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Sharon Fitzpatrick Religious Society of Friends
Sharon Fitzpatrick Religious Society of Friends
ic086t1Suuptun3f1s4reht ·
220325
When I last posted here, I had not yet read response from SEYM regarding my email about plans to register for annual gathering and reason for my participation.
In the aftermath of that post, while searching for some of the email evidence of my claims, the reply was opened.
Representative for SEYM claimed that faith and practice are just guidelines, not “rules.” Therefore, in his rationale, there is no such thing as a violation to faith and practice.
Let’s look at that theory. In April 2014, I was escorted, without notice, into the office of Sarasota Monthly Meeting by clerk of M&W and a member of Nominating committee. They read to me from a script that was commandeering my right to refer to the past at all if I wished to remain on P&SC. I was not given a copy of what both other members had in hand at any point and I was NOT answered about the status of this event being eldering or not. I excused myself, admittedly livid, to P&SC, as it had begun and agenda items were my responsibility for an upcoming speaker I had arranged.
The reason they were doing this: SMM had been functioning without any copy of the Minutes from Business Meeting from 2001-2007 and sporadic months for the following several years were also missing, but SMM had not disclosed that to anyone except the clique keeping it quiet. I had been calling for review of Minutes, since October, placing the few aware of their missing status in a quandary. They had tried to solve that quandary by defining my calls for review as too adamant or not cheerful enough, but I had continued to persist. So these 2 members, against the wishes of Clerk, designed an attempt to coerce.
They tried to use my intense commitment to peace and environment to force me to relinquish the access to Truth and override my duty to bear witness!
I did not know about the missing minutes during that psychological abuse session, but I knew the situation antithesis of testimonies.
I learned of the missing status after hosting the event on solar power because Clerk of SMM called me on telephone to tell me the “real reason” my calls for review were not honored. He lied during the call by saying, “everyone” when I asked who knew. He followed up with an email list of which were missing. The email was signed with address of SMM and his role as Clerk, but it was summer, when SMM suspends Business meeting.
By the rationale of SEYM rep, this is not a violation of faith and practice. There is no “rule” against a Meeting hiding Truth and attempting to coerce someone into accepting their lies.
By his rationale, the clerk of M&W could have held me down while the nominating member slapped and kicked me. There is no rule about not physically harming someone, just a guideline.
Outreach is an ongoing process among this religion. If it is not represented as “anything goes” because there are no “rules,” then it is dishonest OR the society needs to create means for actions NOT consistent with testimonies or faith and practice to be addressed.
That April incident in the office was the worst abuse I have suffered, though I have D.I.D. from severe abuse and neglect as a child.
Why? Because it was done in the name of God and by choice of those who were my equals as members in the same church, but acting as oppressors. They wished to suppress the Truth and characterize the fact that I spoke Truth as having caused conflict, when I had not.
I signed the email to SEYM with Sharon, but the reply was to “Ms. Fitzpatrick,” and dissuaded me from bothering them with my petty concerns about having been treated in manners against which there are no “rules.”
This is one example of what I refer as abuse and I am not going away, as I have said I won’t, until this religion deals with the lack of accountability when a church within it abuses someone.
Or dead.
I have a deadline for an art show and a playwriting contest that have delayed my ability to specify here further. I am not making claims about abuse from a perspective biased against anyone. I am claiming what it true and I am tenacious not just for the CLARITY I deserve regarding my actions, but in order to inhibit the chances of this happening to others.
Sharon FitzpatrickReligious Society of Friends
t31989 oM9arcfh at 6503u:148 ·
220319
Anyone familiar with Quaker process can provide an answer for the options of a Meeting in dealing with an individual perceived as disruptive to the life of the Meeting. The answer is Clearness Committee or eldering, depending on the circumstances.
If this same individual familiar with Quaker process heard of a former member of Religious Society of Friends arriving at one of the churches in FGC for the regular Meeting for Worship being met with a plan for a scout to alert others such that doors could be locked from the inside, volunteers emerge to stand in front of those locked doors, and the Clerk to call the police to have the locked-out individual trespassed off property by police, there is no way to characterize the SECRET plan as Quaker process.
It might be presumed that process had been followed prior to the secret plan, but there is no way to justify not communicating with an individual that they are not welcome at a worship service or in a Meeting.
The assumptions and claims that process was followed prior to me being locked out in such a humiliation campaign on Palm Sunday by Sarasota Monthly Meeting are untrue.
When SMM laid down my membership without contacting me and without presenting it to Business Meeting prior to sending the letter, it refused to review or discuss the matter. They claimed it was how they were doing it for me and would not admit the truth that faith and practice had not been followed. SEYM claimed they had no oversight and I was told SMM “could do whatever it wants.”
Protests I said I would stage were ridiculed, but otherwise ignored. In January 2017, I contacted a Trustee who was a Quaker historian and forced SMM to arrange a Clearness Committee to examine the mistreatment I have endured.
Several calls with M&W clarified the topics and a time was arranged in early March. When the Clearness commenced, one of the members of committee tried to stop it because she said this was not the proper way to address. She was culpable in more than one of the abuses. I had been dealing with abuse and defamation since 2010, and categorically ignored in attempts to resolve, so I was unwilling to disburse. The 2 hour gathering culminated in a decision to form a Committee of Concern, with objective parties, to look at my grievances. I promised to be patient in the process, but the impending death of a member of SMM with whom I was close influenced my insistence the matters be cleared and record set straight.
There were reasons I was not willing to have my credibility questioned in the context of Mary Elmendorf’s death. This clique has been undermining my credibility with false accusations, hearsay, impertinent information, and even an unauthorized, inaccurate diagnosis from a psychiatrist among them who had never examined me. I asked her for guidance in deterring autism status, which had since been confirmed, and the psychiatrist instead spread her opinion about my mental illness among those who used it against me. I do not have Borderline Personality Disorder; I have Dissociative Identity Disorder. In either case, I am not to be rejected and defamed for something that I did not cause and was not causing problems for others.
In August 2017, i contacted SMM about the status of this Committee of Concern and the acting-Clerk pretended that he had no idea what I was referring. He described the March gathering as just a few people informally gathering because of concern for me.
The Clerk of SMM then shamed me to the family of Mary Elmendorf such that I had to attend the memorial service as a “problem.” SMM had failed to provide any pastoral care in 2014 when Mary was making her final move to a single room. Mary would not allow me to ask for help from SMM, of which we were both members at the time, because “they didn’t offer.” I individually spent at least 60 unpaid hours cleaning out her apartment. Yet, I was shamed by the Clerk to the family of the late icon.
Having been addressed with this “always welcome” final communication in writing from SMM, I attended Meeting for Worship at some point after the memorial. I rose to speak, though my abusers seemed agitated that I had arrived and sat in their midst, and I was rushed by Clerk and M&W Clerk, who were yelling as I spoke. M&W Clerk yelled, “this is not vocal ministry” because I was telling the truth about the 2 instances of Mary saying “because they didn’t offer.” One person, a former Clerk, argued, “How could we have helped if we didn’t know she needed it?” Answer to that question is adequate pastoral care. They knew she was moving because she and I both said so and arranged for individuals to select books and other items they might wish to have.
This instance—when others leapt up and yelled as I spoke—is deemed as me “hijacking” by SMM. An individual sharing about the poor pastoral care and how she was mistreated due to that negligence was seen as something they had the right to suppress.
This is not Quaker process.
They had reneged on following process, as the March 2017 gathering was both claimed to have been Clearness and also not, plus they had failed to do as committed and were lying about it.
The next time I attended Meeting for Worship, the same thing occurred. I rose to speak and there were nods and smiles until I began to speak about how I had been abused and SMM was covering it up. I was rushed, touched AGAIN, and others continued to have outbursts AT me after I settled in seat again. I was ridiculed with words and then subjected to an argument by someone who had had such an outburst and then stood in front of my truck as I tried to leave. She, a birthright I had never met, screamed at me that “there is no that-of-God in you” and claimed to be qualified to determine that I belong of medication for mental illness. She had been claiming the proof I was crazy is the fact that I kept showing up when they made it clear my presence was unwelcome.
When I joined SMM, it was in context of having a problem with self harm that I had never resolved or identified the cause. No one in that process said, “well, you know, if some of us start to stigmatize you for having some mental illness indicators, you are going to have to accept that you are not an equal. We will treat you with violence, convoluted by denial of false nature.”
After these 2 instances of being rushed during Worship, I was not contacted about another Clearness or an eldering. I was not contacted to be told I was not welcome.
SMM formed an ad hoc Committee to create this plan to lock me out and have my right to step foot on property revoked. The reason? Suppression of the proof they have mistreated me.
On Palm Sunday 2022, I will be challenging this trespass order. It is a result of SMM abusing me and denying it, which are contrary to this religion. I have never been charged with a crime other than related to driving motor vehicles. Should I be attested for trespassing, it will be the first and I will use this to substantiate the claim of discrimination based on mental illness.
Saying that I am a “problem” when I have not taken a single action contrary to testimonies or faith and practice is defamation. Continuing to claim that I am at fault, in order to deny own behavior, is slander.
Many have insisted that I must let this go and pretend it didn’t happen for my own health. This is foisting a standard other than Truth onto me and relegating the shame campaign against me as valid.
It is my intention to attend SEYM’s annual gathering April 13-17. (Mary Elmendorf’s birthday through her favorite number 17!) I have not registered, but informed them of my intention to do this and my agenda of having the Committee of Concern promised to me FIVE years ago formed.
In anticipation of being told my own Spirit is not important while war rages in Europe, I refer you to the words attributed to Jesus Christ consolidated into the phrase “the least of these.”
This public announcement of my possible criminal charge for stepping onto the property is my request for others to bear witness.
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Sharon Fitzpatrick shared a post.
i16 DSmu1pece7mobenisorr 2e90201 · 211216
This was written MOSTLY to address the reactions here.
I remain livid that lies are what are told about me in a church that continues to use the name of this religion.
211216 Sharon Fitzpatrick
i16 DSmu1pece7mobenisorr 2e90201 ·
Hyper-logical human making any statement is able to anticipate a number of reactions to the statement. Each time I used the words "for years" about the abuse I suffered at Sarasota Monthly Meeting, for example, the reaction of "Well, why did you stay for that?" is typical. Others don't express it in those words. Instead, they package as "Well then you have to leave.'
The answere to that question is: IT WAS MY RELIGION. I joined a religious society for access to that form or worship, which I valued.
Others, including those who disparaged the peace testimony and lied, were operateing as if the church a social club. They did not think of the hour for worship as my legitimate route to God because they weren't using it that way themselves. Those who bullied and lied actually RIDICULED when I mentioned this was the purpose of my involvement in a church that was literally designed for that purpose.
There isn't time to answer the questions that arent' asked, but I try to respond to the "you need to leave" mentality, foisted onto victims.
A couple months ago I ran into this mentality with a friend. Though I have spent very little time with William Pearson, I consider him a friend. My friend list is short--always. I think of most humans as contacts, and very few as personal friends.
Dr. Nik was relating to the feelings I have when others are mean to me unsolicited. He is familiar with unsolicited attacks because his dimensions are unique. And unfortately for those of us who are different, attacking those with differences is common.
He coached me on the "just walk away." The standard of ALIENATION when one has become a target of unacceptable behavior NEEDS TO CHANGE.
It became the protocol in part to stop the pain of being attacked. People are picking on you for this or that, and you just want to get away from it, so the victim exits.
In a case like BELONGING to a church, this protocol DOUBLES the cruelty. I was NOT doing anything inconsistent with the religon when a set of women started ATTACKING me on a regular basis and WOULD NOT STOP. The people in charge of moderating behavior, Ministry and Worship, promised to keep the conflict in true context--others bullied me and would not resolve. But it was no time before they were conflating with "You two don't like each other" about the Bully #1 and me.
I insisted the Clerk's wording was inaccurate when he said this. I don't like being bullied or accused of lying, and I dealt with the BEHAVIOR of others doing so without the factor of liking or disliking the individuals doing it to me.
That Clerk (head) of the church probably thought it was "semantiics" that I specified that his wording was inaccurate. Yet it is CRUCIAL difference. I had been subjected to mistreatment for years, but I wasn't going to sit in that room for a scorecard on how many others liked or disliked me.
I joined a society that has a purpose: religion! and a set of parameters on how to deal with other humans, who are PART of the belief system. None of that was honored. Instead I was targeted and abused in ways that remain horrific because they were done in the name of God.
On Monday, I stood with a sign in front of a college where one of my abusers works. It is out of session, the college, so I dealt with less negativity than I will have to endure if I do this again when school in session.
Ridiculing or even vilifying me for standing with a sign has been happenign for years now, too. What others don't realize: a healthy, non-violent way to express my legitmate anger is ACTION. Pent up rage is a problem. It is often caused by having told a victim to go away and shut up and that victim obliges, allowing the truth of their mistreatment to build energy.
I let my anger OUT because this paradigm of silencing and hiding those who are hurt often by others is wrong and dangerous.
If I have a lot of anger at you for telling me that I have to accept the treatment and not hold others responsible for how they treat me, you are saying the same thing about what I was suppoed to do when a church was doing it to me--"go away."
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211210 Sharon FitzpatrickReligious Society of Friends
i10 DSmu1pece7mobenisorr 2e90201 ·
“Whatever you perceive it to be” has a ring in this Spirit because I forced my mother to take me to Alateen at age 11 and thereby I steeped in the language of 12 steps for a few years, traveling the tri-state area as a youth speaker.
The community of humans sharing honestly on emotional level in constructive manner without incidental divisions (like creed, color, class) I first witnessed were bound together by alcoholism and the pain that it had caused. “Whatever you perceive…” was verbiage I loved to read aloud in the classroom inna church basement bevajsr I had rebelled against Catholicism due to be forced to memorize and recite, “one true religion.”
I had no information on any other religion when I had to learn the Apostles Creed and I had reason to believe that others considered their religions true for them.
Who was I to say otherwise, especially with no information about what they perceive about God.
Bill W. or whoever scribed the opening and closing used for those meetings, wrote a line that soothed me with this, “whatever you perceive…” and meetings of 12 step would have been the first reason I entered places of worship of varied sort. Churches of all sorts can be venues for Goodness in our society, such as renting space to those who gather to help one another in this way.
Yet, 40 years later I recognize that verbiage “whatever you perceive…” has been absorbed in society such that the interface with Religious Society of Friends has fouled that of God in the religion.
The parameters set of what you perceive God to be in this society are: peace, equality, simplicity, and the truth that each person possesses a unique strain of the Light from this being.
If whatever you perceive God to be is unresolved conflict regularly peppered with denial, your perception is inconsistent with the parameters set by Fox and early Friends.
If your perception of God does not include peace or simplicity or equality or truth, then that part of your definition needs to be understood as contrary to the religion.
If the religion is mistaken as a haven for myriad perceptions, literally substituting for the religion “whatever you perceive God to be,” then it becomes the mess it has been to me.
I was psychologically abused within the walls of one of your churches, repeatedly, and due to the misperception that Friends may act in whatever manner they perceive to be Quaker.
“Misuse” was a verb a humanist used recently in her unkind evasion of taking responsibility for the message in a meme that likened Kyle Rittenhouse saying that he felt God was on his side (aka Within) to the theology of Hitler and serial killers.
When a Clerk chooses to tell lies or avoid telling the truth, he is not misusing the religion. He is not using the religion. The religion has a parameter of Truth. When a member of another Meeting bullies a clerk of Peace and Social Concerns, she is not misusing the religion. She is not using it.
When I dealt with this violations to the religion, I did so in the manner of Friends. I contacted M&W and handled myself with composure, although under attack for years in the cases of some who behave consistently in manners contrary to the definition of God here.
Outbursts happened after I had been victimized in ways so egregiously against faith and practice for YEARS that I have self defense as reason, not excuse, it happened.
Those using this religion not realizing that testimonies, other material, and religious practices themselves—joining in silence to center down to that perception of inner Light in case that dynamic might produce vocal ministry—DEFINE God, and that THIS defines the society usurp.
Ministry happens all week with that perception of inner Light and actions taken within the parameters of peace, truth, simplicity, and equality.
If you’ve been bullying at the office all week, you ain’t been reflecting this principles of this religion. If you “define” God to be the meditation time you get on Sunday morning, but don’t believe peace, simplicity, equality are matters worth a bunch of workshops that you don’t want to hear announced, you are not practicing this religion.
When a Iman learns of a teen who became an extremist and strapped bombs to himself, does the Iman think of the sweet child he knew blown into bits with, “oh Amed went and misused the teachings?” No! He knows he person became indoctrinated with militarism.
To argue on this very important issue of atheists misusing the word misuse about religion, however, I had to limit to “individuals do not misuse.”
Sadly, misusing religion DOES happen. It happens when those using the name of a religion are not paying attention to whether or not they are practicing it. And they have taken control of the name.
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Sharon Fitzpatrick shared a link.
subject of this article, Erik Monster, went to a Germantown Friends and this shows in ways I find remarkable.
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Sharon Fitzpatrick shared a post.
I am sharing this AGAIN because I am under the impression it was mistakenly removed. The preface I wrote yesterday would be lost if indeed this has been removed, so I will reiterate.
A meeting that called as a clearness committee convened in March 2017 with a decision that 4 members of Sarasota Monthly Meeting who had gathered to address my concerns about serious mistreatment would together prompt a Committee of Concern.
They promised to find objective parties to serve and I agreed to be patient as health issues plus Quaker process both were likely to slow this objective examination of my legitimate grievances.
And then 5 months later, the person who was available yo answer about this Committee of Concern declared the previous gathering not a clearness committee.
It is among many FALSITIES presented as “Quaker process.”
I have been ABUSED in this religion and there has been no accountability for that Truth.
If that was a Clearness Commitment in March 2017, then SMM has failed to take the action promised within that process.
If it was canceled as legitimate clearness, then at no point has SMM addressed egregious psychological abuse of a member and years of lying in covering up the abuse.
"How dare you suggest a logical way to determine you are telling the truth and I am not," would be words I had to assign to Nancy Corindia, as she did not say anything when anger and frustration formed on her face in the corner of Sarasota Monthly's Meetinghouse.
"This is simple. I still have the letter. It is dated. We can call up the minutes from the Business Meeting when it was read and discussed and compare the date with the date on the letter," had been the words I had just put in to the air space between us in March 2017. I had made reference to the fact that my membership in Religious Society of Friends had been laid down in a method CONTRARY to faith and practice by not being discussed BY the body of the church and crafted such that it was accurate. She had objected to this fact being a facct for more more than 3 years when we were gathered. The person next to her, Dave Hilshiemer, is one of the church members who apologized about it having been done that way afterward, and continiued to admit that it was done by a few people who woul dnot examine the atypical method or UNTRUTH in the letter itself, such as citing that I had not been there in "a long time," when I had been there to Worship as a Christian on December 24, 2015, with several pieces of medical equiptment attached to my body.
He wasn't speaking up in the "clearness committee" about the manner and timing of laying down my membership. He had begun a side conversation with Sarah Hernandez and Lucinda Hathaway.
The Clerk of Ministry and Worship reacted with the EXACT words, "How do you know that?" when I referenced the FACT that letter was sent before it was taken to Business Meeting. She had spent years denying this and the question was rhetorical, but ANGRY at me.
I had started with the reports from others, including leaders in the church who TOLD me they were in Business Meeitng when the topic came up and then they realized the letter had already been sent. One of these people is RIGHT there, but he is not engaging as a huge amount of cover-up of his actions is central to why we had gathered and spent 2 hours discussing it.
I used a Trustee who purchased and donated the land on which we were gathered and Nancy said, "Oh poor Mimi" and went on to say that Mimi McAdoo was addled in her ability to keep facts straight.
And so given that ACCOUNTS of those who have DIRECTLY expressed their disapproval of how it was done were still bein dismissed as incompentent minds and my mental illness, I said the above. The simple facts. Get out the date and I will get out the letter.
Instead, she looked angry at ME for being crazy and insinuated I was crazy if I still had the letter. (Mimi actually said, "Keep that letter" after she asked me to tell her the date on it when I called SOBBING after receiving it--long past any forwarding from this address, but having mysteriously gotten it.)
I was the mean one foir using logic to suggest a way to get clarity.
We gathered in March 2017 for what was called as a Clearness Committee. I asked a Trustee who admitted that several thigns were being said regarding how my membership was laid down and that he had begun to discuss it informally on sidelines. I asked him to have M&W call a clearness committee abotu it because I wanted the truth clear before Mary Elmendorf died. I had a good reason to not allow multiple stories and all kinds of shaming, shunning, dishonesty around my Spirit.
It took several phone calls with Nancy Corindia to go over what I wanted to achieve with the clearness committee, plus one with Dave Hilsheimer who called to reschedule it because he "always liked me." I had to emphasize the liking me was not the reason Nancy was in charge of this committee and that for clarity she should be contacting me about it.
