does not directly compare these creatures to the Society of Friends, the parrells are fairly strongly apparent.  All branches of the Society of Friends claim George Fox as their founder and are influenced and inspired by his life and words in different ways.  And it is also true that for the most part we are no longer able to comfortably worship together.  There are outliers in each branch that look more like and might more comfortably fit in other branch.  There are Quakers that have moved from one branch to the other.  And yet if we were to try to merge back together eliminating the splits- there are differences so great that a great violence would be done - alienating or destroying many of the flock"  of each branch along the way.

However, Benigno points out by the diversification and adaptation of each group "they cover a lot more territory" and the cross mating by the most closely related groups strengthens both groups.  I feel a sigh of relief and contentment at this.  Yes I am happy that Quakerism took an adaptation that allowed it to reach millions in Africa, and that it took forms that allowed it to survive in revivalist corn-belt communities, etc.  I am glad that there are "birds" like me across the world who hold up ideals of non-violence, simplicity and equality and integrity.  I don't need them to be just like me or worship like me, nor do I wish to be just like them.  Some life long feeling that we are out of integrity with our own peace testimony because we cannot heal our own splits, melts in me.  I feel my whole body relax.  Maybe we can just appreciate the diversity with which Friends show up in the world and breadth and depth of our reach upon the planet!

Balance and Spaces

The worship sharing I sat in asked us queries about our relationships: family, friends, work, community, nature, self, spirit, etc.  and if our relationships were in balance.  As friends shared it became apparent that balance wax and wanes in life with both predictable and unpredictable events: the birth of triplets, the loss of a job, a sudden health situation, changes for others in our life.  Some events allow us to grow in areas of our lives, others complicate things.  We ebb and we flow.

Later one man spoke of the role of grief in our process and spoke about grieving for some trees lost out of his yard after a storm.  I thought of trees that were cut out the 2nd Growth grove of trees around my Meeting when we did our remodel and also one big one that just fell in a windstorm.  The man commented that when trees leave they leave a space for light to come through.  That I thought was an interesting way to think about it.  At our Meeting when the tree fell some member asked if the "other trees had noticed" (and in fact grove trees our connected by their roots.  The sense then was of a space left that was grieved by the other trees, but now his comment suggested to me that with a new space, a place for light to come what also is now possible? 

I realized there are always little seedlings working year by year on becoming bigger trees, but we tend to ignore them because they seem so small and relatively insignificant compared to the bigger trees.  I realized though with more light they would grow more quickly.   We would notice the loss of the big trees and worry that there were "less" and "cannot be replaced", have a scarcity thought.  But in fact their replacement is already on its way and in the seasons of the woods there are always big trees and medium trees and small trees - in balance (unless messed with by humans.)   This Quarterly the adults were all pleased that half our attenders were children.  Long I have worried about the big gap of Quakers in their 40's, but somehow despite this....the children are now coming.  The promise of possibility is always there.

And so in our lives also where things maybe off balance and we cannot anticipate the next thing, the next change or the next possibility or the next lost.  Somehow it all does flow exactly as it needs to.

Membership in the Society of Friends

The April issue of Friend's Journal raises a number of interesting issues about membership.  One being the peculiar habit Friends have of identifying through their membership in a Meeting (specific Congregation), a trait not found in other denominations.  It also asks us to look at whether this emphasis on membership also makes some (especially young adults not yet able to put down roots) feel unwelcome or like second class citizens.  These are good questions.  Too some degree the concept of membership is one that belongs heavily to another time and place.

However, I think, that like other things, in a heavily secular world we begin to forget the religious reasons for membership.  Early Friends believed deeply in an accountability to the fellowship which was held in a Meeting and a group of people. Quakers had rejected both a Pope or clerical hierarchy as the source of Truth and even said the Bible was not the primary source of truth (but A source of Truth), but rather that Truth was to be found experientially.  After the James Naylor incident, it became clear to Friends that there had to be some sort of check and balance on the truth that was found individually - that it had to be tested and held accountable to the collective wisdom or Truth of the fellowship.  Thus membership in a Meeting became the group which would discern with a member all of the most important decisions of a lifetime: to marry, to pursue a specific career or a call to ministry or activism.