We got started and Sarah Hernandez, who is culpable in mistreating me at a good 9 on a 1-10 scale, declared that it was an inappropriate process. This isn't what clearness committees are for--gaining clarity on what happened to someone mocked for calling for minuted to be reviewed that were really missing and kicked out in a new let-the-clique-kick version of membership practices.
I insisted that we carry on because they had REFUSED to review any of this mistreatment for YEARS. Mary would be dying THAT calender year. She was still 99 when this clearness committee formed, but she would be 100 the next month and she would die the same calendar year as her birthday, as would her son, soon after her. I don't know how I know these things, but I do sometimes.*
In the 2 hours of this meeting called as a clearness committee, it was decided that objective parties were needed to look at my legitimate claims of mistreatment. The period of having lies told about me while the leaders were HIDING missing records was worse than gaslighting. This clique made strangers think I was crazy, not just me, by refusing to review records and rolling their eyes when I mentioned the Holy Spirit of God. It warranted objective parties, not the PERPETRATORS to review, and so did the way my membership was laid down--without contacting me at all and then sending a letter full of untrue statements before being presented at Meeting.
They decided to have a Committee of Concern form, though none had an idea of how to do it or to get objecitve parties to be concerned, so they asked for my patience. I had promised it, as they claimed that contacting Southeastern Yearly Meeting for Friends for other Meetings to assist, if possible, so I knew this meant delays.
I waited 5 months, never hearing a word from Nancy Corindia, DaVe Hilsheimer, or Sarah Hernandez about it. All of them culpable in the abuse, none of them acknowledging that I had outstanding matters. The only one who had not harmed me and long been a dear ally, Lucinda Hathaway, was herself very ill and assured me several times that I was correct in believing action was being taken. They wouldn't just drop it, I believed because I am a Truth holder.
In August 2017, the event in Charlottesville made me want to be able to attend Meeting for Worship. I couldn't go in peace without knowing more about my standing. I don't deserve the shame of lies told about me. I emailed via the website and did not get a response, then went to Meeting for Worship. I was not called to vocal ministry.
After rise of Meeting, I spoke with Dave Hilsheimer, who was substitute for Clerk. He claimed he had no idea what I meant by a Committee of Concern. Nothing was happening. That meeting back in March was not a clearness committee, remember? Sarah had said so and when we carried on it was just people who care about me listening to my troubled ideas. And no one contacted me to tell me the idea of some other action wasn't being taken because no one knew who should.
I left. And then when Mary Elmendorf's family member contacted me about her memorial, I was told I was described as "a problem" by the Clerk. I went to the memorial so I could see a dog I loved, but the gestures of pity from these people who are LYING about me are unfair and hurt.
What is upsetting to me is how Nancy Corindia, a woman I dont even KNOW, died thinking I WAS SUCH A BITCH for making a simple reference that would defend myself.
I would have to remove the names to share this among those who have any idea of how to behave in the manner of Religious Society of Friends. That in itself is evidence of how unQuakerly those who use the label. A real Quaker is accountable for their acts.
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210511
Sarasota Monthly Meeting’s last official word to me claimed an infinite welcome to worship. And yet, this Meeting devised a plan to lock me out of the building if I were to arrive for Meeting for Worship that they did not provide for me as information.
They set me up for humiliation on grounds of a place I had served rather than speak to my Light. They regarded their right to write a new limit on my welcome in part because the welcome was not genuine even at the time of this letter, sent prior to being presented to Meeting for Business and without having contacted me.
It contains untrue statements such as how long ot has been since I had worshiped there—weeks earlier for Christmas Eve. They refused to review if process had been circumvented, even though a couple of members attempted to deal with how I had been forced out in manners novel and I had been pleading about being bullied and subjected to mistreatment that were also matters of denial for these SAME individuals.
“We has to reject you for our own comfort in denial” may be an answer this religion is willing to take from churches regarding least of mes cast out as deplorable for doing that crazy peace work with real Authority (yes, God.)
And yet, there is a MANNER decided for handling these matters. If an individual such as myself has definable proof of being made an exception to these modes of faith and practice, there MUST be a way to hold Meeting accountable.
In this case, SMM vaguely denies having sent the letter before presenting at Business meeting. At that March 2017 meeting, called as clearness and carried forth without definition until denial, the Clerk of M&W hissed rhetorically, “How do you know that?”
I cited one of the members present who had told me so, a Trustee, and this clerk of M&W insinuated thstvmenory problems plagued that elder. The other member who had told me he was upset that they sent letter before presenting at Business, ex-officio clerk, was sitting right there, but attention span was waning in this meeting and he had shown a capacity to not speak full Truth that had put me in this position.
So, I said very simply, “I still have the letter, (name of dead woman who never resolved her aggressions against me), so this is as easy as providing the minutes from that Business Meeting to be compared against the date on the letter.”
Her mouth dropped open about how cruel of a person I was to be holding my Spirit as valid.
The review on his my membership was laid down, and how I was treated when minutes were missing and I was calling for review—like a problem to be coerced and shamed into divorce from events that had happened, aka Truth, per a “committee of concern” never happened.
The Truth that I had proof of transgressions of faith and practice made these Friends double down on the denial. Calling me violent for speaking the victim’s Truth has no validity for the authentic Peacemaker.
I knew the moment that little mouth dropped open that action these Friends promised to take—prompting of a committee of concern—might not happen. I held, however, to the Light of God, that it might.
It didn’t and the lock-me-out-without-notice happened on a Palm Sunday.
Courage that seems greater than human generated by will of God working within a human.
Some have been calling that crazy since the epoch of society, with those of us living in such alignment suffering isolation and rejection.
This society, however, is structured for that Power is spoken through Truth.
Oversight in an age of complex violence is necessary or this religion is a farce.
Sharon Fitzpatrick shared a post.
1t93S cMa8yof u202sio97lmr114d0 ·
The names used here true and the actions taken while these individuals fulfilling roles for Sarasota Monthly Meeting. If this is deleted, you have chosen to forbid me to bear witness to the actions taken against me.
I am not guilty of the action these individuals claim and they can show no proof of it. Displaying anger because being gaslit while a Meeting hides that it doesn't have records and regarding me without reference to the record, but instead based on hearsay, is not inconsistent with faith and practice.
Unlike the horrific story I read about Josh Humphries "separation" from Charlottesville Meeting, I was not provided communication that I was not welcome to attend Meeting for Worship. The final official word of being "always welcome" in the bogus letter laying down my membership was not replaced by any call, email, letter, minute, or communication informing me of a change in that statement. Instead, Sarasota Monthly Meeting devised a plan to lock the doors from inside when I arrived, place volunteers in front of those doors, and call the police when I referred the true events of verifiable abuse and falsehoods presented about me.
This religion does not have a margin for denial, bullying, hearsay, or discrimination. And yet it has no mechanisms for dealing with those when they occur. It's Mental Health Awareness Month and I had already planned to continue my push for oversight in matters of abuse perpetrated in the name of this RELIGIOUS society. I was mocked and ridiculed for mentioning God and I was canceled over and over by the same individuals who shrug, "we had to cancel her permanently because she kept speaking Truth that we didn't like hearing and weren't willing to access about ourselves. We like the margin to bully and deny we provided ourselves regarding her."
The rest of this month will include me paying a professional to help me process these memories of ABUSE from YOUR society of "Friends." And I intended to continue my public protests against these individuals' actions. When I have been mocked for caring and working so hard against this abuse, it has been with accusations of selfishness. That of God within knew that I was led not just on behalf of my own Spirit, but because the paradigm of shame and abuse has occurred to others. I have stood with signs and sent certified letters not just for my own soul, as there is no such thing. I have done so for Truth, synonymous with God.
Sharon Fitzpatrick
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i stayed up way too late because I couldn't find a good comedy while I did the snuggle with dogs. They aren't tolerant of page-turning while snuggled against me, so I have adopted a TV habit when I am dog sitting. A 2019 movie with Bruce Willis drew me in and I realized there was a main character with DID so I watched an entire movie with super hero theme in order to see how DID depicted in society at this point.
It's been a long, hard life I can say at age 50 with a defense mechanism from early childhood abuse that was never relinquished because humans are complex and abuse often condoned, ignored,
I was awake for hours after the 2 legged dog woke me to go poop in middle of night. (I am attuned such that my caring self aware, even in sleep, if another creature in distress. When we went to sleep, I happened to mention the one time that little creature had diarrhea in bed so that we all had to get up, change the sheets, and resume slumber. He had not made a sound that night because he was ashamed about the poop in bed, smart as he is, being ill not a forgiveness matter with canine.)
Wide awake not because of the bad timing from a creature born with a form not able in the same ways as others of his species, but because able human being named Sarah Hernandez, Lesley Jacobs, Ann Sundberg, Carol Bechtel, Nancy Corindia, Tom Corinidia, and Dave Hilsheimer vilified and lied about me such that they permitted themselves to abuse me in the name of God.
I don't cry among these canine very often because caring for the pack of 4 with special needs is one of my best roles, but I wept a little as I churned those events in may mind--like 8 years of cruelty issued while others sat around, confused or afraid to say anything, perhaps just selecting their own access to church over acting in accordance with the testimonies of the Religious Society of Friends--Truth, Peace, Simplicity, and Equality.
The snickering superiority of Johannes Werner, who shirked his responsibility as clerk of Peace and Social Concern rather than push for examination about the treatment I received, epitomizes another a category of behavior, abetting abusers.
Ridiculed for caring about how my own Spirit treated, with a barrage of "you care too much about your being, the rest of us are not concerned with your soul because we consider it marred in association with your abnormal personality" and similar statements. I lay awake knowing I had spoken out not just for myself. I lay awake knowing I had not done a single thing to justify this treatment. I lay awake knowing I would be told I was the one loosing sleep over it. I lay awake knowing lies about me were used against me and those lies still being held as justification for the unjustifiable. I lay awake unable to accept that I was discarded as crazy because I admit to cultivating a self able to listen to and carry messages for the Holy Spirit of God in a religion devised entirely on the idea that EACH one of us can listen and carry messages for the Holy Spirit.
The dogs just wanted me to go back to sleep, as their furry bodies were arranged next to mine, so I was quiet. Until I thought about the moment a banished Quaker, of whom I had not heard until yesterday, decided to end his own life. I whispered, "I am so sorry, Josh" in a huge bed belonging to a same-sex married couple and a pack of dogs.
The wail I let out after saying the name of a man who had physical disabilities and genuine faith came through a human, but it was the sound of God not being consistent with how humans behave.
Unlike the supposedly-real superhero in a really stupid film called Glass, I have never had a delusion of grandeur. I am fully aware that all Magnificence belongs to God, even when carried through my voice.
Sharon FitzpatrickReligious Society of Friends
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A Mockingbird pursuing a crow may be perceived as an aggressor, but an observer familiar with bird behavior would surmise the smaller bird acting in defense. For years I have sounded an alarm summarized by, “Mistreated and excluded, possibly due to mental health” about the horrible events that happened to this little Light of God by the Sarasota Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. A society designed on spiritual inclusivity has not responded to my alarms except for to mistake me as an aggressor.
Overlooking my distress is facilitated by stigma about mental health; confronting that stigma as injustice is within the scope of duties I have to God.
Suppose I had been obese and an alcoholic whose sobriety depended on anonymity when I moved to Sarasota at age 30 with an intent to settle into membership in a Quaker meeting. These characteristics are being used to substitute for fiscally poor and struggled with self harm and other problematic behaviors for most of my life. I had moved with an old dog, honestly having selected the city for the natural beauty, but checked that a Quaker meeting was in town before I made the decision because it was a criterion. At 16, I transferred to Abington Friends School for academic reasons, but I reacted to this religion with, “Oh my God, there are people who get God.”
Holy Spirit had carried me to those grounds and I dreamed of surviving such that I could be a Quaker, but the spiritual support from that community during these couple teenaged years was miraculous. I was a poor, weird, victim of severe abuse whose disabled father would suffer repeated heart failures during my second semester in this private school, culminating in a solo death during the summer. I had come home from a 9-5 job at a ham store to find him unclothed after a fatal heart attack. Holding together and organizing the memorial would not have happened had Quakerism not been genuine; the Meeting let me hold a Quaker-style memorial in their building such that all my Catholic relatives and diverse associates were able to process the loss in authenticity.
Life grew more complicated for me, but suffice it to say miracle after miracle happened in the quiet manner of Friends until I was safely at college, where I often attended Quaker Meeting. While I attended on sporadic basis in both college cities—Annapolis and Santa Fe—and always while home in the Philadelphia area, I had restrained involvement because I did not wish to set roots in any of those places. I knew that getting involved with a Meeting by serving on committees would bind me to a place, so I only worshipped with Friends in those places. Yet, I specifically decided to move to Florida for a variety of reasons, making a couple trips to look in Miami area and Sarasota, even attending Meeting or Worship in former and attempting to attend in latter, with the presence of Friends being essential in the place I would select to settle.
Replacing the actual details with this obese and sober replica, progress me to attending Meeting for Worship held in a college classroom where only a few people gather on First Day and raising my hand at the first Business Meeting to volunteer for a newsletter committee. Sarasota Monthly Meeting had no committees at the time, except the Meetinghouse building project might have had its agenda organized as a committee. I get very involved, serving in multiple capacities including committee clerks and even representing the Meeting in larger organizations, and I become a member. Meanwhile, the Meeting expands in relation to having a building.
During the process of becoming a member, much is discussed about how this religion works and who I am in relation to this particular Meeting. My obesity and sobriety are not discussed, but they are also not hidden. I have, for example, spoken to M&W in the past about my status as sober and offered to help guide others toward 12 Step Programs if that were ever necessary, but that I preferred that status to be kept anonymous. These are not secrets, but just incidental to how that-of-God within me is developing within the structure of this religion. I am a theist and this is clear focus of the discussions when I become a member.
Keep me active in the Meeting and make me a target of bullying. I retain as much dignity as I can during the incident, but contact M&W afterward. The term bullying about how 3 others acted toward me while I was conducting business of the Meeting was applied by M&W, after they confirmed what had occurred. Only one of those 3 individuals agrees to discuss it with me. That discussion goes well and I consider it resolved, with no reason to suspect that I was bullied because obese or alcoholic. The others, however, deny bullying describes their behavior, refuse to discuss it with me, and begin a campaign against me.
I slowly retreat from activities, being honest about why and how it hurts, but the life of the Meeting is important to me, so I depend on other ways to be a peace activist and another spiritual community in town to provide outlets for genuine self I had become in my identity as a Friend.
M&W promises to keep on record that I did not provoke these individuals in any way, but was bullied and then they refused to be accountable for how their actions made me feel. In actuality, to the individuals I refer here—I was the party attending and organizing workshops about bullying at this time in the Sarasota area, so I feel pretty confident that the assessments of what happened were accurate. It wasn’t my responsibility to speculate about the reasons these individuals were do unkind to the Peace and Social Concerns Clerk who happened to be obese and sober and me. It was simply my place to offer to engage in resolution and to reiterate that offer in every conflict into which I was thrust.
It is not my duty to accept responsibility for being a victim of bullying or the continued abuse for being open and honest about how being mistreated feels. Marauded Mockingbird has no reason to throw up wings in admission of aggression. Similarly, I have at no point been able to be both true and admit that I have behaved in any way contrary to the testimonies or faith and practice despite years of abuse and refusals to examine and apologize to me. If I am being truthful, which I am, then I deserved none of this bullying or mistreatment and I accept no responsibility for the discord. I have offered to engage in resolution at every turn.
Years go by and the behavior against me, essentially canceling me based on personal opinions that have not been through process, continue. There is objective proof and I simply supply that to Ministry and Worship as I attempt to maintain an identity and dignity as a Friend.
Would anyone expect that I would at some point declare, “Well, I deserved to get mistreated and kicked out because I am obese. They are right, I don’t belong, my inner Light of Goodness got squeezed out by fat.”?
Or would you instead allow me to declare the status of substance abuser in past enough to legalize others canceling me in a context of inclusivity?
Then why is it that so may expect that I hold self as somehow below human standard by having problems I did not understand? I had those problems when I became a member and they were incidental. I do not have to accept that others arrived on scene, decided I did not meet their approval, attacked me relentlessly, and then kicked me out in a cruel set of events that includes outright deception?
Being further ridiculed for admitting how it hurts to be treated this way in the context of a Quaker Meeting, I attend at least once a month for worship, stay in communication with M&W about my status as a member, and several of my dearest relationships are weaved into the life of the Meeting. And in this context, I get bullied. If I am out in public at an event revolving around a Friend or even conducting events with overlap, I get treated in ways inconsistent with the testimonies by those who claim to be representing the Meeting. And I am still a member, obese, and sober, but not able to defend myself in this context.
Originally, years earlier, when the bullying started, I reminded my allies in the Meeting that seeking their support would have been divisive, but at this point, I begin to seek their support because a kind of false reputation about me has developed.
My attempts to defend myself and even refer to the record instigate a series of events that is bizarre. The reality, unbeknownst to me, is Sarasota Monthly Meeting is operating without years worth of records from business meeting. I happened to have attended business meeting during those years and I begin to ask for review of minutes because I am trying to navigate my way back in to involvement with my church. And a small number of people hide this fact, making me look crazy and problematic, until the Clerk of Meeting calls me NINE MONTHS LATER to tell me the “real reason” I was evaded and humiliated: the minutes were missing. Mind you, I had been canceled, and I was confused by the canceling, and hurt, and abused in the process described in detail many times at this point, but the mistreatment stands as true, no matter how many times these individuals deny how they abused me.
They use my admission of mental health challenges as a license to abuse me and their own pleasure in not liking to hear that such a license does not exist within the framework of equality, peace, and simplicity. I haven’t stopped pursuing the stigma about mental health challenges and simply showing footage of my pursuit of that crow as proof that my that-of-God does not exist remains ineffectual.
If I objected to having my membership terminated without being contacted, without it being presented at Business Meeting, without it being subject to reconsideration given untruths in the letter and the lack of Quaker process, and I admitted to being obese and an alcoholic, would you just assume that whatever this Meeting did was justified?
In becoming a member, I did not nod during a disclaimer, “If a few people take you up as enemy and eventually decide that you are not welcome here, you will just accept that as okay because obesity and alcoholism makes you unqualified for full equality status.” I did not agree to any set of practices other than those used for other members of this society. Telling me that I ought to accept what happened to me for the sake of my own calm, aka healing, is perceived as further abuse. I do not agree that my inner Light of Goodness is lesser than that of others because I have mental challenges. I do not agree that I have less agency when I spend an afternoon in a Quaker business meeting than someone who a PhD. I did not join a religion with these rules to be subjected to a set designed to exclude me. I am not willing to pretend it was okay for these individuals to treat me in ways contrary to the rules. I didn’t when they acted that way and I won’t now because my inner Light of Goodness deserves the same treatment others get.
It is not over. If anyone were to ask about me at Sarasota Monthly Meeting, the answer supplied about this human being and the Holy Spirit that has moved through her would be UNTRUE. That is, of course, unless, they have come to admit, “We let a couple of people mistreat and ridicule her to the extent of a humiliation scene of locking her out of Palm Sunday and we still respond with pity about the fact that she doesn’t understand we were allowed to abuse her because she is crazy. So sad she is crazy, such good people we are for abusing her under a guise of Quakerism.” If that isn’t the answer being supplied about what happened to me, then the truth is not being told.
I care about that in the now because it pertains to the now. If I died of Covid, the truth about what a wonderful and worshipful part of that Meeting and this community I was would not have been told because of an atmosphere of denial and DECEPTION.
I had every right to call for review of minutes or review of how my membership terminated. Their decision to place half truths, which are not truths, in response to that was UNEQUAL treatment for NO reason. If I was having a paranoid schizophrenic event that involved calling for review of minutes that had been reviewed, then dealing with it would have occurred though M&W and I would have been made aware of how mental illness was intruding on my identity as a Friend and/or the life of the Meeting. Instead, I was sanely behaving in earnest and met with dishonest individuals using shame, stigma, and sense of superiority to demean and deride me.
Instead, I was being a truthful Friends and they subjected me to deception that resulted in them denying the mistreatment.
The storage bin of true events harmed one Light of God most—mine. And when you tell me to get over it because caring so much about my own self is somehow not humble, you present a terrible contradiction to this religion.
It might be contended that admitting to being mentally ill and also mistreated allows others to cast doubt on my ability to know if I have been mistreated. It might also be the case that any of these factors—obesity, sobriety, mental illness—that were not factors when a person became a member could later intrude on the life of the meeting such that excluding that person justified. However, it is NEVER justified to exclude a member of the Religious Society of Friends based on falsities, denial, blaming, and abuse of that person. I am not exaggerating when I say this! I am not the aggressor and I have not forfeited my status as an equal in spiritual terms, despite a despicable attempt to question my legitimacy based on my low income and Dissociative Identity Disorder.
If I had cancer or genetic obesity. it would not be expected that I hide it while participating in church. Similarly, I was not required to hide not understanding why I engaged in self harm. This is a religion about Truth. My ability to be an honest and powerful worshipper in this form of religion was not compromised by these struggles and I did not have to acquiesce to the stigma-laden ideology of those who employ sarcasm and denial as ways to interact as Friends.
Let’s suppose one of these factors were posing a problem to another member of Meeting or attender. Perhaps a parent with a child who has a sugar dependency and insulin issue is concerned about how zealous I am bringing sweets to potluck, oases as I am, or I smell like alcohol after a committee meeting and this is confusing to someone I connected with the local 12-step scene. There is a process for handling those overlaps of that of God gathering. The member will be contacted for an eldering or a clearness committee should the concerns about behavior proof to be worthy of these means for shared wellness.
None of that happened for me. My mental illness was not the problem. My willingness to speak out about being mistreated was perceived as the problem and I was subjected to manifold mistreatments thereby.
When individuals takes roles within this religion, they relinquish privacy regarding acts done on behalf of the Meeting. Dave Hilsheimer was Clerk of that Meeting and deceived me. He doesn’t get protection from being called by name about actions he took AS Clerk of the Meeting. In that capacity, he conducted a Business Meeting in January 2014 in which I was present and a member of the Meeting. A statement regarding the state of the Meeting was being discussed and I had read it. It included an admission that participation in Business Meeting was poor and was worded as if they wanted to encourage more participation. I spoke, identified self as having been present for years worth of Business Meetings that developed policies being ignored as were my calls to review a particular minute. I speculated that it was as if the meeting was functioning without records. I had no idea I was speaking the truth and he chose to sit at the front of the room, while bullied-me had a shaky voice speaking to a clique that had formed against me. They had canceled all those years worth of minutes by accepting that such were missing and HIDING it once I started asking. He did not clarify that minutes were missing. He did not state it at all. Instead, he let me lament speculatively about what was actually the case and would become a conspiracy against me. This is deception! And I realize that many of you would like to call my reaction extreme, but it was let to go on for MONTHS before a harmful disclosure to me about the “real reason” my requests to review minutes were ignored.
Had Dave Hilsheimer cleared this up with the Meeting—that is made it clear that the eye-rolling, and sighing, and ridicule I endured while calling for minutes to be reviewed was cruel and unnecessary, as was an private session of trying to force me to not mention the past at all. He instead, let the truth of me being gaslit be known only to me and then stood aside in a series of half truths laced with pity for years to follow.
In March 2017, a clearness committee was held at my urging to deal with my grievances for having been subjected to an ousting as a member unlike what other Friends are granted, the circumstances of being evaded in what created an image of me UNTRUE and unfair, and other related matters. During this two hour gathering of 4 members plus me, it was decided that a Committee of Concern would form, via those who had given their time to this clearness committee relaying to SEYM that assistance in selecting objective parties in such a committee was requested. I agreed to be patient in waiting for this to happen as the process was not common, but I was adamant that I was not willing to let my grievances be denied. Five months went by with only contact from one member of that committee with her promise that it was not being forgotten, but her health was very poor. Five months later, when I contacted them. Dave Hilsheimer, who would have had a lot of mistreatment to admit if he had carried through with the promise, denied that it was even a clearness committee. It had been forgotten and they did not tell me it was being dropped because they forgot which one of them forgot to tell me the thing they had not agreed to do was not happening.
Yeah, I do sound crazy. And I am crazy. But in the case of describing how the Friends treated me is not a matter of my mental health. What is crazy here is anyone behaving as they have in the name of this religion.
Instead of forming a Committee of Concern, they had a secret, separate process to discuss my membership and declared me still unwelcome. This isn’t honest or process when you have committed to doing something else. It is more of the same denial and deception that had been serving regarding me.
Although I had repeatedly tried to have the letter laying down my membership declared as bogus, Sarasota Monthly Meeting refused to do so. The last sentences claims that I will always be welcome to worship with them. It was never retracted. No subsequent word officially from the Meeting came to me.
And yet, these Friends hatched a secret plan to lock me out of the building if I were to arrive. They enacted the plan on Palm Sunday 2018, just more than a year after deceiving me with a promise of a Committee of Concern. A scout alerted others that I had arrived. Doors were locked from the inside. Volunteers exited to place their bodies between doors and me. And the police were called to have me trespassed off property. These Friends had decided that entirely separate sets of practices applied to me because a couple of them did not like me and none of them liked hearing how I disliked being mistreated. They did not even contact me to give me the opportunity to avoid the painful trauma of being locked out.
The previous visit, a person I do not know who had become part of this paradigm of ridiculing me, screamed at me. “There is no Light of God in you” as she also spewed hatred at me for existing with mental challenges.
Therapy for traumas has begun now that I know Dissociative Identity Disorder describes how my mind dealt with early childhood abuse. As I imagine myself at age 6 in bars with my disabled father in Norristown, Pennsylvania, I also imagine Friends gathering in Meetinghouses in silence. I imagine them reading queries and discussing matters in the 1970s. And despite the vitriol and abuse I have endured via these individuals representing Sarasota Monthly Meeting, I will not believe those Friends discussing outreach or spiritual gifts had an in an unspoken disclaimer that “Light of God” did not have to addressed in the adult I would become because a defense mechanism of multiple perspectives had formed in my mind.
I was an equal when I called for review of minutes. The fact that someone had been bullying me such that I felt unwelcome did not give Dave Hilsheimer the permission to make up an alternative to Truth. If I was bi-polar, obese, crooked nosed or whiny-voiced, the same response to my call for review of minutes should have occurred. “Sorry, Friend, we’ve been unable to locate years worth of minutes for years, so we cannot do that” was the simple truth that would have circumvented me being abused emotionally and psychology. When Dave Hilsheimer and Ann Sunberg and Sarah Hernandez participated is some screwy plan to hide that these minutes were missing while I happened to be asking about them, they MISTREATED me. They decided I did not deserve Truth, and manufactures something else that caused me harm. They manufactured a reputation that I was being bad and mean and wrong and extreme by honoring the Holy Spirit I witnessed by participating in Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business.
And yet, I have to pay someone to wave a hand in front of my face while I attempt to discharge the memory of being locked out like a license to not speak to my Light had been issued to these Friends. I did not cause the trauma. I had no reason to believe the welcoming language on every Quaker website did not apply to me. They were responsible to tell me that I was not welcome. These Friends violated the very concept of open to all. It was not their right assume that my mental illness meant they could set me up for more trauma.
Warnings about slander and erasures of my words occur when I decry like this and I resent those reactions in a paradigm of Truth. The bully who started the agenda of attacking me, Lesley Jacobs, was a lawyer. If she wants to sue me for slander, I can only express gratitude for the chance to confront her. I don’t worry about accountability because I am telling the truth. And though I realize complaint is heard as that Mockingbird perceived as an aggressor—by virtue of witness’ limits—I remain aware that silence about how I have been treated from my own self and from these organizations does not honor the testimonies. Instead, when my efforts to decry being abused (for ANY reason) are met with more ridicule or and ultimatums that I cease to care about how that-of-God in me is treated. The consequence to testimonies when I remain silent about this or when I am ignored about it mimics what more than one crow is called—a murder.
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Sarasota Monthly Meeting’s last official word to me claimed an infinite welcome to worship. And yet, this Meeting devised a plan to lock me out of the building if I were to arrive for Meeting for Worship that they did not provide for me as information.
They set me up for humiliation on grounds of a place I had served rather than speak to my Light. They regarded their right to write a new limit on my welcome in part because the welcome was not genuine even at the time of this letter, sent prior to being presented to Meeting for Business and without having contacted me.
It contains untrue statements such as how long ot has been since I had worshiped there—weeks earlier for Christmas Eve. They refused to review if process had been circumvented, even though a couple of members attempted to deal with how I had been forced out in manners novel and I had been pleading about being bullied and subjected to mistreatment that were also matters of denial for these SAME individuals.
“We has to reject you for our own comfort in denial” may be an answer this religion is willing to take from churches regarding least of mes cast out as deplorable for doing that crazy peace work with real Authority (yes, God.)
And yet, there is a MANNER decided for handling these matters. If an individual such as myself has definable proof of being made an exception to these modes of faith and practice, there MUST be a way to hold Meeting accountable.
In this case, SMM vaguely denies having sent the letter before presenting at Business meeting. At that March 2017 meeting, called as clearness and carried forth without definition until denial, the Clerk of M&W hissed rhetorically, “How do you know that?”
I cited one of the members present who had told me so, a Trustee, and this clerk of M&W insinuated thstvmenory problems plagued that elder. The other member who had told me he was upset that they sent letter before presenting at Business, ex-officio clerk, was sitting right there, but attention span was waning in this meeting and he had shown a capacity to not speak full Truth that had put me in this position.
So, I said very simply, “I still have the letter, (name of dead woman who never resolved her aggressions against me), so this is as easy as providing the minutes from that Business Meeting to be compared against the date on the letter.”
Her mouth dropped open about how cruel of a person I was to be holding my Spirit as valid.
The review on his my membership was laid down, and how I was treated when minutes were missing and I was calling for review—like a problem to be coerced and shamed into divorce from events that had happened, aka Truth, per a “committee of concern” never happened.
The Truth that I had proof of transgressions of faith and practice made these Friends double down on the denial. Calling me violent for speaking the victim’s Truth has no validity for the authentic Peacemaker.
I knew the moment that little mouth dropped open that action these Friends promised to take—prompting of a committee of concern—might not happen. I held, however, to the Light of God, that it might.
It didn’t and the lock-me-out-without-notice happened on a Palm Sunday.
Courage that seems greater than human generated by will of God working within a human.
Some have been calling that crazy since the epoch of society, with those of us living in such alignment suffering isolation and rejection.
This society, however, is structured for that Power is spoken through Truth.
Oversight in an age of complex violence is necessary or this religion is a farce.
Sharon Fitzpatrick shared a post.
1t93S cMa8yof u202sio97lmr114d0 ·
The names used here true and the actions taken while these individuals fulfilling roles for Sarasota Monthly Meeting. If this is deleted, you have chosen to forbid me to bear witness to the actions taken against me.
I am not guilty of the action these individuals claim and they can show no proof of it. Displaying anger because being gaslit while a Meeting hides that it doesn't have records and regarding me without reference to the record, but instead based on hearsay, is not inconsistent with faith and practice.
Unlike the horrific story I read about Josh Humphries "separation" from Charlottesville Meeting, I was not provided communication that I was not welcome to attend Meeting for Worship. The final official word of being "always welcome" in the bogus letter laying down my membership was not replaced by any call, email, letter, minute, or communication informing me of a change in that statement. Instead, Sarasota Monthly Meeting devised a plan to lock the doors from inside when I arrived, place volunteers in front of those doors, and call the police when I referred the true events of verifiable abuse and falsehoods presented about me.
This religion does not have a margin for denial, bullying, hearsay, or discrimination. And yet it has no mechanisms for dealing with those when they occur. It's Mental Health Awareness Month and I had already planned to continue my push for oversight in matters of abuse perpetrated in the name of this RELIGIOUS society. I was mocked and ridiculed for mentioning God and I was canceled over and over by the same individuals who shrug, "we had to cancel her permanently because she kept speaking Truth that we didn't like hearing and weren't willing to access about ourselves. We like the margin to bully and deny we provided ourselves regarding her."
The rest of this month will include me paying a professional to help me process these memories of ABUSE from YOUR society of "Friends." And I intended to continue my public protests against these individuals' actions. When I have been mocked for caring and working so hard against this abuse, it has been with accusations of selfishness. That of God within knew that I was led not just on behalf of my own Spirit, but because the paradigm of shame and abuse has occurred to others. I have stood with signs and sent certified letters not just for my own soul, as there is no such thing. I have done so for Truth, synonymous with God.
Sharon Fitzpatrick
1t93S cMa8yof u202sio97lmr114d0 ·
i stayed up way too late because I couldn't find a good comedy while I did the snuggle with dogs. They aren't tolerant of page-turning while snuggled against me, so I have adopted a TV habit when I am dog sitting. A 2019 movie with Bruce Willis drew me in and I realized there was a main character with DID so I watched an entire movie with super hero theme in order to see how DID depicted in society at this point.
It's been a long, hard life I can say at age 50 with a defense mechanism from early childhood abuse that was never relinquished because humans are complex and abuse often condoned, ignored,
I was awake for hours after the 2 legged dog woke me to go poop in middle of night. (I am attuned such that my caring self aware, even in sleep, if another creature in distress. When we went to sleep, I happened to mention the one time that little creature had diarrhea in bed so that we all had to get up, change the sheets, and resume slumber. He had not made a sound that night because he was ashamed about the poop in bed, smart as he is, being ill not a forgiveness matter with canine.)
Wide awake not because of the bad timing from a creature born with a form not able in the same ways as others of his species, but because able human being named Sarah Hernandez, Lesley Jacobs, Ann Sundberg, Carol Bechtel, Nancy Corindia, Tom Corinidia, and Dave Hilsheimer vilified and lied about me such that they permitted themselves to abuse me in the name of God.
I don't cry among these canine very often because caring for the pack of 4 with special needs is one of my best roles, but I wept a little as I churned those events in may mind--like 8 years of cruelty issued while others sat around, confused or afraid to say anything, perhaps just selecting their own access to church over acting in accordance with the testimonies of the Religious Society of Friends--Truth, Peace, Simplicity, and Equality.
The snickering superiority of Johannes Werner, who shirked his responsibility as clerk of Peace and Social Concern rather than push for examination about the treatment I received, epitomizes another a category of behavior, abetting abusers.
Ridiculed for caring about how my own Spirit treated, with a barrage of "you care too much about your being, the rest of us are not concerned with your soul because we consider it marred in association with your abnormal personality" and similar statements. I lay awake knowing I had spoken out not just for myself. I lay awake knowing I had not done a single thing to justify this treatment. I lay awake knowing I would be told I was the one loosing sleep over it. I lay awake knowing lies about me were used against me and those lies still being held as justification for the unjustifiable. I lay awake unable to accept that I was discarded as crazy because I admit to cultivating a self able to listen to and carry messages for the Holy Spirit of God in a religion devised entirely on the idea that EACH one of us can listen and carry messages for the Holy Spirit.
The dogs just wanted me to go back to sleep, as their furry bodies were arranged next to mine, so I was quiet. Until I thought about the moment a banished Quaker, of whom I had not heard until yesterday, decided to end his own life. I whispered, "I am so sorry, Josh" in a huge bed belonging to a same-sex married couple and a pack of dogs.
The wail I let out after saying the name of a man who had physical disabilities and genuine faith came through a human, but it was the sound of God not being consistent with how humans behave.
Unlike the supposedly-real superhero in a really stupid film called Glass, I have never had a delusion of grandeur. I am fully aware that all Magnificence belongs to God, even when carried through my voice.
Sharon FitzpatrickReligious Society of Friends
145g 0A2opurial 12re0dcu2c291 ·
A Mockingbird pursuing a crow may be perceived as an aggressor, but an observer familiar with bird behavior would surmise the smaller bird acting in defense. For years I have sounded an alarm summarized by, “Mistreated and excluded, possibly due to mental health” about the horrible events that happened to this little Light of God by the Sarasota Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. A society designed on spiritual inclusivity has not responded to my alarms except for to mistake me as an aggressor.
Overlooking my distress is facilitated by stigma about mental health; confronting that stigma as injustice is within the scope of duties I have to God.
Suppose I had been obese and an alcoholic whose sobriety depended on anonymity when I moved to Sarasota at age 30 with an intent to settle into membership in a Quaker meeting. These characteristics are being used to substitute for fiscally poor and struggled with self harm and other problematic behaviors for most of my life. I had moved with an old dog, honestly having selected the city for the natural beauty, but checked that a Quaker meeting was in town before I made the decision because it was a criterion. At 16, I transferred to Abington Friends School for academic reasons, but I reacted to this religion with, “Oh my God, there are people who get God.”
Holy Spirit had carried me to those grounds and I dreamed of surviving such that I could be a Quaker, but the spiritual support from that community during these couple teenaged years was miraculous. I was a poor, weird, victim of severe abuse whose disabled father would suffer repeated heart failures during my second semester in this private school, culminating in a solo death during the summer. I had come home from a 9-5 job at a ham store to find him unclothed after a fatal heart attack. Holding together and organizing the memorial would not have happened had Quakerism not been genuine; the Meeting let me hold a Quaker-style memorial in their building such that all my Catholic relatives and diverse associates were able to process the loss in authenticity.
Life grew more complicated for me, but suffice it to say miracle after miracle happened in the quiet manner of Friends until I was safely at college, where I often attended Quaker Meeting. While I attended on sporadic basis in both college cities—Annapolis and Santa Fe—and always while home in the Philadelphia area, I had restrained involvement because I did not wish to set roots in any of those places. I knew that getting involved with a Meeting by serving on committees would bind me to a place, so I only worshipped with Friends in those places. Yet, I specifically decided to move to Florida for a variety of reasons, making a couple trips to look in Miami area and Sarasota, even attending Meeting or Worship in former and attempting to attend in latter, with the presence of Friends being essential in the place I would select to settle.
Replacing the actual details with this obese and sober replica, progress me to attending Meeting for Worship held in a college classroom where only a few people gather on First Day and raising my hand at the first Business Meeting to volunteer for a newsletter committee. Sarasota Monthly Meeting had no committees at the time, except the Meetinghouse building project might have had its agenda organized as a committee. I get very involved, serving in multiple capacities including committee clerks and even representing the Meeting in larger organizations, and I become a member. Meanwhile, the Meeting expands in relation to having a building.
During the process of becoming a member, much is discussed about how this religion works and who I am in relation to this particular Meeting. My obesity and sobriety are not discussed, but they are also not hidden. I have, for example, spoken to M&W in the past about my status as sober and offered to help guide others toward 12 Step Programs if that were ever necessary, but that I preferred that status to be kept anonymous. These are not secrets, but just incidental to how that-of-God within me is developing within the structure of this religion. I am a theist and this is clear focus of the discussions when I become a member.
Keep me active in the Meeting and make me a target of bullying. I retain as much dignity as I can during the incident, but contact M&W afterward. The term bullying about how 3 others acted toward me while I was conducting business of the Meeting was applied by M&W, after they confirmed what had occurred. Only one of those 3 individuals agrees to discuss it with me. That discussion goes well and I consider it resolved, with no reason to suspect that I was bullied because obese or alcoholic. The others, however, deny bullying describes their behavior, refuse to discuss it with me, and begin a campaign against me.
I slowly retreat from activities, being honest about why and how it hurts, but the life of the Meeting is important to me, so I depend on other ways to be a peace activist and another spiritual community in town to provide outlets for genuine self I had become in my identity as a Friend.
M&W promises to keep on record that I did not provoke these individuals in any way, but was bullied and then they refused to be accountable for how their actions made me feel. In actuality, to the individuals I refer here—I was the party attending and organizing workshops about bullying at this time in the Sarasota area, so I feel pretty confident that the assessments of what happened were accurate. It wasn’t my responsibility to speculate about the reasons these individuals were do unkind to the Peace and Social Concerns Clerk who happened to be obese and sober and me. It was simply my place to offer to engage in resolution and to reiterate that offer in every conflict into which I was thrust.
It is not my duty to accept responsibility for being a victim of bullying or the continued abuse for being open and honest about how being mistreated feels. Marauded Mockingbird has no reason to throw up wings in admission of aggression. Similarly, I have at no point been able to be both true and admit that I have behaved in any way contrary to the testimonies or faith and practice despite years of abuse and refusals to examine and apologize to me. If I am being truthful, which I am, then I deserved none of this bullying or mistreatment and I accept no responsibility for the discord. I have offered to engage in resolution at every turn.
Years go by and the behavior against me, essentially canceling me based on personal opinions that have not been through process, continue. There is objective proof and I simply supply that to Ministry and Worship as I attempt to maintain an identity and dignity as a Friend.
Would anyone expect that I would at some point declare, “Well, I deserved to get mistreated and kicked out because I am obese. They are right, I don’t belong, my inner Light of Goodness got squeezed out by fat.”?
Or would you instead allow me to declare the status of substance abuser in past enough to legalize others canceling me in a context of inclusivity?
Then why is it that so may expect that I hold self as somehow below human standard by having problems I did not understand? I had those problems when I became a member and they were incidental. I do not have to accept that others arrived on scene, decided I did not meet their approval, attacked me relentlessly, and then kicked me out in a cruel set of events that includes outright deception?