Fast forward 350 years to the United States where the entire population is highly mobile - usually living in many locations during a lifetime - and where young adults are the most transit of all and our current way of doing membership does not fit particularly well.  I personally favor moving to allowing young adults to place their membership in their Yearly Meeting until they feel rooted enough in one place to move it to a specific Monthly Meeting.   I was raised a Friend and so went off to college with my membership sitting in the Meeting I grew up in.  I knew it did not make sense to transfer it while I was in college (often to tired to even get to Meeting on Sunday.)  And in my twenties and early 30s, post college I lived in 6 locations before I settled.  I then moved to Seattle which has 4 Meetings and worship groups.  For one reason or another I was in each of them before I finally knew I was home at the 4th one.  By then I was 36!  In other words it was a long journey, yet I had the convenience of having my membership sit in my patient Meeting I grew up with, while being able to list where I was sojourning at the time.  What if I had not already had a membership somewhere?

It makes more sense to me that we hold young Friends membership in their Yearly Meeting than go the direction that some would suggest of simply discarding the idea of membership.  They could pay theirannual fee directly into the Yearly Meeting.   Although of course there is the practical reality that Meeting Houses cost money and that membership is a shared agreement to shoulder together the costs of our collective existence.

For those who come to Quakerism from another faith I think our approach to membership is somewhat puzzling.  For many churches becoming a member is not any more significant than signing up for a book group.  We however, hold a clearness committee for potential members and report back to Business Meeting whether we feel clear to accept the person into membership.  For many this is an intimidating process.  I recall in my Meeting growing up a long time attender who never applied for membership out of concern that her husband's employment for a major arms manufacturer might "disqualify" her  - she was never talked out of this concern because there were indeed members of Meeting who felt they would not be clear to accept her under that circumstance.   Is membership as value free as taking out a library card?  Or does it stand for a set of values?  This I think is something we must continue to grapple with and not ignore.  I also recall someone in my Yearly Meeting not applying for membership because they felt they were not "good enough" morally pure enough.  That seemed tragic to me.

For those older attenders who are ambivalent about membership - unclear what's its purpose or benefits might be, I would offer the following:  Some of us look for the perfect Meeting waiting to apply for membership till we find that Meeting- like some singles on the dating scene that will be an eternal wait - there are no perfect mates or Meetings!  In fact I think it is very helpful to think of membership sort of like a marriage - it is a two way commitment.  At its best it brings great gifts and fulfillment, at its worst it can be a lot of work and sometimes painful.  However, like a marriage when we find it not wholly satisfying or lacking in someway it is time to work at improving it, rather than treating it like we are spectators of a sporting event, uninvolved in the outcome.  Like a marriage we may also be asked of in ways that stretch us and lead to growth.

Both as a place of accountability and as a place of spiritual work and growth, I think the spiritual aspects of membership are compelling and not to be cast aside as some sort of old fashion idea.  We need to not confuse it with membership in a more secular group like a social club, or membership where memberships either help define social status or identity.  That is not I think what "the society of Friends" is about, or what membership means in this case.

Of Holy Obedience and the River of God

In the fall of 1980 Ronald Reagan was elected President and in Jan. 1981, as a student on office campus study in D.C., I watched his administration come to town.  Thousands of Republicans swooping down on the city, with special hats and buttons, celebrating that “happy days” were coming again.  I watched in horror and shock as the streets were taken over on inauguration day by the military, including tanks, and it felt like a coup de tat. This was followed quickly by an avalanche of legislation to cut social services and the safety net of the poor, and his new budget came out proposing cuts that would take services back a decade or more.

The Community for Creative Non-Violence, a Catholic Worker house that served the poor in Washington, DC called for national days of actions, people getting arrested for days at the White House to protest these cuts.  I felt drawn to this action, but also nervous about the idea of getting arrested having never done civil disobedience.  I was leaving town soon and was mainly concerned about possibly needing to come back to town to attend court.