Being further ridiculed for admitting how it hurts to be treated this way in the context of a Quaker Meeting, I attend at least once a month for worship, stay in communication with M&W about my status as a member, and several of my dearest relationships are weaved into the life of the Meeting. And in this context, I get bullied. If I am out in public at an event revolving around a Friend or even conducting events with overlap, I get treated in ways inconsistent with the testimonies by those who claim to be representing the Meeting. And I am still a member, obese, and sober, but not able to defend myself in this context.
Originally, years earlier, when the bullying started, I reminded my allies in the Meeting that seeking their support would have been divisive, but at this point, I begin to seek their support because a kind of false reputation about me has developed.
My attempts to defend myself and even refer to the record instigate a series of events that is bizarre. The reality, unbeknownst to me, is Sarasota Monthly Meeting is operating without years worth of records from business meeting. I happened to have attended business meeting during those years and I begin to ask for review of minutes because I am trying to navigate my way back in to involvement with my church. And a small number of people hide this fact, making me look crazy and problematic, until the Clerk of Meeting calls me NINE MONTHS LATER to tell me the “real reason” I was evaded and humiliated: the minutes were missing. Mind you, I had been canceled, and I was confused by the canceling, and hurt, and abused in the process described in detail many times at this point, but the mistreatment stands as true, no matter how many times these individuals deny how they abused me.
They use my admission of mental health challenges as a license to abuse me and their own pleasure in not liking to hear that such a license does not exist within the framework of equality, peace, and simplicity. I haven’t stopped pursuing the stigma about mental health challenges and simply showing footage of my pursuit of that crow as proof that my that-of-God does not exist remains ineffectual.
If I objected to having my membership terminated without being contacted, without it being presented at Business Meeting, without it being subject to reconsideration given untruths in the letter and the lack of Quaker process, and I admitted to being obese and an alcoholic, would you just assume that whatever this Meeting did was justified?
In becoming a member, I did not nod during a disclaimer, “If a few people take you up as enemy and eventually decide that you are not welcome here, you will just accept that as okay because obesity and alcoholism makes you unqualified for full equality status.” I did not agree to any set of practices other than those used for other members of this society. Telling me that I ought to accept what happened to me for the sake of my own calm, aka healing, is perceived as further abuse. I do not agree that my inner Light of Goodness is lesser than that of others because I have mental challenges. I do not agree that I have less agency when I spend an afternoon in a Quaker business meeting than someone who a PhD. I did not join a religion with these rules to be subjected to a set designed to exclude me. I am not willing to pretend it was okay for these individuals to treat me in ways contrary to the rules. I didn’t when they acted that way and I won’t now because my inner Light of Goodness deserves the same treatment others get.
It is not over. If anyone were to ask about me at Sarasota Monthly Meeting, the answer supplied about this human being and the Holy Spirit that has moved through her would be UNTRUE. That is, of course, unless, they have come to admit, “We let a couple of people mistreat and ridicule her to the extent of a humiliation scene of locking her out of Palm Sunday and we still respond with pity about the fact that she doesn’t understand we were allowed to abuse her because she is crazy. So sad she is crazy, such good people we are for abusing her under a guise of Quakerism.” If that isn’t the answer being supplied about what happened to me, then the truth is not being told.
I care about that in the now because it pertains to the now. If I died of Covid, the truth about what a wonderful and worshipful part of that Meeting and this community I was would not have been told because of an atmosphere of denial and DECEPTION.
I had every right to call for review of minutes or review of how my membership terminated. Their decision to place half truths, which are not truths, in response to that was UNEQUAL treatment for NO reason. If I was having a paranoid schizophrenic event that involved calling for review of minutes that had been reviewed, then dealing with it would have occurred though M&W and I would have been made aware of how mental illness was intruding on my identity as a Friend and/or the life of the Meeting. Instead, I was sanely behaving in earnest and met with dishonest individuals using shame, stigma, and sense of superiority to demean and deride me.
Instead, I was being a truthful Friends and they subjected me to deception that resulted in them denying the mistreatment.
The storage bin of true events harmed one Light of God most—mine. And when you tell me to get over it because caring so much about my own self is somehow not humble, you present a terrible contradiction to this religion.
It might be contended that admitting to being mentally ill and also mistreated allows others to cast doubt on my ability to know if I have been mistreated. It might also be the case that any of these factors—obesity, sobriety, mental illness—that were not factors when a person became a member could later intrude on the life of the meeting such that excluding that person justified. However, it is NEVER justified to exclude a member of the Religious Society of Friends based on falsities, denial, blaming, and abuse of that person. I am not exaggerating when I say this! I am not the aggressor and I have not forfeited my status as an equal in spiritual terms, despite a despicable attempt to question my legitimacy based on my low income and Dissociative Identity Disorder.
If I had cancer or genetic obesity. it would not be expected that I hide it while participating in church. Similarly, I was not required to hide not understanding why I engaged in self harm. This is a religion about Truth. My ability to be an honest and powerful worshipper in this form of religion was not compromised by these struggles and I did not have to acquiesce to the stigma-laden ideology of those who employ sarcasm and denial as ways to interact as Friends.
Let’s suppose one of these factors were posing a problem to another member of Meeting or attender. Perhaps a parent with a child who has a sugar dependency and insulin issue is concerned about how zealous I am bringing sweets to potluck, oases as I am, or I smell like alcohol after a committee meeting and this is confusing to someone I connected with the local 12-step scene. There is a process for handling those overlaps of that of God gathering. The member will be contacted for an eldering or a clearness committee should the concerns about behavior proof to be worthy of these means for shared wellness.
None of that happened for me. My mental illness was not the problem. My willingness to speak out about being mistreated was perceived as the problem and I was subjected to manifold mistreatments thereby.
When individuals takes roles within this religion, they relinquish privacy regarding acts done on behalf of the Meeting. Dave Hilsheimer was Clerk of that Meeting and deceived me. He doesn’t get protection from being called by name about actions he took AS Clerk of the Meeting. In that capacity, he conducted a Business Meeting in January 2014 in which I was present and a member of the Meeting. A statement regarding the state of the Meeting was being discussed and I had read it. It included an admission that participation in Business Meeting was poor and was worded as if they wanted to encourage more participation. I spoke, identified self as having been present for years worth of Business Meetings that developed policies being ignored as were my calls to review a particular minute. I speculated that it was as if the meeting was functioning without records. I had no idea I was speaking the truth and he chose to sit at the front of the room, while bullied-me had a shaky voice speaking to a clique that had formed against me. They had canceled all those years worth of minutes by accepting that such were missing and HIDING it once I started asking. He did not clarify that minutes were missing. He did not state it at all. Instead, he let me lament speculatively about what was actually the case and would become a conspiracy against me. This is deception! And I realize that many of you would like to call my reaction extreme, but it was let to go on for MONTHS before a harmful disclosure to me about the “real reason” my requests to review minutes were ignored.
Had Dave Hilsheimer cleared this up with the Meeting—that is made it clear that the eye-rolling, and sighing, and ridicule I endured while calling for minutes to be reviewed was cruel and unnecessary, as was an private session of trying to force me to not mention the past at all. He instead, let the truth of me being gaslit be known only to me and then stood aside in a series of half truths laced with pity for years to follow.
In March 2017, a clearness committee was held at my urging to deal with my grievances for having been subjected to an ousting as a member unlike what other Friends are granted, the circumstances of being evaded in what created an image of me UNTRUE and unfair, and other related matters. During this two hour gathering of 4 members plus me, it was decided that a Committee of Concern would form, via those who had given their time to this clearness committee relaying to SEYM that assistance in selecting objective parties in such a committee was requested. I agreed to be patient in waiting for this to happen as the process was not common, but I was adamant that I was not willing to let my grievances be denied. Five months went by with only contact from one member of that committee with her promise that it was not being forgotten, but her health was very poor. Five months later, when I contacted them. Dave Hilsheimer, who would have had a lot of mistreatment to admit if he had carried through with the promise, denied that it was even a clearness committee. It had been forgotten and they did not tell me it was being dropped because they forgot which one of them forgot to tell me the thing they had not agreed to do was not happening.
Yeah, I do sound crazy. And I am crazy. But in the case of describing how the Friends treated me is not a matter of my mental health. What is crazy here is anyone behaving as they have in the name of this religion.
Instead of forming a Committee of Concern, they had a secret, separate process to discuss my membership and declared me still unwelcome. This isn’t honest or process when you have committed to doing something else. It is more of the same denial and deception that had been serving regarding me.
Although I had repeatedly tried to have the letter laying down my membership declared as bogus, Sarasota Monthly Meeting refused to do so. The last sentences claims that I will always be welcome to worship with them. It was never retracted. No subsequent word officially from the Meeting came to me.
And yet, these Friends hatched a secret plan to lock me out of the building if I were to arrive. They enacted the plan on Palm Sunday 2018, just more than a year after deceiving me with a promise of a Committee of Concern. A scout alerted others that I had arrived. Doors were locked from the inside. Volunteers exited to place their bodies between doors and me. And the police were called to have me trespassed off property. These Friends had decided that entirely separate sets of practices applied to me because a couple of them did not like me and none of them liked hearing how I disliked being mistreated. They did not even contact me to give me the opportunity to avoid the painful trauma of being locked out.
The previous visit, a person I do not know who had become part of this paradigm of ridiculing me, screamed at me. “There is no Light of God in you” as she also spewed hatred at me for existing with mental challenges.
Therapy for traumas has begun now that I know Dissociative Identity Disorder describes how my mind dealt with early childhood abuse. As I imagine myself at age 6 in bars with my disabled father in Norristown, Pennsylvania, I also imagine Friends gathering in Meetinghouses in silence. I imagine them reading queries and discussing matters in the 1970s. And despite the vitriol and abuse I have endured via these individuals representing Sarasota Monthly Meeting, I will not believe those Friends discussing outreach or spiritual gifts had an in an unspoken disclaimer that “Light of God” did not have to addressed in the adult I would become because a defense mechanism of multiple perspectives had formed in my mind.
I was an equal when I called for review of minutes. The fact that someone had been bullying me such that I felt unwelcome did not give Dave Hilsheimer the permission to make up an alternative to Truth. If I was bi-polar, obese, crooked nosed or whiny-voiced, the same response to my call for review of minutes should have occurred. “Sorry, Friend, we’ve been unable to locate years worth of minutes for years, so we cannot do that” was the simple truth that would have circumvented me being abused emotionally and psychology. When Dave Hilsheimer and Ann Sunberg and Sarah Hernandez participated is some screwy plan to hide that these minutes were missing while I happened to be asking about them, they MISTREATED me. They decided I did not deserve Truth, and manufactures something else that caused me harm. They manufactured a reputation that I was being bad and mean and wrong and extreme by honoring the Holy Spirit I witnessed by participating in Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business.
And yet, I have to pay someone to wave a hand in front of my face while I attempt to discharge the memory of being locked out like a license to not speak to my Light had been issued to these Friends. I did not cause the trauma. I had no reason to believe the welcoming language on every Quaker website did not apply to me. They were responsible to tell me that I was not welcome. These Friends violated the very concept of open to all. It was not their right assume that my mental illness meant they could set me up for more trauma.
Warnings about slander and erasures of my words occur when I decry like this and I resent those reactions in a paradigm of Truth. The bully who started the agenda of attacking me, Lesley Jacobs, was a lawyer. If she wants to sue me for slander, I can only express gratitude for the chance to confront her. I don’t worry about accountability because I am telling the truth. And though I realize complaint is heard as that Mockingbird perceived as an aggressor—by virtue of witness’ limits—I remain aware that silence about how I have been treated from my own self and from these organizations does not honor the testimonies. Instead, when my efforts to decry being abused (for ANY reason) are met with more ridicule or and ultimatums that I cease to care about how that-of-God in me is treated. The consequence to testimonies when I remain silent about this or when I am ignored about it mimics what more than one crow is called—a murder.
===
Sharon Fitzpatrick shared a post.
uih134f u5Nf0Soovemb5er0 2re01220 · 201114
Sharon Fitzpatrick
uih133f u5Nf0Soovemb5er0 2re01220 ·
Groan on some level might have occurred when others suggested that I use my own poetry in my art.
When I scored a stack of colored stock cut into postcard sized rectangles and then this no vintage shell dyed before the middle of 20th century, I tried.
The short poems with art around them sold no better than poems or shell art marketed separately.
This one has been around needing a flower rebuild and paint to deal with glue used as wind swirls.
The poem was inspired by a label on a shirt of XS, extra small, when I looked at it after wearing to push my dear friend Pat Murphy around Capital Hill with a sign that read WWII veteran for peace. We had decided not to try to convene in DC because of the crowds for protest of Iraq war. Both parties were “up North,” but we weren’t all equipped with cell phones.
By “accident,” as I attempted to hit a port a potty before marching alone, I heard the name of his wife in my head.
“Freddie?!?” just like that when I felt the vibration of Ms. WindRiver.
I looked around and there were my fellow Peace and Social Concerns committee members! Pat wasn’t happy about the wheelchair, but only way to attend and how thin Freddie would have managed all day...well, God had a plan.
And so after, as I saw the tag on the inside of the white fabric I had worn while hundreds of strangers took pictures of us, these words coalesced:
I have so much
love in my heart
I might need to borrow yours
for some of the excess.
Art: spiffed up with paint and the clay heart my late friend Albree made by hand given due attention.
Sharon FitzpatrickReligious Society of Friends
t02 pc0Novh2e1mbhso5ehrr 2d0i20 ·
Also on this Day of the Dead, I invoke the sentiment of late Friend Lucinda Hathaway, who agreed that discomfort about being named for one’s deeds was a matter of those deeds, not the party citing those deeds.
If I use the name of a person who was Clerk of a Meeting about a deed done on behalf of that Meeting, such as calling the sweet, devoted, hard earning, kicked-out-by-her memoirist “a problem,” she is accountable for it BY NAME.
A Friend comprehends this and uses both word and deed with care. I do because I remain a Quaker, regardless of my status as shunned and scorned for merely referring the Truth.
You might shake your head and say ought to be handled by process.
The Sarasota Monthly Meeting committed to form a committee of concern about many matters of abuse toward me and then simply did not follow through and LIED about that commitment.
No recourse I have tried has changed that status. I was trespassed off property without even being told of that strategy in waiting on Palm Sunday years ago and have not had any consolation in any degree from any attempt to bring to Light how oversight is imperative in any religion.
Sharon Fitzpatrick shared a post.
2 Nouvhem68be9r5ng08 si229020e ·
+2
Sharon Fitzpatrick
2 Nouvhem68be9r5ng08 si229020e · 201102
At age 14, Mary Lindsay aspired you be a political cartooonist. It was 1931 and this Southern teen read political material and reworked in her own visionary intellect to these three cartoons.
In her memoir, they are described below with:
A Busy Father—Hawaii, Alaska, US Virgin Island and Philippines depicted as a young children with Uncle Sam
“As Stubborn as a Mule”-America represented by a mule refusing the trough of communism, although yoked to communists, while Russia appears to be a cow partaking of communism
“It Isn’t Fair”—chain stores drawn as a spider preying on individual stores represented by a fly.
On the Day of the Dead, my copy of her memoirs was on the chair that belonged to the Elmendorf household until I painted it rather than have it reach dump.
The book had been perused by my guest last night and left there such that I picked up to put back on E shelf.
But I decided to enjoy parts...
I was tasked to pick out pictures for her memoir and that was difficult!
I insisted that we use these comics and had to argue HARD to get them in. Worth every bit of my argumentative skill!
And I also made the case for including the private material in second half with photos of grandchildren.
Here, once I won, I put her in charge of picking the fav photo of those grandchildren. It is a special part of the book for me.
Current events are visible in the cartoons she drew almost 90 years ago. That photos of her grandchildren would represent themes in an advanced species regressing never crossed my mind.
As her memoir assistant and friend, I held a secret about the artificial techniques by which Mary and John were able to build a family. Duke University aided them in being innovative in this private matter. At the time of her death, I was the only living person who knew. While working on her book, I interacted with her family knowing their biological information and keeping it as confidential as possible.
More than once, I had a gaff, but no one realized because the idea of having been conceived with a donor was not in their frame of reference.
It has come to light due to DNA testing and I shared everything I knew with the only person to whom I am bonded with love.
During her memorial, however, I sat silently in the scorn caused by a woman who hates me, Lesley Jacobs, who called me “a problem” from a position of authority with the Sarasota Monthly Meeting.
I almost did not go because the Quakers and some family members held me in such shadows, not mine, but their own projected onto me.
Mary cast a vote in 2016 and I have been so grateful she doesn’t have to witness this mess of planet E and nation USA. On this particular issue—the ability to have a family when natural compatibility is not present between partners—is not something we should be revisiting.
And I should not be fighting to prove my integrity or my sanity, but in a world that has trouble recognizing either, I am invigorated by the dead.
Some of my best allies are on the other side and their Spirits still very alive via those influenced and those off-sprung (by means both natural and scientific.)
uih134f u5Nf0Soovemb5er0 2re01220 · 201114
Sharon Fitzpatrick
uih133f u5Nf0Soovemb5er0 2re01220 ·
Groan on some level might have occurred when others suggested that I use my own poetry in my art.
When I scored a stack of colored stock cut into postcard sized rectangles and then this no vintage shell dyed before the middle of 20th century, I tried.
The short poems with art around them sold no better than poems or shell art marketed separately.
This one has been around needing a flower rebuild and paint to deal with glue used as wind swirls.
The poem was inspired by a label on a shirt of XS, extra small, when I looked at it after wearing to push my dear friend Pat Murphy around Capital Hill with a sign that read WWII veteran for peace. We had decided not to try to convene in DC because of the crowds for protest of Iraq war. Both parties were “up North,” but we weren’t all equipped with cell phones.
By “accident,” as I attempted to hit a port a potty before marching alone, I heard the name of his wife in my head.
“Freddie?!?” just like that when I felt the vibration of Ms. WindRiver.
I looked around and there were my fellow Peace and Social Concerns committee members! Pat wasn’t happy about the wheelchair, but only way to attend and how thin Freddie would have managed all day...well, God had a plan.
And so after, as I saw the tag on the inside of the white fabric I had worn while hundreds of strangers took pictures of us, these words coalesced:
I have so much
love in my heart
I might need to borrow yours
for some of the excess.
Art: spiffed up with paint and the clay heart my late friend Albree made by hand given due attention.
Sharon FitzpatrickReligious Society of Friends
t02 pc0Novh2e1mbhso5ehrr 2d0i20 ·
Also on this Day of the Dead, I invoke the sentiment of late Friend Lucinda Hathaway, who agreed that discomfort about being named for one’s deeds was a matter of those deeds, not the party citing those deeds.
If I use the name of a person who was Clerk of a Meeting about a deed done on behalf of that Meeting, such as calling the sweet, devoted, hard earning, kicked-out-by-her memoirist “a problem,” she is accountable for it BY NAME.
A Friend comprehends this and uses both word and deed with care. I do because I remain a Quaker, regardless of my status as shunned and scorned for merely referring the Truth.
You might shake your head and say ought to be handled by process.
The Sarasota Monthly Meeting committed to form a committee of concern about many matters of abuse toward me and then simply did not follow through and LIED about that commitment.
No recourse I have tried has changed that status. I was trespassed off property without even being told of that strategy in waiting on Palm Sunday years ago and have not had any consolation in any degree from any attempt to bring to Light how oversight is imperative in any religion.
Sharon Fitzpatrick shared a post.
2 Nouvhem68be9r5ng08 si229020e ·
+2
Sharon Fitzpatrick
2 Nouvhem68be9r5ng08 si229020e · 201102
At age 14, Mary Lindsay aspired you be a political cartooonist. It was 1931 and this Southern teen read political material and reworked in her own visionary intellect to these three cartoons.
In her memoir, they are described below with:
A Busy Father—Hawaii, Alaska, US Virgin Island and Philippines depicted as a young children with Uncle Sam
“As Stubborn as a Mule”-America represented by a mule refusing the trough of communism, although yoked to communists, while Russia appears to be a cow partaking of communism
“It Isn’t Fair”—chain stores drawn as a spider preying on individual stores represented by a fly.
On the Day of the Dead, my copy of her memoirs was on the chair that belonged to the Elmendorf household until I painted it rather than have it reach dump.
The book had been perused by my guest last night and left there such that I picked up to put back on E shelf.
But I decided to enjoy parts...
I was tasked to pick out pictures for her memoir and that was difficult!
I insisted that we use these comics and had to argue HARD to get them in. Worth every bit of my argumentative skill!
And I also made the case for including the private material in second half with photos of grandchildren.
Here, once I won, I put her in charge of picking the fav photo of those grandchildren. It is a special part of the book for me.
Current events are visible in the cartoons she drew almost 90 years ago. That photos of her grandchildren would represent themes in an advanced species regressing never crossed my mind.
As her memoir assistant and friend, I held a secret about the artificial techniques by which Mary and John were able to build a family. Duke University aided them in being innovative in this private matter. At the time of her death, I was the only living person who knew. While working on her book, I interacted with her family knowing their biological information and keeping it as confidential as possible.
More than once, I had a gaff, but no one realized because the idea of having been conceived with a donor was not in their frame of reference.
It has come to light due to DNA testing and I shared everything I knew with the only person to whom I am bonded with love.
During her memorial, however, I sat silently in the scorn caused by a woman who hates me, Lesley Jacobs, who called me “a problem” from a position of authority with the Sarasota Monthly Meeting.
I almost did not go because the Quakers and some family members held me in such shadows, not mine, but their own projected onto me.
Mary cast a vote in 2016 and I have been so grateful she doesn’t have to witness this mess of planet E and nation USA. On this particular issue—the ability to have a family when natural compatibility is not present between partners—is not something we should be revisiting.
And I should not be fighting to prove my integrity or my sanity, but in a world that has trouble recognizing either, I am invigorated by the dead.
Some of my best allies are on the other side and their Spirits still very alive via those influenced and those off-sprung (by means both natural and scientific.)
===
===
Sharon FitzpatrickReligious Society of Friends
29u4 MhSaroc0lng8h 201g20d ·
200329
Courtesy of the impressive display at Meetinghouse in Flushing, NY.
There is no better quote for our current scenario.
This past December was not the first time I had heard the arrangement of words, but I only knew it had been said by a Friend.
Tomorrow I continue to bear witness to how I have been maligned and mistreated by individuals representing this faith. It is suffering when I do this, which is why/how I have repeatedly postponed. I have protested at the Meetinghouse or public property adjacent to Sarasota Monthly Meeting. I was ridiculed and yelled at on multiple occasions by those who attend while I was standing silently with my sign.
I will draw from this legacy to have the strength to do it.
Sharon FitzpatrickReligious Society of Friends
2uS6c lmMa1s7r9c4och 2re020d ·
After reading a couple posts on this group, I wrote the second piece here per the “tender heart and thick skin” characteristics listed for additional administrators. Then I paired it with this 38-year-old piece and explained the context in a post. A fellow alumna from college reacted with a perky comment about Quaker heritage and I replied with the following:
I was not exposed to Quakers until age 16 by going to a Friends school, but I started attending on First Day occasionally and really loved the religion. I attended during and after college in both Santa Fe and Annapolis on irregular basis, but considered a Meeting necessary for wherever I moved.
I was extremely active in Sarasota including becoming a member, clerking multiple committees, and representing the Meeting with larger organizations.
In possibly the most bizarre and cruel series of events, I have had my membership laid down without my consent or standard “faith and practice,” after being subjected to psychological abuse and absolute falsities about the Meeting procedure and adherence to the manner of Friends, and even been trespassed off property for speaking Truth.
Among the weird and painful scenarios I have endured by age 49, what the Sarasota Monthly Meeting of Friends did to me and how ineffective or unresponsive the oversight from Southeastern Yearly Meeting and Friends General Conference respectively have been to my efforts on resolving are unparalleled in severity.
That may sound odd from a woman who was raped at 14 or forced to eat directly off the floor at age 8 by an alcoholic father, but none of the other terrible behavior was done in the name of God or under the testimonies that I still revere.
I have placed this here to respond to you specifically, but also because it is important for it to be heard.
[end of response.]
As an entire global population has to create new paradigms because of a pandemic, I am still presenting to this religion an overdue query. When is this Society going to deal with situations of abuse? And create some oversight?!?!
I had planned on standing with a sign outside Southeastern Yearly Meeting in 2020, among my last resorts because NOTHING else has worked. It was canceled.
The leading to stand in front of the homes and places of work for those individuals who have lied and covered up their lies has been repeatedly postponed because I loathe to do it. The goal in such an effort is to raise awareness among the neighbors and colleagues of those who have behaved in such a way under the guise of following this faith. I loathe to do it because of how busy I am and fear that someone indicated on my sign will have a heart attack or similar.
Nonetheless, I have had to accept that I have plenty on extra time and more of those neighbors are situated to become aware.
3 comments
Like
Comment
Sharon FitzpatrickReligious Society of Friends
3t Nt6o5ov70ember 2011tetcdf9 ·
Soon after we released the memoirs of Dr. Mary Elmendorf, I tried to get Quaker Books to carry the book. Without promotional experience or business acumen, I didn’t manage to get much publicity for this wonderful account of how a convinced Friend used her Light in her career, both volunteer and for hire. Mary was among the AFSC volunteers who were awarded the Nobel for Peace in 1947. In my opinion, it was among the least of her accomplishments.
We produced 2 runs of 100 copies of the copyrighted version of this book. New copies are still available & I am happy to let Friends know about how to get them.
Mary and I were friends. She asked me to work on her memoirs “for friends and family” before I had even published any of my own work. I had to convince her that her autobiography had enough merit to impact the general public, and especially Friends.
She died at age 100 in September 2017.
Having just realized that used copies are available on Amazon, I wanted to encourage others to order it. I do not profit from sales of her memoirs financially, but I truly believed that her stories would move others...
Used book prices vary based on sales, so I don’t know what these will cost if Friends attempt to order.
===
Sharon FitzpatrickReligious Society of Friends
t2p9g9 Ocmnl5tofber 2061r91d · 191029
Late in 2016, I contacted a Trustee of Sarasota Monthly Meeting to inquire if he was aware of the circumstances around my membership being laid down or the status of “almost 10 years” of Minutes from Business Meeting being missing. I was unaware these Minutes had been relocated and there had never been a transparent disclosure about their missing status. Instead, I had gotten a telephone call from then-Clerk to tell me “the real reason” that my repeated requests for review of 3 Minutes were not honored during a period of almost 9 months. He claimed that everyone knew they were missing and sent me an email the following week, from the Meetinghouse listing which were nonexistent on the records.
The Trustee I contacted had not known about the manner of my membership being laid down and followed up with M&W clerk, who simply said, “oh, no, they’re there.”
He began to meet with others after rise of Meeting and communicated this to me, which prompted me to ask for Clearness Committee. I was contacted by M&W about what I wished to cover in Clearness Committee and she assented to assembling one. We spoke more than once about the topics and who would represent SMM on the Clearness Committee. I then received a phone call from one of those selected members, the former Clerk who had never publicly admitted the “real reason” my requests for review of 3 separate Minutes were not honored or that he did not approve of an eldering that occurred without any advance notice to me. He was calling to reschedule the Clearness Committee because there was already a work day on schedule for chosen date. I arranged for the Saturday following the original date and asked him why he called. He replied that he was known to like me and I responded that personal relationships were not a factor in these matters and clarity required the volunteer appointed to specific duties to communicate with me.
When I arrived at the Meetinghouse for what I had already discussed as a Clearness Committee in March 2017, the committee clerk announced that it was not appropriate procedure for the matters. They wished to disband, but 5 of us had driven to the Meetinghouse to discuss overdue topics of serious nature and I would not relent in speaking Truth. We had begun in silence and spent 2 hours dealing with how my membership was laid down, how my requests for review of Minutes were circumvented because they were actually missing at the time of my requests, how I had been eldered without process being honored, how there were no notes from that eldering in which I was told that I could not refer to the past at all and remain on the P&SC Committee, how rumors about my mental fitness had replaced the account of my involvement as an attender and a member, how I had endured mistreatment by certain individuals in the Meeting, who were reluctant to be accountable for their behavior, and how nominating committee had influenced that eldering without handling the request to rejoin the P&SC committee in a common fashion.
It was suggested by the only person on that Clearness committee who had not participated in one of the above violation, that I initiate the membership process and I declined because my membership had been laid down without my consent and without it being presented to Business Meeting BEFORE the letter was sent. I felt it unfair to require of me the process of becoming a member again when I had not assented to having it laid down. I also admitted that I was not comfortable resuming attendance in Meeting for Worship until these matters were brought to Light. There was copious hearsay and I had tired of the clear message that I was not welcome by a contingent who had been attacking me for years.
We decided that the 4 members of SMM who were present would instigate a Committee of Concern, preferable with Friends who were in no way involved in these matters. It was suggested that patience would be required as M&W might reach out to SEYM for guidance or even to compose the Committee of Concern, if possible. I emphatically specified that I would be patient, but that I wanted to hear exclusively from whoever was heading up the effort on M&W because these personal opinions only clouded the process.
In April, I heard from one individual, privately, about the fact that her health was causing problems in their plan to meet again. I loved that Friend and did not wish to burden her with the responsibility of follow through and she was not on M&W. I suggested that she step aside and reminded her that the participants in March were not obliged or even suitable for the Committee of Concern. I heard from her again the following month about the scheduling because SMM suspends most Business from June through August, given the demographic
of seasonal residents. She assured me that the matter was not going to be dropped, but I still had not heard a word from M&W.
In August, I contacted the Meeting via website because I wished to attend after the tragedy in Charlottesville and was concerned that I had received no update. At Meeting, I was silent, but spoke with the stand-in for Clerk, who was among those on this called-as-Clearness-Committee. He explained that no action had been taken because it was just “people who loved me listening to my grievances” back in March. I pressed on and received this letter signed by those 4 members.
At least one of these individuals is no longer alive. It is semantics to claim that “ignore” wasn’t what happened because it was just confusion about who was supposed to reach out. From the receiving end, not being contacted for SIX MONTHS and being cited for not doing what I never agreed to do—attend without the process being started—is the same as being ignored.
I have also never agreed to let any of this go.
On Palm Sunday 2018, I arrived to the grounds of Meetinghouse to a scout alerting others that I had parked. The doors were locked from the inside while volunteers emerged to blockade those doors and another volunteer went to the office to call police. No one had contacted me to let me know that I was not welcome on property. No one had requested that I come in for a discussion (eldering/Clearness) about concerns that I was misusing Meeting for Worship by standing and speaking of these matters. Instead, like numerous other times, this Meeting improvised on how to “handle” me rather than follow faith and practice in dealing with difficult situations.
I have missed at least one memorial service because I am not legally permitted on the property that I HELPED open! And I have continued to explore every means possible to establish the Truth. Those who are culpable put forth that I don’t have my facts straight. And even though “oops we weren’t ignoring you, we were just confused about whether or not anyone ever updated you” establishes which party is “confused,” there has been no effort to reflect or take account of these matters.
This summer, I wrote to FGC with no reply, sending copies to both SMM and the former Meeting of the individual whose pattern of ignoring and attacking me goes back YEARS.
I am led by Truth and I act in Integrity.
Featured here: the letter attempting to deal with the facts that action was dropped and no one contacted me. I received it the same month that one of my dearest Friends died. I attended the memorial service, prior to being trespassed off SMM property and held elsewhere, having been informed by the non-religious family of that Friend that I had been called “a problem” by the Clerk. I was the only (former) member of SMM who had assisted this esteemed and deceased member in the final transition of her life because SMM failed to offer assistance with her last break down of possessions 2 years prior to her death. I did so without contacting SMM because the Friend has obstructed my suggestion that we request help from the Meeting “Because they didn’t offer.”
I attended that memorial service having kept the deceased’s deepest secret and spent numerous hours in activities that would have been appropriate pastoral care, yet held as “a problem” by those conducting the service and having done nothing to actually help the esteemed elder.
When I arrived the following month to attempt in spurring SMM to examine their success in pastoral care by sharing about the 2 times the deceased had said “because they didn’t offer” regarding suggestions I had made, I was interrupted, crowded, told I was just “angry,” and made to appear the cause of 4-5 individuals storming out.
A longtime Friend who observed this, later noted that my manner and voice were calm until these individuals attempted to suppress my message. Among those who did so was the author of the letter photographed here. She said, “This isn’t the time or place” after having ignored the efforts I had invested at a previous time and on the same place!
Sharon FitzpatrickReligious Society of Friends
29u4 MhSaroc0lng8h 201g20d ·
200329
Courtesy of the impressive display at Meetinghouse in Flushing, NY.
There is no better quote for our current scenario.
This past December was not the first time I had heard the arrangement of words, but I only knew it had been said by a Friend.
Tomorrow I continue to bear witness to how I have been maligned and mistreated by individuals representing this faith. It is suffering when I do this, which is why/how I have repeatedly postponed. I have protested at the Meetinghouse or public property adjacent to Sarasota Monthly Meeting. I was ridiculed and yelled at on multiple occasions by those who attend while I was standing silently with my sign.
I will draw from this legacy to have the strength to do it.
Sharon FitzpatrickReligious Society of Friends
2uS6c lmMa1s7r9c4och 2re020d ·
After reading a couple posts on this group, I wrote the second piece here per the “tender heart and thick skin” characteristics listed for additional administrators. Then I paired it with this 38-year-old piece and explained the context in a post. A fellow alumna from college reacted with a perky comment about Quaker heritage and I replied with the following:
I was not exposed to Quakers until age 16 by going to a Friends school, but I started attending on First Day occasionally and really loved the religion. I attended during and after college in both Santa Fe and Annapolis on irregular basis, but considered a Meeting necessary for wherever I moved.
I was extremely active in Sarasota including becoming a member, clerking multiple committees, and representing the Meeting with larger organizations.
In possibly the most bizarre and cruel series of events, I have had my membership laid down without my consent or standard “faith and practice,” after being subjected to psychological abuse and absolute falsities about the Meeting procedure and adherence to the manner of Friends, and even been trespassed off property for speaking Truth.
Among the weird and painful scenarios I have endured by age 49, what the Sarasota Monthly Meeting of Friends did to me and how ineffective or unresponsive the oversight from Southeastern Yearly Meeting and Friends General Conference respectively have been to my efforts on resolving are unparalleled in severity.
That may sound odd from a woman who was raped at 14 or forced to eat directly off the floor at age 8 by an alcoholic father, but none of the other terrible behavior was done in the name of God or under the testimonies that I still revere.
I have placed this here to respond to you specifically, but also because it is important for it to be heard.
[end of response.]
As an entire global population has to create new paradigms because of a pandemic, I am still presenting to this religion an overdue query. When is this Society going to deal with situations of abuse? And create some oversight?!?!
I had planned on standing with a sign outside Southeastern Yearly Meeting in 2020, among my last resorts because NOTHING else has worked. It was canceled.
The leading to stand in front of the homes and places of work for those individuals who have lied and covered up their lies has been repeatedly postponed because I loathe to do it. The goal in such an effort is to raise awareness among the neighbors and colleagues of those who have behaved in such a way under the guise of following this faith. I loathe to do it because of how busy I am and fear that someone indicated on my sign will have a heart attack or similar.
Nonetheless, I have had to accept that I have plenty on extra time and more of those neighbors are situated to become aware.
3 comments
Like
Comment
Sharon FitzpatrickReligious Society of Friends
3t Nt6o5ov70ember 2011tetcdf9 ·
Soon after we released the memoirs of Dr. Mary Elmendorf, I tried to get Quaker Books to carry the book. Without promotional experience or business acumen, I didn’t manage to get much publicity for this wonderful account of how a convinced Friend used her Light in her career, both volunteer and for hire. Mary was among the AFSC volunteers who were awarded the Nobel for Peace in 1947. In my opinion, it was among the least of her accomplishments.
We produced 2 runs of 100 copies of the copyrighted version of this book. New copies are still available & I am happy to let Friends know about how to get them.
Mary and I were friends. She asked me to work on her memoirs “for friends and family” before I had even published any of my own work. I had to convince her that her autobiography had enough merit to impact the general public, and especially Friends.
She died at age 100 in September 2017.
Having just realized that used copies are available on Amazon, I wanted to encourage others to order it. I do not profit from sales of her memoirs financially, but I truly believed that her stories would move others...
Used book prices vary based on sales, so I don’t know what these will cost if Friends attempt to order.
===
Sharon FitzpatrickReligious Society of Friends
t2p9g9 Ocmnl5tofber 2061r91d · 191029
Late in 2016, I contacted a Trustee of Sarasota Monthly Meeting to inquire if he was aware of the circumstances around my membership being laid down or the status of “almost 10 years” of Minutes from Business Meeting being missing. I was unaware these Minutes had been relocated and there had never been a transparent disclosure about their missing status. Instead, I had gotten a telephone call from then-Clerk to tell me “the real reason” that my repeated requests for review of 3 Minutes were not honored during a period of almost 9 months. He claimed that everyone knew they were missing and sent me an email the following week, from the Meetinghouse listing which were nonexistent on the records.
The Trustee I contacted had not known about the manner of my membership being laid down and followed up with M&W clerk, who simply said, “oh, no, they’re there.”
He began to meet with others after rise of Meeting and communicated this to me, which prompted me to ask for Clearness Committee. I was contacted by M&W about what I wished to cover in Clearness Committee and she assented to assembling one. We spoke more than once about the topics and who would represent SMM on the Clearness Committee. I then received a phone call from one of those selected members, the former Clerk who had never publicly admitted the “real reason” my requests for review of 3 separate Minutes were not honored or that he did not approve of an eldering that occurred without any advance notice to me. He was calling to reschedule the Clearness Committee because there was already a work day on schedule for chosen date. I arranged for the Saturday following the original date and asked him why he called. He replied that he was known to like me and I responded that personal relationships were not a factor in these matters and clarity required the volunteer appointed to specific duties to communicate with me.
When I arrived at the Meetinghouse for what I had already discussed as a Clearness Committee in March 2017, the committee clerk announced that it was not appropriate procedure for the matters. They wished to disband, but 5 of us had driven to the Meetinghouse to discuss overdue topics of serious nature and I would not relent in speaking Truth. We had begun in silence and spent 2 hours dealing with how my membership was laid down, how my requests for review of Minutes were circumvented because they were actually missing at the time of my requests, how I had been eldered without process being honored, how there were no notes from that eldering in which I was told that I could not refer to the past at all and remain on the P&SC Committee, how rumors about my mental fitness had replaced the account of my involvement as an attender and a member, how I had endured mistreatment by certain individuals in the Meeting, who were reluctant to be accountable for their behavior, and how nominating committee had influenced that eldering without handling the request to rejoin the P&SC committee in a common fashion.
It was suggested by the only person on that Clearness committee who had not participated in one of the above violation, that I initiate the membership process and I declined because my membership had been laid down without my consent and without it being presented to Business Meeting BEFORE the letter was sent. I felt it unfair to require of me the process of becoming a member again when I had not assented to having it laid down. I also admitted that I was not comfortable resuming attendance in Meeting for Worship until these matters were brought to Light. There was copious hearsay and I had tired of the clear message that I was not welcome by a contingent who had been attacking me for years.
We decided that the 4 members of SMM who were present would instigate a Committee of Concern, preferable with Friends who were in no way involved in these matters. It was suggested that patience would be required as M&W might reach out to SEYM for guidance or even to compose the Committee of Concern, if possible. I emphatically specified that I would be patient, but that I wanted to hear exclusively from whoever was heading up the effort on M&W because these personal opinions only clouded the process.
In April, I heard from one individual, privately, about the fact that her health was causing problems in their plan to meet again. I loved that Friend and did not wish to burden her with the responsibility of follow through and she was not on M&W. I suggested that she step aside and reminded her that the participants in March were not obliged or even suitable for the Committee of Concern. I heard from her again the following month about the scheduling because SMM suspends most Business from June through August, given the demographic
of seasonal residents. She assured me that the matter was not going to be dropped, but I still had not heard a word from M&W.
In August, I contacted the Meeting via website because I wished to attend after the tragedy in Charlottesville and was concerned that I had received no update. At Meeting, I was silent, but spoke with the stand-in for Clerk, who was among those on this called-as-Clearness-Committee. He explained that no action had been taken because it was just “people who loved me listening to my grievances” back in March. I pressed on and received this letter signed by those 4 members.
At least one of these individuals is no longer alive. It is semantics to claim that “ignore” wasn’t what happened because it was just confusion about who was supposed to reach out. From the receiving end, not being contacted for SIX MONTHS and being cited for not doing what I never agreed to do—attend without the process being started—is the same as being ignored.
I have also never agreed to let any of this go.
On Palm Sunday 2018, I arrived to the grounds of Meetinghouse to a scout alerting others that I had parked. The doors were locked from the inside while volunteers emerged to blockade those doors and another volunteer went to the office to call police. No one had contacted me to let me know that I was not welcome on property. No one had requested that I come in for a discussion (eldering/Clearness) about concerns that I was misusing Meeting for Worship by standing and speaking of these matters. Instead, like numerous other times, this Meeting improvised on how to “handle” me rather than follow faith and practice in dealing with difficult situations.
I have missed at least one memorial service because I am not legally permitted on the property that I HELPED open! And I have continued to explore every means possible to establish the Truth. Those who are culpable put forth that I don’t have my facts straight. And even though “oops we weren’t ignoring you, we were just confused about whether or not anyone ever updated you” establishes which party is “confused,” there has been no effort to reflect or take account of these matters.
This summer, I wrote to FGC with no reply, sending copies to both SMM and the former Meeting of the individual whose pattern of ignoring and attacking me goes back YEARS.