As part of wrapping up my stay in D.C., I did something I had intended to do for all the months I had been there: visit the Smithsonian Museum of History.  A friend dropped out the day we were to go, so I went alone.  I went through an inspiring exhibit documenting political protests in the US of many eras.  But then I went through an exhibit I will call “This American Life” although I don’t know what it was really called.  It started with a panorama of Native American images, then of life in the colonies, and on decade by decade showing the dust bowl, the great depression, many wars, etc.  Each a room of a home – some desperately poor some modestly middle class, some even opulent.  Slowly technology enters in and transforms.  My journey through it felt like a deeply mystical experience.  At the very end was a bench which I sat on for about 10 minutes aware that I was deeply centered as if in Meeting for Worship, aware of what I have come to call “the River of God”- the deep, eternal journey of humanity across all recorded history.  Of how people have always struggled for survival, for dreams, for a better life for their children, against wrongs real or imagined, and slowly, but surely eeked out a better world even while creating our next set of problems.

In that quiet on that bench I knew with absolute clarity that I would indeed participate the next day in the civil disobedience, that I was part of this eternal chain of humanity struggling for a better future.  I knew I was also part of the chain of protesters who had won the safety net for less advantaged and that it was now my turn to help protect it.

The next day I took public transit to the CCNV house, and met an affinity group from Buffalo who welcomed me into their group to be arrested.  Mitch Snyder drove of us in a Volkswagen bus over to the White House to wait in the tour line, because like a weeks worth of protestors before me, we were to go through and pick a place to sit down and be arrested.  Our group had decided to go all the way through and come out onto the lawn to be arrested.  To our surprise the Secret Service responsible for security at the White House, stood beside us (and no one else in the group) moving with us through the tour.  Clearly they had followed up from the CCNV house and knew who today’s arrestees were to be and were poised to pounce before we would “disrupt” people’s tourist experience of the White House.  I started to feel in this cat and mouse game like I was playing the game Clue:  “Will it be in the parlor with Mrs. White, or in pantry with Professsor Green?”   I think however by the time we got out the front door they thought we had lost our nerve and wandered off briefly, only to come rushing back when we veered onto the lawn against posted rules.

As we sat down in a circle on the lawn I quickly found myself in deep and centered prayer, with a sense of White Light all around me, really in one of the most holiest of moments in my life.   Faintly behind me as if coming from some other reality I could hear the voice of one of the secret service reading the rule against being on the lawn and warning us that if we did not leave within 5 minutes we would be arrested.  I almost laughed out loud because it seemed so funny to me that in this deep place of Holy Obedience that I found myself that this mere mortal thought he had the authority to move me from the place I was so anchored.

We were arrested, held for a few hours and released to our own recognizance, and a week later at our trial plead nolo-contender (meaning I do not admit guilt but do not contest the truth of the charges.)  We were given suspended sentences and sent on our way.

Today almost 30 years later as I study the economic crash of 2008, and the slow destruction of the middle class that has taken place over that time, of the ever widening inequality gap in this country between the rich and the poor and the very deliberate strategy on the part of the Koch brothers and other members of the most rich elite of this country carried out over those thirty years, I see that indeed that moment in time was a turning point.  I am once again convinced that Spirit led me to just the right spot and the right moment on the White House Lawn.

As we face Climate Change we are again at just such a pivotal time and some of us will again need to heed our place in the chain of protestors who have acted to protect life, and we will again need to find where
spirit would have us sit or act to say No to destruction.

Question: A poem

Why do we travel down wrong turns and dead ends?

Why does that path look different than it is?

Why do we see things through our own projective lens?

Why is reality different than vision?

Why do shared values manifest so differently?

Why do people hurt each other even while never intending to?

How can this be when all of us share the longing for love?  The dream of a better world?

  have always wanted it different, better for our children?

How can those shared aspirations wind up using different words?

   words which then separate?

How can the wish for unity and goodness get manifested in blue states and red states       

   (and minorities within each of those?)

How did we loose our way while trying to find each other?

Couldn’t it surely, somehow be that we will find each other even so?

Shouldn’t the arc of the universe bend towards cooperation, growth, unity, coming together, building, making it better? 

Maybe really that is the truth hidden in the current wars, is less wars than ever before?

Maybe that is the truth hidden in domestic violence, is less dv than ever before?

Oh Dear, not less starvation than ever before?