I am led by Truth and I act in Integrity.
Featured here: the letter attempting to deal with the facts that action was dropped and no one contacted me. I received it the same month that one of my dearest Friends died. I attended the memorial service, prior to being trespassed off SMM property and held elsewhere, having been informed by the non-religious family of that Friend that I had been called “a problem” by the Clerk. I was the only (former) member of SMM who had assisted this esteemed and deceased member in the final transition of her life because SMM failed to offer assistance with her last break down of possessions 2 years prior to her death. I did so without contacting SMM because the Friend has obstructed my suggestion that we request help from the Meeting “Because they didn’t offer.”
I attended that memorial service having kept the deceased’s deepest secret and spent numerous hours in activities that would have been appropriate pastoral care, yet held as “a problem” by those conducting the service and having done nothing to actually help the esteemed elder.
When I arrived the following month to attempt in spurring SMM to examine their success in pastoral care by sharing about the 2 times the deceased had said “because they didn’t offer” regarding suggestions I had made, I was interrupted, crowded, told I was just “angry,” and made to appear the cause of 4-5 individuals storming out.
A longtime Friend who observed this, later noted that my manner and voice were calm until these individuals attempted to suppress my message. Among those who did so was the author of the letter photographed here. She said, “This isn’t the time or place” after having ignored the efforts I had invested at a previous time and on the same place!
===
On Criticism, Humility, and Pride
This example involves the most accomplished and also humble human being I have known. In her mid-90s, it became clear that Mary Elmendorf would not be able to return to her 2 bedroom and 2 bath unit and would have to downsize to a single room with her chihuahua, where they were already staying.
We had been friends for more than a decade and I had worked with her on writing and publishing her memoirs, but I was not in a paid position in assisting her any longer. Instead, the dynamic was comparable to many in my life: like family.
At the time, I was newly married to a German I barely knew, who was in his homeland while I lived in a house he had on the market in Florida. His criticism about how much time I spent in unpaid pursuits that were not leisure would increase during our short marriage.
Like-family is a tough role. My love for the humans is not less than family and often I am certain the love for me is as genuine and deep from them. However, everyone has to be really careful. I am an outsider, so I may blurt something in observation that isn’t mentioned among those who are family because I am unaware of the sensitivity or back story. They (in multiple cases) may be aware I have needs that they would usually fulfill for family only, but they make the offer anyhow.
And, as in this example I am describing, I can find self with tasks that cannot be explained with logic.
The decision that Mary was not returning to the 23rd floor was shared with me by her only son, whom I loved like a brother and who admitted to being “in love” with me. This is the reason German husband was especially critical of my involvement, which I disregarded. Managing the role was fine as everyone was honest about it and there had not been a problem in years before German came on scene. I wasn’t suspending a friendship because he didn’t like part of the dynamic.
Lindsay was the only local blood relative of my friend and I knew about her other loved ones because of the photos, written and oral stories, and occasional, brief encounters. The difficulty in relying on Lindsay was multi-faceted;eccentric, alcoholic, and a brain cancer survivor, his inability to assist was not deliberate.
During the clearing of Mary’s possessions, for example, he did not have a driver’s license because of a DUI that happened after staff at nursing home called police because he had stumbled through the halls of the swank facility. Hence, we were using a friend of his as the driver of Mary’s vehicle with a trailer to move possessions.
Possessions that had been saved by a lover of beautiful things, an academic, and an artist who was nearing 100 years old were numerous. There was also a request from University of Florida that she send them anything that they might want to archive.
So, the process was to get Mary and her dog from the hospital-style room and take her to the apartment so that she could review the papers: discard, set aside to be shipped to UF, or relocate otherwise.
Lindsay was frustrated with this by week 3 or 4. He would complain to me that she was reading every paper all the way through instead of scanning and tossing in the appropriate pile.
I would grimace and say, “It is the last time she will have the chance.”
It went on like this in a very touchy routine. Boxes went to UF, but others went to his airplane hangar until he declared no more. We got a storage unit for her stuff and I got an outdoor unit in the same facility for my own things, as I was living in a house staged for resale, plus some of what I accepted of her things that no one else wanted. (Eventually, I would cut the lock to her storage unit with my own hands, having realized it was about to go to auction and paid the balance, straightened out the confusion, renewed the contract, received reimbursement, but with overtones of negativity from the accountant.)
Shipping items to various parties who expressed their interest was mostly Lindsay’s department, but I was packing my truck with packages for this, too. I was doing this as a
friend, although I did receive discarded items, most of which were of no monetary value.
I laughed about this in the very beginning of the process because Lindsay’s driving friend had dropped off for me a tangled mobile of Jingle shell and 3 metal chickens, missing some of their glass eyes. When I joked about what she sent in my direction, she clarified, “not to untangle or fix, to make use of them in another way.” I was honored.
Honoring me, however, was not what the German husband was doing on the telephone when I told him I was going through Mary’s canned goods for expiration dates. The food banks wouldn’t take expired items. He got angry that I was sorting her things because he perceived it as not my responsibility. I whined in defense that no one else was willing or able because they were very far away and leading busy lives. “Isn’t that what her church is for?” he inquired.
Mary and I were members of the same church. We had not met that way, but being Quakers was a major common denominator in our friendship. Mark had a good point and I had not thought of it as an option because a nucleus of Quakers were very busy shunning and demeaning me.
Nonetheless, the next day, while we loaded the trailer, I asked Lindsay what he thought of the idea. His exact words were, “Brilliant idea, but we have to ask Mary.” (Yes, he called her Mary more often than maternal terms.)
Scheduling my assistance usually worked by me letting one of them know which days I could do in a week. I would arrange to stop before a landscaping job for a few hours or in the late afternoon. On the day that I asked Mary about this, however, I had spoken with staff at the facility about it. First, I pushed her wheelchair to the financial office, where we explained the delay in emptying the apartment. The facility was not set up for individuals to be occupying more than one space for so long; each resident had an annual maximum of being in the section with nurses and also having an apartment. She had reached her quota and they wished to rent her unit with spectacular views of ocean, bay, and city. Meanwhile, the nursing staff had insisted we not place another box in her tiny room, which had been transformed with bookshelves, art, a desktop computer area, dog crate, and some of Mary’s most special belongings. It was a fire hazard and we had gridlock.
The dining room for the independent living section was posh and Mary liked having a companion for dining there. “Shall we go down to lunch?” was a common way to break the work we had done a couple years earlier on her memoirs and other legacy building. We had planned to have lunch this day before I departed to landscape and put in some time in the apartment before lunch. These were the types of perks I got for helping—fresh salad bar and decent coffee.
Appetite for food was not a characteristic of Mary, except for desserts and oysters, preferably raw. The latter were a rarity on the menu, so I waited for dessert to ask about getting some help from Sarasota Friends, most of whom were retired and adored her.
Tactful when not having a no-filter moment, I brought up the question and was surprised by her flat and instant, “no.”
“Oh. Mary, why not?” (I was not sharing with her details of the intense difficulties I was having with this church, which was playing a weird game of hiding the truth about their missing records from most of the membership and casting me as a nuisance for calling for review of those records. However, I wasn’t pretending that everything was fine with my status within the church, either. I wasn’t sure if she didn’t want me to ask or what other personal issue might have influenced her quick and firm reply. There were a couple people in the church with whom she had had unpleasant history & only I knew about those.)
“Because they didn’t offer.”
“Understood,” and I changed the topic.
In that moment, I knew my friend and our friendship like no other. That I let myself into 2305 and sorted/emptied medicine cabinets, linen closet, etc. at night may not have been seen by anyone but the Night Herons, my friend knew what the OFFER to help meant. She didn’t need to see any more than my willingness to know we were like-Spirited.
We were both aware that no one else could help, but carrying forward with intense work loads had not killed either of us before. Some might accuse her of pride in not letting me or herself asking for volunteers from our church, but that really was not the nature of her character. She was innately aligned with non-violence; her needs had been made known and she was very aware that inquiring if she needed help was a function of the church.
So it wasn’t pretty, but we ultimately finished and Mary was settled into the room with the Bay just beyond the windows. I stopped going to the church, except for memorial services, because the person in charge decided to disclose to me that I had been evaded for months because the records were missing. I had even been taken aside by others, supposedly without his approval , and subjected to what was psychological abuse in an effort to keep secret the missing records. It was a series of actions that were contrary in every way to the religion itself.
Two other members of the church would pick up Mary to attend until that was prohibited for medical reasons.
I visited once a week, sometimes more, for her entire stint in that room, unless under medical limitations myself. Every single week, I brought flowers from landscaping or desserts that she loved. We chatted and I kept up with the memoir-related activities, as sharing the phenomenal autobiography of this woman seemed very important to me for the betterment of Humankind.
I had to stop asking, “Did you go to Meeting [for Worship]?” once her oxygen tank had been added to the scene. We still spoke about those who visited, or were dear to both of us and affiliated with the church. She admitted that she missed going and I suggested that she contact Ministry and Worship about having Meeting in her room. I volunteered to attend.
“No.”
“Oh. Why not?”
“Because they didn’t offer.”
It had been more than a year since she had verbatim answered me; I understood and changed the topic.
This particular true story is very painful for me because of how things proceeded with the church. I was forced out, again without process being followed, and tried to contend with how that positioned me for memorial services and other such events.
Although I put enormous efforts into resolving those issues, the church continued to fumble and outright lie. Per my request, a process was set in motion called a clearness committee. The conclusion of the 5 people who participated, including me, was that a Committee of Concern needed to form in order to correct the mistakes that had been made. I was only to be kept informed of the progress, not part of the committee. Afterward, there were complications with one person’s health and she was the only individual to contact me with assurance of follow through. I urged her to withdraw from the group, although she was my only advocate among them because each of the others had participated in the cover-up and abusive behavior, if that would speed the process. My concern was being unable to honor Mary at a memorial service if those is control were still badmouthing and lying about me. It would quite simply be an affront to Holy Spirit.
Unfortunately, that is exactly what happened. The person with serious health issues was understandably not in condition to be my ally and others pretended the plan to prompt a Committee of Concern never happened. Mary died and her son Lindsay followed soon after. I had only begun to know the other family members better in the year prior.
The person most abusive to me in that church happened to be in charge and had the audacity to tell the eldest survivor of my friend that I was “a problem.”
Simultaneously, I had been fending off the baseless accusation from Mary’s accountant that I had stolen. Whenever checks for books were written, they were to Mary, which she kept in an envelope with cash from the book sales under her desk. I had offered to deposit it several times before she moved, but she always declined. Going to the bank to make deposits was an errand I had run for her in the past, but I didn’t know what her reasoning was for keeping that envelope.
For book-related tasks, I stopped accepting payment once the copyrighted version was printed. From thence forward, I set up book signings, attempted to set up book signings, prepared letters with free copies she wished to mail, and generally promoted her book on my own time and dime. I had provided the ISBN, which I owned, and I also had a business license for “publications” in Sarasota County until they combined that occupation with others in “manufacturing,” such that now I have only 2 business tax categories—landscaping and manufacturing. At the time, I had 3. Others disparaged me and echoes of “she is not really a publisher” had reached me from the Quakers. Dealing with the ridiculous accusation from an accountant who had not only been paid for all of her assistance, but had borrowed $10,000 from Lindsay without repaying it, according to him, was not going to happen without me hissing.
I was aware of housekeeping thefts that had happened in that facility concurrent with Mary keeping an envelope of cash on a shelf of her computer desk. (An ex boyfriend had a mother who lived there & he had reported cash missing from his mother’s purse in a manner that involved police and thereby discovered a particular employee had been taking cash and jewelry when it was available in units.)
More than a decade earlier, I had declined Mary’s request that I help her with a memoir “for friends and family.” She looked shocked when I said, “Absolutely not.” And then I added, “but if you want to write a memoir for publication, I would be happy to help.”
In the interim, our friendship expanded and I convinced her that messages in her life story were important and interesting for public. Hence, I delivered every $20 for a book sale to her as proof! I had baked a cake personally and set up an 95th birthday party book event for the pre-publication run. She started that envelope then & taking from it was not in my character. If I needed money, I could have ASKED! I had promised Lindsay years earlier never to mention to Mary the loan to their accountant he had made. The professional had approached him, a neighbor and client of the accounting firm of her father, about the demise of their business and her desire to ask Mary for a loan. He said he would prefer to make the loan himself. He told me this because he disliked being around the woman. I stepped in often if Mary asked him to do something that he really did not wish to do, some more pleasant, such as dining at the faculty, than others for me.
Lindsay was a wildly odd human who had quirky hobbies and astute mind overshadowed by weird communication issues. He wrote emails in all caps. He couldn’t tell the difference between 9am and 9pm; he had literally showed up at my door or called the night before we 3 were going somewhere and not known he was 12 hours early or LATE on several occasions. It wasn’t drunk behavior; he was sober most of the 15 years I knew him. It was probably a combination of autism and damage from a brain tumor long before I met the family.
However, I had no evidence that the man had ever lied. Not just to me. He didn’t lie to his mother in front of me ever either! So I have never doubted his detailed story about the accountant borrowing from him. Neither of Mary’s children followed her faith, but both of them were truthful like Quakers.
Ultimately, the loved ones of my friend would accept that I was honest. At the time of planning a memorial service for mother, it wasn’t the most important task to be sure I was comfortable. So I got to attend a service with the heavy eyeliner of accountant not concealing her hypocrisy and having to listen to Quakers who had not lifted a finger in pastoral care for the departed gush about their love for and bonds with Mary, while side-glancing at the little “problem.”
This problem had dumped both open bottles of vermouth down the drain for Mary. This problem had driven around with the expired canned goods until I found a homeless person who wanted it. This problem had calculated hours in helping to exclude anything personal—like sitting solo beside my friend when her second husband took his last breath, wrote his obituary, picked up his cremains. I didn’t charge Mary as a personal assistant; a personal friend who compiled and published her memoirs, I spent many hours with her unpaid while working on her memoirs.
Ah, now how is this going to serve in our dissection of criticism as it pertains to humility and pride?
About a month after the memorial service, I attended Meeting for Worship. Those who disliked me seemed perturbed that I arrived, although the religion is supposed to be welcoming to anyone who wishes to join in the silent space held for Holy Spirit of God, through which a message might develop via any person to deliver aloud for those convened.
When I stood to speak, the defensive body language of these individuals was apparent. I began to tell how Mary had twice said, “Because they didn’t offer.” This mentality is consistent with several philosophies by which this Friend had led her life. She sought out those willing to DO with vigor and the woman CHANGED the world. As an anthropologist, an author, and a leader in altruism on a global scale, she had made a distinction between charity and assistance. The villages in Mexico who requested having wells drilled and were willing to engage in the upkeep were part of the program she started within CARE to drill wells.
If the church had offered, it was assistance that would be called pastoral care in Quaker-speak. If she, their most accomplished member, had to ask for some volunteers to cart magazines to the recycling area on other side of 23rd floor, it was charity.
Assistance occurs among equals.
So, was my dear friend prideful, or demonstrating such?
No. She was humble. When we were designing book cover, she wanted neither “Dr.” or PhD mentioned and had a qualm with “academic” being used to describe her because she “never really taught college.” I listed times that she had, but she blushed and we went with “anthropologist and activist.”
And how about me? Am I more humble than boastful? Why is this story being used in a long query about this characteristic?
When subjected to doubt and criticism, the human being often defends self. Did I boast or complain to ANYONE when I was driving over the bridge to help my friend in pastoral care because the other members of our church were not following the guidelines? No! But when I raise those same actions as evidence that I deserved not to be called “a problem” to the very people for whom I STEPPED in to help, I was treated like a blathering fool concerned with my own importance.
I never thought of the family as negligent, either. It doesn’t work that way when one truly LIVES “let it begin with me.” The family members did what they could and I knew so.
I find myself in a double disservice. While I did not ask to be recognized for the assistance by anyone other than God (who sees via Night Herons and even accusatory accountants), citing evidence in defense of self gives the critics another reason to defame.
I am not only a problem, but a boastful problem at that?!
Those who did not wish to reflect on whether of not they had helped the most esteemed member of their church to downsize or to worship in her final years left the room when they were unable to keep me silent about the failure. Quakers are supposed to be reflect on their behavior; query is a term used in the structure of the religion in a rotating set of questions like, “are we supporting the spiritual gifts of our members?” or “are we staying in contact with the members who are unable to attend?” ( I made those up for this gist.)
How does one make a case for the Truth, holding in the Light what is real when others have placed in front of it falsity?
I still spend energy trying to resolve the abomination that Sarasota Monthly Meeting made of my identity as a Quaker.
And yet as an observer of human behavior, I have found that defending myself causes many people to categorize it as proof of guilt.
Maybe it isn’t a world in which humility is effective. I have not even the curved part of an iota of doubt that every thought, every feeling, and every action has been known by God, closer than my own jugular. These problems with pride and humility seem a result of criticism undue. And I write this now in an authentic quandary of how to criticism undo.
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Sharon FitzpatrickReligious Society of Friends
180508 ·
The late Friend who most encouraged me with performance persona Share Fauxhair has been on my mind a lot. Last week, I met someone from Haiti, as she was, and mentioned Maxe aka Wanda, who was born and raised on the island.
A particular theme from our few years as friends surfaced: how real artists and activists were entrenched in controversy. She moved to NYC at age 16 to study at Juilliard. Her career as a professor at Rutgers was augmented by projects with poetry and other performance art that she facilitated. Not liking to be on stage had routed her toward directing and teaching; while she understood my aversion to performance, she was adamant about my path. I had the talent with writing, but given our culture of non-readers, she insisted that I had to become a performer. And be more flamboyant.
Among her collection of famous and/or successful friends was Danny Glover and she used him as an example for me on several occasions. “He will take it on because someone must. The strongest and smartest of us are chosen for this. You must step into this...”
She wanted me to be on Oprah as a poetess and I laughed.
So, in my failures to get even friends to attend my little shows, I have heaviness. Sure, plenty of people think my work sucks or has too many themes that are sticky. Meanwhile, I know on a deep level that life purpose is dominantly literary art.
When I was first adding the props of Share Fauxhair, another Quaker and I shared a ride to a memorial for her husband. Maxe was still alive and training me on stage presence. I had never even been in a play before I started performance art.
The other Quaker let me know that’s she disapproved of the fake hair and gloves. She cited that my work was “too good” to detract from it with props and said that it might be mistaken as a burlesque act.
Taken aback, I asked, “So? Burlesque is making a comeback and it was culturally daring decades ago—not NOW!” This same Quaker slowly turned on me—the closeness with her and husband around his mission to protest the military-industrial complex faded because he was dead. Her criticisms of Southwest Coalition for Peace and Justice, in which he had gotten me involved, were valid, but not about me or issues that I overlooked. I processed her criticisms with the umbrella organization that I had agreed to co-chair.
The objections to sexuality being a component of human interaction or misinterpretation of human body in art as sexual hung around her critical attitude. No one complains about ballerinas without bras, but a poetess without extra padding to conceal nipples was blasphemy?
By Friday this week I wondered why I could not stop thinking about Maxe telling me about Danny Glover and controversial subjects.
Last night, I figured out why.
Spirit is real and we purify or sully with our actions. Childish Gambino did not make America this. He did not go shirtless in the video for This is America to turn us on. Art has many purposes—to turn us off violence is among the highest.
Sharon FitzpatrickReligious Society of Friends
180331 ·
“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
The Gospel according to Matthew 25:40
I have just received a third report about the order of events when my membership was laid down without my consent or knowledge by Sarasota Monthly Meeting. The announcement was made in Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business and when discussion ensued, M&W explained the letter had already been mailed.
It was dated January 2016 and forwarded from a very old address. It cited that I had not been to Meeting “in awhile.” I had been hit by an automobile on the previous Good Friday, April 3, and had not been able to drive in the interim.
On December 24th, 2015, however, I had arranged a ride to an evening Worship with someone who had never been to a Quaker service. I had a wound vac attached to my leg and IV antibiotics in a cooler on my shoulder. Church, doctors visits, and haircuts were the only permissible outings based on medical insurance, but I wanted to be there because I revere both Jesus Christ and Mother Mary.
All attempts to straighten this out, just as the other convoluted and cruel behavior to which I have been subjected, utterly contrary to the testimonies and faith and practice, have failed.
When the topic of how my membership was laid down was raised last March in a gathering called as Clearness Committee, Clerk of M&W, who had signed the letter as Membership Clerk,
asked in an accusatory tone, “How do you know that?”
When I cited the elder who had shared with me her disbelief about procedure being violated, she said, “poor Mimi,” to imply that Mimi McAdoo could not recall or keep facts straight. Seven months later, Mimi was chosen as one of the individuals to have an unannounced discussion about restoring my membership.
At the rise of that Clearness Committee in March, the decision had been made to form
a Committee of Concern to deal with the five major infractions to
faith and practice that had been enacted on me. I was to be kept informed and I had urged prompt response because previous efforts were ignored and the demographic of SMM not conducive to accurate memories or even presence of those who witnessed. (Seasonal residents and also an aged population.) Nancy Corindia was supposed to communicate with me so that clarity would be maintained. I heard not a word until I inquired in August 2017 and from that point on, they just formed the secret repeat of discussing my membership without putting in the context of how I had been mistreated.
With Truth, I remain aligned.
Sharon FitzpatrickReligious Society of Friends
180326
Bullying, suppression of Truth, perpetuation of falsity, the distorted Light of those mistreated and abused are all topics pertaining to national news at this time.
Last March, I attended a Clearness Committee made at my request to deal with how my membership had been laid down by Sarasota Monthly Meeting without my consent and without processing the reality that my absence was in context of the Meeting functioning in manners contrary to faith and practice, particularly operating without 10 years of Minutes and disclosing that to a select number of those “in control.”
Among those minutes was one recognizing me for the extraordinary work I had done for Peace and Social Concerns and outreach.
At the rise of what was called as Clearness Committee, we had agreed that the 4 members of the Meeting would convene to instigate a Committee of Concern and create clarity around 5 items that I had written on a piece of paper. It was also reiterated that I should hear from one person-Clerk of
M&W-and be kept informed of what was happening.
Instead, 5 months went by And I heard not a word. I contacted the Meeting via website that I intended to attend Meeting for Worship due to violence that had occurred in NC. I did not receive
a response. At the rise of Meeting, I was approached by Dave Hilsheimer with apologies for having forgotten to contact me. He was not the Clerk of M&W, so not responsible for informing me about the situation. He promised to take action, validated that I had been bullied, but also said that the gathering the previous March was of “lower case friends who were concerned about me.” Whether this was a lapse in his memory or not, it was untrue.
Without my knowledge or any admission of the abusive ways I have been treated, a few met again to discuss my membership
status and decided not to restore it. The other matters were not processed.
My protests since have been met with approaching me, touching me, lying, and a repeated assertion that procedure has been followed. It has not.
Today, I arrived and was handed a letter about trespassing and physically blocked from entering the building, warned the sheriffs would be called. I used volume in my voice to draw attention to the lies and falsity here.
As I waited for the sheriff to back up so I could leave, I looked out the window at an open red rose on a shrub I planted. It was purchased with money given to me by WW II veteran Frank Burke, a late member of SMM. He had taken a course on the Biblical significance of plants and was far beyond the state of body to plant such things. That section of the grounds was “the garden of giving,” where plants not listed as alien invasive could be donated. I purchased 3 shrubs with his funds and planted them. I have continued to be inSPIRED by both the Truth in Ascendant Beings.
There are thorns that accompany beauty in some cases. The decision to bully and abuse one person, including outright lies about actions, violated all 4 original testimonies
I am legally not allowed on the property, but I will be on the perimeters.
Palm Sunday is subject to interpretation, but I am no less aware of my identity as a real Friend of Truth.
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Sharon Fitzpatrick shared a link.
180103 · Sarasota, FL, United States ·
The following was written for FGC with understanding that it would reach few. Another Friend's post reminded me of this group and I have opted to include it here with hope that it will reach a greater number of minds and raise awareness, at the very least, on my situation. It is 12 pages and not crafted by choice, but in duty to my own soul and the Religious Society of Friends.
There are two objectives of this missive. The first is to bear witness to the mistreatment I have endured via Sarasota Monthly Meeting (SMM), which was functioning without 10 years of minutes from Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business, disclosed that fact to a select number of individuals, and set up this member for a convoluted series of mistruths and half-truths that contradicted the testimonies of The Religious Society of Friends. The second is to urge Friends to develop means of oversight and resolution to circumvent situations such as what I will describe.
Note that I have attempted to resolve this situation within faith and practice, including asking for a clearness committee in 2017 and dedicating considerable energy to the process. The Friends convened agreed to meet again promptly without my presence, decide on a course of resolution, including the possibility of requesting assistance from Southeastern Yearly Meeting, and keep me updated of actions regarding these matters via the clerk of Ministry and Worship specifically. Five months passed without a word from SMM, at which point I alerted via email to their website that I planned to attend Meeting for Worship (MfW), despite the matters remaining unresolved and I felt dismissed yet again. The response was after rise of MfW from another member of that committee, not the clerk of M&W, that he had forgotten to contact me and action would be taken. What followed was again contrary to what had been negotiated months earlier.
Allow for me to introduce myself in relation to this religion. In 1987, I arranged to transfer to Abington Friends School on my own initiative due to the academic opportunities as compared to the huge public high school I had been attending. At 16, I found the setting conducive to my intellectual growth and also my spiritual sensibilities. My father suffered severe heart failure in 1987 and I began to attend Meeting for Worship on First Day sporadically, then regularly the following year because I was taken in by a family who were members of that Meeting after my father’s death and other unhealthy developments in my home life. Hence, I was privy to the workings of a Friends Meeting, not just the weekly worship enjoyed by students from many faith backgrounds.
In college, I maintained a reliance on Quakers for my occasional need to be among others in worship. There were 2 campuses of St. John’s College and I worshiped with both Annapolis Friends and Santa Fe Friends during those years and thereafter, at times as a regular attender. However, I reserved the term Quaker for those who were actually a member of the religion and instead used the phrase, “I worship with Quakers” until I became a member in Sarasota in 2007.
In 2001, I researched places in Florida to move and considered the presence of a Friends Meeting one of the criteria for a place that would suit my lifelong plans. When visiting Sarasota, I attempted to find Meeting for Worship at New College, but was on the wrong side of campus. Nonetheless, I happened to see a small sign for the “future home” of the Meetinghouse during that trip to FL and felt this was a good sign of a strong Meeting.
Upon arrival that year, I found very few in attendance in a classroom of New College, but volunteered to resume a newsletter committee in the very first month of having moved to Florida. I was 30 years old and following intentions to settle down in paradise. I became active and the attendance increased as the season shifted, but I was aware of a schism that had centered on the decision to build a Meetinghouse. This awareness developed directly from interviewing members of the Meeting, some of whom were not attending and were forthright about the reasons when I interviewed them for a column I had initiated in the newsletter. None of this information came to me in clandestine manners.
We moved into the Meetinghouse and I remained extremely active with physical tasks because I was considerably younger than the average attender and/or had only an old dog and a job as other responsibilities. Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business was a regular activity for me and I joined other committees as our numbers increased. At one point, prior to becoming a member, I was clerk of Peace and Social Concerns committee, Earth Care committee, and a member of Meetinghouse committee.
Meanwhile, I took on responsibilities in the community that related to testimonies and/or my relationships with Friends. I accepted the vice-chair position of Southwest Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice, an umbrella organization in which SMM was a member. It was a 2 year volunteer role for an organization compromised largely of volunteers who were retired. I also acquiesced to those forming a smaller non-profit who wished for me to be on their board of directors. Hence, I was co-clerk of Peace and Social Concerns, vice-chair of SWFCPJ, and on the board of Peace Education and Action Center (PEAC) simultaneously. This resulted in about 30 hours per week of volunteer time while I was also working in agriculture for employment.
Confluence between SMM and PEAC manifested in that the former had committed to use their new building for community events that were in alignment with Quaker values and the nascent PEAC organization had no actual space. An agreement was reached for SMM to lend space in kind to PEAC, which obtained an insurance policy and 501c3 status. A contract was drafted and signed between the church and the non-profit; I was the only person who represented both.
By this time, I had become a member of the Meeting and soon thereafter initiated in a Sufi lineage because I had taken to one of their spiritual practices, in which I engaged secondarily to Meeting for Worship.
Activity level for peace-related and environmental causes was phenomenal. Many of the events were successful by sheer alignment such as the first Quaker Market, a rummage sale with promotional space to like-minded groups and concurrent with 3 talks scheduled during the day. It was an enormous amount of work for me, then clerk of P&SC, and responsible for the idea of combining the activities. It was serendipitous that the outlying neighborhood was hosting their yard sale day and no restaurants were in the region. SMM had a built-in clientele for rummage and had arranged to have soups and bread for donation. Consequently, those unfamiliar with the Religious Society of Friends shopped, enjoyed the simple hospitality, and even stayed for the talks.
Afterwards, SMM decided to host the event every other year, to intentionally coordinate with the neighborhood association, and for P&SC to handle the outreach/speakers with an ad hoc committee orchestrating the rummage aspect. A theme for the next event was generated by P&SC, approved in MfWwCfB, and work began on the second Quaker Market, dedicated to “community stewardship.” I was still vice-chair of SWFCPJ and secured like-minded groups to be present. Of course, there was a great deal of other work in the interim. PEAC was hosting events in the Meetinghouse, SWFCPJ was expanding, and I was maintaining these roles despite my own financial and health-related strains.
The speakers had been lined up, flyers circulating, space on our porches committed to other groups for months, when I contacted Meetinghouse committee about the hospitality that had contributed to the success rate of the first event. The co-clerks objected to having food and proposed to have a bake sale instead. This matter seemed to be of too little significance to argue about it, given there was no time for Quaker process, so I simply agreed that First Day School would work with Meetinghouse committee on a bake sale. Mayhem ensued with one of the clerk of Meetinghouse committee, Lesley Jacobs, accusing me of “making up” the theme of community stewardship and having no authority over the porch space. I sent her a copy of the Minute approving that them from MfWwCfB from more than a year earlier and the flyer with this theme central on the colored page. On the day of the event, I was bullied in outright and flagrant manners. I did not engage in petty skirmishes, but instead took the matter to M&W afterward.
The following weekend was the first Teach Peace Conference, launched exclusively by PEAC, and being held on New College campus. The 5 board members had spent about 100 hours planning the full-day event that was free to teachers. Ironically, I was overseeing the administrative tasks of 3 workshops, including 2 led by Friends from other Meetings, both of whom were in the sphere of peace work. One was an anti-bullying workshop. I was not unfamiliar with the paradigm of bullying; I was instead actively working to eliminate such troublesome behavior.
M&W contacted the individuals whose behaviors I had described and found that 2 of them were unwilling to engage in any resolution process and refused to admit any wrongdoing. The other had a brief and fruitful dialogue with me on phone. He attended the Teach Peace conference and shared the materials in a take-home packet with the others. One flyer for a Non-Violent Communication (NVC) series being held via PEAC at the Meetinghouse spurred the others to demand it be canceled. The flyer omitted the name of Sarasota Monthly Meeting and only cited the address and these other individuals (the same 2 who had refused to engage in any resolution with me) were in an uproar. PEAC board of directors was blindsided. We had a flop of a conference in terms of turn-out, had spent funds and time in the effort, and were exhausted. More importantly, we had no agreement to mention SMM on promotional materials. We coordinated with scheduling, as agreed, and had provided outreach for SMM by acknowledging in the past. In this case, the aim was to attract participants who might be off-put by any religious associations, and given that neither NVC or PEAC were representative or derived from any faith, the board member had chosen not to mention SMM.
Instead of cancelling the series, PEAC offered to engage in mediation with members of Meetinghouse committee, which was responsible for communications. Dave Hilsheimer and Lesley Jacobs were co-clerks of this committee, but the complaint had arisen from Lesley Jacobs and Ann Sundberg, the latter serving as Treasurer or ex-officio Treasurer. These two refused to attend, citing my anger for their behavior during Quaker Market as their reason. Note neither of them had engaged in any resolution with me, so references to my anger were projections, not observations. And they were specifically responsible for the trouble that had arisen with PEAC.
During this evening meeting (of some 10 volunteers who had to drive to the Meetinghouse), it was determined that SMM was culpable for the upset. There was no agreement about citing the church for events sponsored exclusively by PEAC and making the demand to cancel the series was presumptuous. Although all in attendance got practice in peace making, we had handled a conflict caused by those who made excuses (blamed me) for their absence in resolution. They left other Friends to apologize for their behavior and agree upon new terms with PEAC.
Simultaneously, I had to work with M&W on my status as a target. I wrote out everything in AVP language, per their request, and emphasized my concern that the situation would be viewed as conflict originating from all parties when I had simply defended myself. I was assured that the refusal to engage in resolution process was indicative of fault, or at least not upholding the peace testimony. I resigned as clerk of P&SC, finished the term as vice-chair and SMM’s rep with SWFCPJ, and maintained the role on PEAC board.
Division within SMM became more prominent. Dave Hilsheimer had taken the role of Clerk and left Lesley Jacobs in charge of Meetinghouse committee. Small complaints about PEAC were consistent or escalated. I stayed in contact with M&W, but stated my reasons for a slackening of attendance in Meeting for Worship. PEAC hosted a second Teach Peace conference in the Meetinghouse and soon after voted not renew our annual contract for in-kind space with SMM. All of the other board members felt targeted and unwelcome, so I was chosen to relay the decision to SMM and also to inquire about the potential to leave our lending library in the closet of office. As a board member of PEAC, I contacted Lesley Jacobs, then clerk of SMM Meetinghouse committee, but a member of Westbury Monthly Meeting in NY, with this request in writing. I received no response after multiple emails and follow up telephone call during a period of 6 weeks. I inquired with other members of Meetinghouse committee if the item has been on agenda. It had not. Two weeks before out contract ended, Lesley Jacobs sent an email to another board member asking when PEAC items would be out of the building, as the contract was not being renewed. PEAC board members had turned in our keys months earlier in response to exaggerated complaints about security. Clerk of Meetinghouse committee had simply bypassed me, against whom she had displayed bias, and acknowledged another person, who was dealing with personal issues at the time.
I took it to M&W, who agreed that it was not in keeping with Quaker practice.
The attitude remained neutral, however, in that I was expected to remain calm in the face of this and other flagrant abuses of authority, some of which outraged other Friends. Lesley Jacobs had purchased a confection oven, for example, that cost more than $2000 without SMM having approved such expenditure. This had occurred during MfWwCfB in the interim and pertained only to SMM, but a small core of environmentalist Friends had for years spoken against acquiring a stove or oven. Even the treasurer was appalled by the circumvention of process on the issue. This had occurred in an atmosphere of leniency for Lesley Jacobs via those she had solidified as allies.
Note I did not consider terms like “ally” appropriate for a Friends Meeting. A Quaker speaks his or her own mind and stands for his or her own actions.
My project of working professionally with elder Mary Elmendorf on her memoirs overlapped some of this period. It was among many projects that involved Friends and responsible in part for the upkeep of my identity as a Friend.
I was forthright about these issues and my personal issues. I struggled with self harm in a complicated scenario of repeated and severe traumas to my physical and psychic bodies. A majority of Friends were compassionate and supportive toward me in several arenas---personal, right livelihood, spiritual gifts, etc. The partnership of Lesley Jacobs and Ann Sundberg, with a few others drawn in on occasion, demeaned and belittled me for details that are not the business of Friends. Neither of them attended events organized by P&SC, PEAC, or SWFCPJ, and yet their complaints that I was “unprofessional” made their way to me.
I kept in contact with M&W, attended once a month, reached out to other Meetings with a minute in support of my poetry/storytelling performances for Friends, and tried to detach from the difficulties being presented to the core of members who were aligned with non-violence and progressive ideas.
Until this point, the situation I have described is a stalemate caused by individuals. Indeed, my access to the spiritual benefits of Religious Society of Friends was truncated, but not directly due to actions taken by SMM. Instead, the Meeting was at a loss for how to resolve it and understood that receding from activity level was in keeping with my commitment to peace.
Abrupt pivot occurred at the end of 2013. In September, after months of planning, I performed for Annapolis Friends, which happened to have 2 individuals with dual membership in SMM, neither of whom resided in MD. Per usual, I had alerted M&W about the process and the clerk of that committee was among those Friends I held dear. She inquired about the success in MD and lamented that I had not performed that true story for SMM in the past, as she was familiar with the written version.
The following month, I received an email flyer from Clerk of SMM, Dave Hilsheimer, for a concert in our Meetinghouse scheduled for December. It was a benefit for ProNica and a guest musician Tom Neilson, with whom I had been in contact on more than once occasion in the past about the potential for a concert. Both P&SC and PEAC had declined his offer due to poor turn-out for such events and I had inquired with him about how he processed such rejection because it was new to me as a spoken word artist.
It was a few years prior, but he had offered to share the stage if he ever set up a concert in Sarasota. When the offer was made, I had just done an event at SMM, so it was not my intention to make such arrangements. At this time, however, I appreciated the possibility of having a 10 minute window to recite the true story entitled Silent Owl.
I emailed the Clerk to alert SMM that I planned to inquire with Tom Neilson about this, and also with a question regarding the fundraising status because SMM had written a policy that prohibited having events specifying a beneficiary. He responded in a neutral manner about me approaching Tom and in a negative manner about the policy---it had not changed, but I misunderstood the nature of no earmarking, which he believed to apply only to donations, not to fundraising. I persisted as I recalled the policy clearly applying to both donations and fundraising and I knew the Minute was written before he had relocated to Florida from Wisconsin. We volleyed emails that involved him actually mentioning ghow long ago the policy was written and inquiring how long I expected SMM to uphold old policies.
The nature of my inquiry had initially been hopeful about an atmosphere conducive to P&SC activities that were curtailed by the policy. When confronted with such scant understanding or concern about MfWwCfB decisions, I called for review of the minute. Instead, I received a telephone call from a Trustee, Ann Sundberg, acknowledging that I recalled the policy correctly, claiming that she had just shared it with First Day School who had wished to host a dinner to raise funds for homeless, and that the concert was approved in error because she was absent from MfWwCfB that day.
I had made efforts with Ann and her young family in the wake of her behavior years earlier. I engaged respectfully, but noted that it is not a single person’s duty to uphold policies and that a review of the Minute remained in order. She mollified and took no action on my request.
Early in December, I had to leave an event I had organized for PEAC in its new space in order to attend an event at New College for Mary Elmendorf. She had pneumoni so her dog was in my care, but I was responsible for the physical labor of carrying copies of her book and selling them. I arrived moments before the event started, so did not go unnoticed. Nonetheless, the small number of Friends at the event did not acknowledge my presence; it was the atmosphere of shunning. I bustled to the front of room after the content by New College administrators so that Mary could have her lapdog in photographs and see him. Lesley Jacobs went to the microphone, claimed to speak “on behalf of Sarasota Friends” and launched into, “We are so proud of Mary…” No mention of the other member of the Meeting, me, who was instrumental in the production of this memoir. (Mary had approached me in 2003 about working of a private book for friends and family and I agreed only to work on a book for public publication. Subsequently, I established publications business for my own work and purchased 10 ISBNs, one of which I provided as her publisher.) I shuffled into the adjacent room and sold copies to the plethora of Sarasota residents who adored Dr. Elmendorf. No one from SMM even greeted me.
I took it to M&W, who were familiar with Lesley’s tendency to use the phrase “so proud” about the sentiment of the Meeting. The clerk of that committee, Carol Bechtel, confirmed that selecting oneself as speaking “on behalf” of the Meeting was similarly not in keeping with faith and practice. It was, however, a public event and not subject to oversight. A couple in attendance, who were active with SMM claimed not to even know who I was, so weren’t ignoring me as they sat among the others who were. Later that month, I opened for Tom Neilson. Six tickets sold to those in support of me. Carol Bechtel made a comment about my second hand coat that reached ankles and beyond my wrists, insinuating I looked like a flasher. Ironically, Tom performed a sing-along with lyrics about “balls” regarding draft dodgers. Male genitals were kosher and humorous material, but I was a figure to be cast as sexually suggestive for a coat from Goodwill. (I had no objection to Tom’s sign-along and found it funny to hear my beau’s conservative mother singing along, but the double standard was obvious.)
I had been told by SMM that my requests to review the Minute were not being honored because a committee, not a individual, had to make this request. I had never heard such nonsense and had participated in dozens of MfWwCfB during which individuals called for review and started the process.
Sandy Hook massacre reshaped my stance about gun violence and bullying and I followed strong guidance to request to return to P&SC committee. I wrote to Nominating committee, clerked by Lesley Jacobs. Our policy was attenders or members could serve on that committee and notify in person, via phone, or email. I received a response from Lesley, “Let’s take this off email.”
In January 2014, I represented PEAC at World Peace Day, hosted by SWFCPJ. It went on longer than expected and I opted to go to the Meetinghouse for grounds’ work rather than a landscape client due to limited time and still having Mary’s dog in my care. When I arrived, there were cars in the parking lot and I realized that Friends were convening to discuss the State of the Meeting report produced annually. I awaited the arrival of clerk for M&W to relay that I was not on premises to join them, but for some weeding in our wooded area. I was not active enough to contribute to the report and had been sitting most of the day.
As I headed toward the woods, I observed what appeared to be irrigation lines and the beginning of a garden in the dry retention area. Having a specified area for retaining storm water was a condition for SMM to have permission to build on the property and SMM had written a Minute in support of this after an event called Water Wellness, hosted by Earth Care committee. This garden and irrigation were in violation of our civic integrity and an official Minute.