But more technology than ever before (created to solve problems and make things better)

Here we are all somewhere: tying a shoe, waiting for a bus, a little older than last year, settling about some things and striving around other things.

somehow picking out what we think should be important.

I want to die knowing I did what my soul came here to do.

My real grief is for our collective lost possibilities.

Do you want to know what I really think?

Do you also long for the earth healed?

Do you want to join the revolution?

Do you hear the voice of spirit? Of the Old ones? Of the Young ones?  Calling us?

Thinking as a Community

In Systems Theory if one starts at the level of a particle, to an atom, to a cell, to an organ, to a body, we reach the level we exist at- the level of the individual.  But from there it goes on to the community, the ecosystem, the bioregion, the nation, the continent, the earth, the solar system and the universe.  Systems Theory also states that each level is a holon- made up of the parts and yet more than the parts, and itself part of a larger system.  Evolutionary shifts or paradigm shifts occur when something changes from one level to the next.  

Therefore, it is useful to notice that we exist at the level of the individual and that is the level at which we do our thinking.   We think most of the time about ourselves and our needs and goals - sometimes we think about other individuals: our families, or members of groups we belong to, occasionally about our country or the planet.  But usually even when we do this we are thinking about how we are effected by those beings or what we want for those beings.  It is very rare for us to think collectively - to consider our decisions from the point of view of how they effects others on the other side the planet or generations to come.  And yet this sort of thinking is evolutionarily the next step for life on earth, and as we face crises like climate change and peak oil it is increasingly apparent that such thinking is critical for our very survival.

As a lifelong Quaker I realize that I have always existed in at least one context: my Friends Meeting where this sort of thinking on the community level is inherent.  Every business meeting run by consensus is a practice in thinking collectively, not individualistically.   I can be thankful for the practice I have at that, but it was a recent aha to realize how many of my fellow citizens have never had that experience.

Like most Americans I have grown up believing that I live in a Democracy. Recently I went to see the movie: Direct Democracy.  This movie shows among other things the experience of the people of Argentina when their government fell apart due to economic collapse.  People in rural areas got together in town meetings and discussed what they needed, from roads to irrigation improvement, etc.  The government had some funds for each regional area, but no means to govern or administer the funds; so they allowed the town halls to decide what they needed the money spent on and the would send them the money. 

The movie showed some of these direct democracy experiences of people arguing their cases to each other and then voting.  The movie also showed how after months of this if someone had come every month with a proposal, but did not get it passed because there were less people living in that neighborhood to support it, that eventually the whole group would vote yes on it out of a feeling that "it is their turn".  This is truly thinking as a group consciousness that I cannot imagine Congress every achieving.

While the people there’s experience started with direct budgeting, many workers also took over the abandoned factories left by their financially ruined "owners" and ran them as worker owned collectives making all the decisions for the business together.  In some of the scenes of town halls and worker collectives, the energy and excitement, and creativity is almost palpable to the audience!  There is an energy that is released when people have power over there lives that has been blocked by centuries of patriarchy, hierarchy, and capitalist power down models. 

I remember for years (especially during the Bush years) meeting with progressive groups who desperately wanted change. After complaining about what we did not like, the groups seemed at a complete poverty of ideas about what to do that would bring about change.  Mostly people could only think of writing to Congress which then evoked feelings of hopelessness in many in the group.  I could not understand why even group who saw Congress as completely broken, made up bought politicians could only think of this as an avenue for change.   After watching the movie it is now clear to me why.  

Most people have no experience of direct democracy.  They have no experiences in their lives of belonging to a group that has brought about any type of change.  They have no experience of influencing a group decision or taking charge of a situation and making it different.   Quaker's call ourselves a peculiar people because of our very different style of worship, but I realized after watching this movie that we have another unique experience - that of direct democracy where every one of our voices count and where everyone of us equally runs our Friends Meeting.   Perhaps this also explains 350 years of our feeling the audacity to think we can change our country if it needs it.

I have decided that the most radical question I can ask people these days is:  "What communities do you belong to?"  And to try to encourage and create experiences around me where people experience thinking as part of a group.  And I am extremely thankful for the way Quakerism has formed deeply in me the knowledge that humans can function as a collective body.