The State of the Meeting report was circulated before being approved in MfWwCfB. There were some aspects that resulted from labored points of contention, from what I understood, due to reports from staunch P&SC figures opinion that their efforts were squelched. It also cited poor attendance to MfWwCfB and volunteers to handle to work of the Meeting. By happenstance, I attended Meeting for Worship on that First Day.
I was a member who had more than 10 consecutive years of maximum level participation, but being treated as an annoyance and trouble-maker unfamiliar with Quaker practice. Ironically, Lesley Jacobs passed around a snack that would address my low blood sugar, so I summoned the courage to stay.
First item on agenda was State of the Meeting. When it was appropriate, I stood and framed my commentary with my record of attendance in MfWwCfB. I was speaking to a group of Friends with a predominant clique that clearly disliked me. My voice quivered because I was nervous. I explained that it was unreasonable to participate in decisions that were going to be deemed moot and used an example that “had no charge” and referenced having spent time in the classroom at New College for MfWwCFB discussing if Meetinghouse would be one word or two and if we would capitalize, as the protocol varied. Years later, I witnessed all of the possible word configurations being used, so how that time on a Sunday afternoon be deemed less than a waste? Of course, I emphasized that I had not preference about such a detail, but was using it as an example of contributing factors to poor attendance in MfWwCfB. Others stood and spoke of their frustration with process, particularly how decisions were being made by Trustees rather than the sense of the Meeting.
The next item on agenda was the new garden! When the glowing report about the plans was spoken, I crosstalked by asking Rolf Hanson how the spot was chosen, listened to his reply and then engaged in adamant tone that, “We aren’t allowed to plant anything there except turf, by building code, and also wrote a Minute about the civic responsibility to minimize flooding and adhere to code.” He claimed, “We didn’t know” with almost a shrug. I called for review of the Minute. In this exchange, I was not demonstrating the countenance or order befitting a Friend.
On the way out of the Meetinghouse, I was approached by Linda Paul, who had first started to attend when the bullying of me began. She asked about those former decisions and policies I referenced as not honored, specifically, where they would be. Without pause, I replied, “Minutes from Business Meeting.” She gestured and implied vaguely, “Now you may be seeing the problem.”
I dismissed her concern as undecipherable. It was as if she thought they were missing, and as much as SMM seemed to be operating without reference, it was ludicrous to consider a Meeting functioning without them.
However, both my inputs were left out of the minutes by Recording Clerk, Tom Corindia. He claimed that reflection on my anger justified omission. My calls for reviewing this second Minute were ignored. He happened to be one of the two Friends who did not know me at the event for Mary. A refrain of “Sharon’s anger” seemed to have developed in the “Let’s Ignore that Friend” song. In the next MfWwCfB, I raised the topic of omission and reminded of the call for review of the minute about the garden. It was met with hush-hush. I stated that if review of the Minute did not occur, I would contact Southwest Florida Water Management District to verify the facts. That government agency was responsible for these matters and had sent representatives to the Water Wellness Forum years earlier.
March rolled in and no action in these matters from SMM, but co-clerks of P&SC welcomed me to the committee. Tom Corindia sat in on the committee meeting and one of the clerks, elder Pat Murphy, made some reference to the intense activity level when I was clerk. Tom actually diminished the comment with, “Even if that is true…” I was flabbergasted, not due to being diminished (which had become modus operandi for this clique), but that a newcomer to SMM (albeit with history as a Quaker) would cast a shadow of doubt on a statement from Pat Murphy, who had established his role as a weighty Friend for decades. An octogenarian, Pat’s health was precarious and his stamina dwindling. He was among the most frustrated with SMM and privately admitted that he had never observed a Meeting operating in such mayhem.
As I openly had claimed I would, I contacted SWFWMD to verify that the irrigation lines and nascent garden were in violation of the terms for SMM to build. An agent visited the property, determined this was accurate, and emailed a reply worded such that it was in violation with a laissez-faire tone. This sent Nancy Corindia, perhaps for Meetinghouse committee, and others into a state of attention. I checked with SWFMD about clarity and the agent had intended to reply that the violation was not of much concern, but had left out the word “not.” I copied all parties, as was my mien, in these communications, identifying my objectives.
In the subsequent MfWwCfB, there was an assertion that Meetinghouse committee had researched the issue as soon as made aware of it and searched the office “high and low” for any restrictions. I objected strongly to this wording. It had been 3 months since I called for review of our own Minute in support of the civic responsibility to contain storm water displaced from the building and parking lot. The wording was changed, but I did not miss the mounting evidence about disorganized records. And I continued to call for that Minute to be reviewed. Friends pulled the stand in silence move. Pause here to note that 10 years of the Minutes were missing, only a few were aware of it, and this behavior has begun to resemble gaslighting.
At rise of MfWwCfB, I was approached by Carol Bechtel, clerk of M&W. She claimed that my memory was excellent (a known fact), institutional memory was poor, the demographic of SMM exacerbated that truth, but my requests for review were not gentle enough to be honored. I asked if my tone was gentle enough in the moment, and once established, called for review of a third Minute, regarding M&W or Pastoral Care taking a proactive position if any member or regular attender was absent for a prolonged period. I was fully aware of and had referenced those who were not attending because of feeling unwelcome or violated. She looked miffed and pivoted.
On P&SC, I had gotten busy. Someone I had encouraged to speak on his net-zero residence for 2 other groups agreed to give the same talk at SMM before leaving Florida in May for the summer, per usual. And the idea of coordinating with PEAC on a statewide essay contest for students had begun to coalesce. En route to committee meeting, at rise of MfW in April, I was approached by Carol Bechtel and Sarah Hernandez, who insisted that follow them to the office before I could attend P&SC. I was leery and explained that I had items on P&SC agenda. It was 2 weeks before the speaker on solar and delegation was priority. I was told that I was not allowed to attend P&SC until I had complied to meeting with them.
In the office, I was read to by Carol Bechtel from a script that both Friends had on their laps, but I was not provided a copy. There was extemporaneous commentary that was difficult to distinguish because of being left out of the read-along version. Overall, I was being provided a condition for being a member of P&SC committee: not to mention the past in any capacity. Carol repeated, “The Meeting doesn’t care about being right, it cares about being in right relationship.” She referred to a longstanding conflict and took the position that all parties were responsible. This was the same person who had clerked M&W years earlier and promised that my compliance with writing out everything in AVP and the other parties’ refusal to engage in any steps toward resolution would not be forgotten. I objected strongly and reminded her of the instance when I was ignored as a board member of PEAC and Lesley Jacobs failed to represent Meetinghouse committee without bias. Carol admitted to having forgotten about “that instance.”
I was evidently upset. Their script and position translated to, “We like our clique and if you aren’t going to flatter us and falter in bearing witness for former Minutes, then you can’t play Quaker.” I stated that I did not know what they were suggesting---that I not “bring up” former Minutes, or commitments I made to deceased Friends (such as her late husband who asked of me to do all I could to hold SWFCPJ together during his final weeks of his lung cancer), etc., but that I was unwilling to concede to any of it. Their demand violated the testimony of Integrity. She looked appalled and asked if I was suggesting that the Meeting was less than truthful. In no uncertain terms, this Meeting was less than truthful. She even referred to the testimonies as “ideals,” but Friends were “human,” and couldn’t be “expected” to uphold those ideals.
This interview was almost four years ago and I still have angst about the interview, which I refuse to call an eldering because of its atrocity.
I excused myself from the room, apologized upon entering P&SC, maintained composure for that committee meeting, and followed through with my responsibilities for the speaker, including introduction, promotion, and ensuring his comfort by not disclosing any discord.
Soon thereafter, I received a call from outgoing Clerk of the Meeting, Dave Hilsheimer. He claimed that the “reason” my requests for review of Minutes were denied was that 10 years worth of Minutes were missing. Aghast was an understatement for my response. I asked who knew. He claimed, “Everyone.” I asked what had been done to locate copies. He claimed, “Everyone has been asked if they have copies.” Tersely, I asserted that I had not been asked and he qualified with some reference to attendance.
I asked for the list in writing so that I could search my records. Minutes were emailed by Recording Clerk or Clerk for years, but I was using new email account.
I received this:
Hi Sharon:
Here I am at the meetinghouse and can relate to you we are missing the following MfB minutes of the procedings:
• 1995: Feb; March;
• 1996: May; Nov; Dec;
• 1998: Sept;Oct; Nov; Ded;
• 1999 - 2007: All MfB minutes missing.
Thanx for any assistance you can give in relation to these minuets.
In Peace and Love,
Dave Hilsheimer
Clerk of the Meeting
(941) 794-0584 - Home
Sarasota Friends Meeting (Quakers)
3139 57th St. Sarasota, FL 34243
http://sarasota.quaker.org
If the refrain to “Let’s Ignore that Friend” could be any more dissonant, cue up the clique chorus because it got worse. I was unable to get into my msn account to search, but I started asking Friends and attenders if they were aware of this situation. My queries garnered assumptions that I was as crazy as Lesley Jacobs, Ann Sundberg, and others said I was. A Meeting can’t function without its Minutes!
I was at a total loss. SEYM had no oversight. SMM went on hiatus every summer. And my dear friend Pat Murphy was dying. I had promised him I would get back to work on peace and environmental concerns, but instead the little clique grooming their own children and putting up a persona of perfect-Quakers were outright frauds. I dealt during his memorial service and receded entirely, just maintaining my friendship with Mary Elmendorf.
At some point, a subsequent Clerk found the Minutes, at least that is what she claimed in 2017 in a private telephone call with me. This was not made public because their missing status was not public. Her stance seemed to be, “They were in the office all along, so not really missing.” Such a stance is semantic at best, and manipulation of the truth in any estimation.
In April 2015, I was hit by a car while rollerblading. My penchant for trauma and bizarre situations reached apex and I struggled for health of all kinds. For this entire period described, I was an active Sufi, so I had spiritual community. I am a theist. I require weekly worship with other humans in achievement of a relationship with God. The health crisis dragged on for 9 months. Leg amputation was an actual possibility. I heard not a word from Sarasota Monthly Meeting. Dave Hilsheimer visited and showed his affection as a “lower case friend.” I did not drive and I was hospitalized 3 times culminating in medical treatments at home from Nov. 2015 to January 2016 that prohibited activities except for doctors, church, and haircuts. I went weekly with a ride to the Sufi center. I got a ride to Christmas eve Meeting for Worship despite having IV antibiotics and a wound vac attached to my body. I greeted Friends, but sat on the periphery due to the noise of medical equipment, and exited early because my ride had a coughing fit. (He is a yoga instructor and veterinarian shocked by the atypical bout in his first and only attendance to a Quaker meeting.)
Dated January 2016, a letter reached me although forwarded from several addresses prior, laying down my membership, signed my Nancy Corindia, recording clerk. It claimed that I had not been to Meeting “in a while,” that I had not responded to previous communications, and therefore the only assumption to be made was my desire to not be a member. My cell phone number has been the same since I moved to Florida in 2001. I received no calls, no emails, and no other communication about the status of my membership. I had been to Meeting for Worship on Dec. 24th. And most importantly, a Meeting acting in Integrity would be able to make more than assumptions about one of its members. It would access the consequences of HAVING LIED ABOUT ITS RECORDS and BLAMED the Friend UPHOLDING testimonies plus ABUSED that Friend with a convoluted GAG ORDER.
How convenient that my anger is their tool to discredit me.
Upon opening that envelope, I sobbed and called a longtime member, Mimi McAdoo, who expressed confusion that I could have gotten such a letter when the item of laying down my membership had just made it to MfWwCfB. The Recording clerk, Nancy Corindia, will deny that order or events, as she has denied anything but a glowing report for her actions being in the manner of Friends. I have put in considerable effort since that time to bring these truths to Light; to mend the distorted perception about me propagated by these individuals. As mentioned in the beginning of this missive, a clearness committee held in March 2017 devolved into those convened not doing a single of the 4 things promised or honoring the 4 things I set forth as my objectives in asking for a clearness committee.
Discrediting and vilifying me has continued to be the modus operandi of Lesley Jacobs, Clerk of the Meeting, and the others who prefer to be included in the clique than to uphold Peace, Truth, Simplicity, and Equality.
Calmly upholding FALSITY and LIES is regarded as more Quakerly than my emphatic demeanor in standing for TRUTH.
I have stated that I will be protesting until this is resolved. I regret that this is required of me. I have healed in body and mind, but my soul has been dismissed as negligible and/or not meeting the standards of those who continue to mistreat me.
It is not pleasant or easy for me to apply energy in dealing with this. It is toxic and difficult for my on mind, body, and sprit levels.
I realize that I am verbose and focused on sequence, but I have actually left out many parallel sets of facts that demonstrate my values and actions as a Quaker in spite of the tendency for his Meeting to avoid any query or reflection about how its members are treated if not in the condoned clique enjoying quiet time together on First Day.
I pray that my strength will lead the Way for the Religious Society of Friends to be prepared for situations as unconscionable as this to bring to them clear consciousness.
And I pray that SMM will take responsibility for this series of events, evaluate a tendency to exclude, and make the amends owed to this soul.
In the Light,
Sharon Fitzpatrick
Sarasota Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
SARASOTA.QUAKER.ORG
Sarasota Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
Religious
Sharon Fitzpatrick shared a link.
30l J5S450anauarry 2091d58 · Sarasota, FL, United States ·
The following was written for FGC with understanding that it would reach few. Another Friend's post reminded me of this group and I have opted to include it here with hope that it will reach a greater number of minds and raise awareness, at the very least, on my situation. It is 12 pages and not crafted by choice, but in duty to my own soul and the Religious Society of Friends.
There are two objectives of this missive.
The first is to bear witness to the mistreatment I have endured via Sarasota Monthly Meeting (SMM), which was functioning without 10 years of minutes from Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business, disclosed that fact to a select number of individuals, and set up this member for a convoluted series of mistruths and half-truths that contradicted the testimonies of The Religious Society of Friends.
The second is to urge Friends to develop means of oversight and resolution to circumvent situations such as what I will describe.
Note that I have attempted to resolve this situation within faith and practice, including asking for a clearness committee in 2017 and dedicating considerable energy to the process. The Friends convened agreed to meet again promptly without my presence, decide on a course of resolution, including the possibility of requesting assistance from Southeastern Yearly Meeting, and keep me updated of actions regarding these matters via the clerk of Ministry and Worship specifically.
Five months passed without a word from SMM, at which point I alerted via email to their website that I planned to attend Meeting for Worship (MfW), despite the matters remaining unresolved and I felt dismissed yet again. The response was after rise of MfW from another member of that committee, not the clerk of M&W, that he had forgotten to contact me and action would be taken. What followed was again contrary to what had been negotiated months earlier.
Allow for me to introduce myself in relation to this religion. In 1987, I arranged to transfer to Abington Friends School on my own initiative due to the academic opportunities as compared to the huge public high school I had been attending. At 16, I found the setting conducive to my intellectual growth and also my spiritual sensibilities. My father suffered severe heart failure in 1987 and I began to attend Meeting for Worship on First Day sporadically, then regularly the following year because I was taken in by a family who were members of that Meeting after my father’s death and other unhealthy developments in my home life. Hence, I was privy to the workings of a Friends Meeting, not just the weekly worship enjoyed by students from many faith backgrounds.
In college, I maintained a reliance on Quakers for my occasional need to be among others in worship. There were 2 campuses of St. John’s College and I worshiped with both Annapolis Friends and Santa Fe Friends during those years and thereafter, at times as a regular attender. However, I reserved the term Quaker for those who were actually a member of the religion and instead used the phrase, “I worship with Quakers” until I became a member in Sarasota in 2007.
In 2001, I researched places in Florida to move and considered the presence of a Friends Meeting one of the criteria for a place that would suit my lifelong plans. When visiting Sarasota, I attempted to find Meeting for Worship at New College, but was on the wrong side of campus. Nonetheless, I happened to see a small sign for the “future home” of the Meetinghouse during that trip to FL and felt this was a good sign of a strong Meeting.
Upon arrival that year, I found very few in attendance in a classroom of New College, but volunteered to resume a newsletter committee in the very first month of having moved to Florida. I was 30 years old and following intentions to settle down in paradise. I became active and the attendance increased as the season shifted, but I was aware of a schism that had centered on the decision to build a Meetinghouse. This awareness developed directly from interviewing members of the Meeting, some of whom were not attending and were forthright about the reasons when I interviewed them for a column I had initiated in the newsletter. None of this information came to me in clandestine manners.
We moved into the Meetinghouse and I remained extremely active with physical tasks because I was considerably younger than the average attender and/or had only an old dog and a job as other responsibilities. Meeting for Worship with a Concern for Business was a regular activity for me and I joined other committees as our numbers increased. At one point, prior to becoming a member, I was clerk of Peace and Social Concerns committee, Earth Care committee, and a member of Meetinghouse committee.
Meanwhile, I took on responsibilities in the community that related to testimonies and/or my relationships with Friends. I accepted the vice-chair position of Southwest Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice, an umbrella organization in which SMM was a member. It was a 2 year volunteer role for an organization compromised largely of volunteers who were retired. I also acquiesced to those forming a smaller non-profit who wished for me to be on their board of directors. Hence, I was co-clerk of Peace and Social Concerns, vice-chair of SWFCPJ, and on the board of Peace Education and Action Center (PEAC) simultaneously. This resulted in about 30 hours per week of volunteer time while I was also working in agriculture for employment.
Confluence between SMM and PEAC manifested in that the former had committed to use their new building for community events that were in alignment with Quaker values and the nascent PEAC organization had no actual space. An agreement was reached for SMM to lend space in kind to PEAC, which obtained an insurance policy and 501c3 status. A contract was drafted and signed between the church and the non-profit; I was the only person who represented both.
By this time, I had become a member of the Meeting and soon thereafter initiated in a Sufi lineage because I had taken to one of their spiritual practices, in which I engaged secondarily to Meeting for Worship.
Activity level for peace-related and environmental causes was phenomenal. Many of the events were successful by sheer alignment such as the first Quaker Market, a rummage sale with promotional space to like-minded groups and concurrent with 3 talks scheduled during the day. It was an enormous amount of work for me, then clerk of P&SC, and responsible for the idea of combining the activities. It was serendipitous that the outlying neighborhood was hosting their yard sale day and no restaurants were in the region. SMM had a built-in clientele for rummage and had arranged to have soups and bread for donation. Consequently, those unfamiliar with the Religious Society of Friends shopped, enjoyed the simple hospitality, and even stayed for the talks.
Afterwards, SMM decided to host the event every other year, to intentionally coordinate with the neighborhood association, and for P&SC to handle the outreach/speakers with an ad hoc committee orchestrating the rummage aspect. A theme for the next event was generated by P&SC, approved in MfWwCfB, and work began on the second Quaker Market, dedicated to “community stewardship.” I was still vice-chair of SWFCPJ and secured like-minded groups to be present. Of course, there was a great deal of other work in the interim. PEAC was hosting events in the Meetinghouse, SWFCPJ was expanding, and I was maintaining these roles despite my own financial and health-related strains.
The speakers had been lined up, flyers circulating, space on our porches committed to other groups for months, when I contacted Meetinghouse committee about the hospitality that had contributed to the success rate of the first event.
The co-clerks objected to having food and proposed to have a bake sale instead. This matter seemed to be of too little significance to argue about it, given there was no time for Quaker process, so I simply agreed that First Day School would work with Meetinghouse committee on a bake sale. Mayhem ensued with one of the clerk of Meetinghouse committee, Lesley Jacobs, accusing me of “making up” the theme of community stewardship and having no authority over the porch space.
I sent her a copy of the Minute approving that them from MfWwCfB from more than a year earlier and the flyer with this theme central on the colored page. On the day of the event, I was bullied in outright and flagrant manners. I did not engage in petty skirmishes, but instead took the matter to M&W afterward.
The following weekend was the first Teach Peace Conference, launched exclusively by PEAC, and being held on New College campus. The 5 board members had spent about 100 hours planning the full-day event that was free to teachers. Ironically, I was overseeing the administrative tasks of 3 workshops, including 2 led by Friends from other Meetings, both of whom were in the sphere of peace work. One was an anti-bullying workshop. I was not unfamiliar with the paradigm of bullying; I was instead actively working to eliminate such troublesome behavior.
M&W contacted the individuals whose behaviors I had described and found that 2 of them were unwilling to engage in any resolution process and refused to admit any wrongdoing. The other had a brief and fruitful dialogue with me on phone. He attended the Teach Peace conference and shared the materials in a take-home packet with the others. One flyer for a Non-Violent Communication (NVC) series being held via PEAC at the Meetinghouse spurred the others to demand it be canceled. The flyer omitted the name of Sarasota Monthly Meeting and only cited the address and these other individuals (the same 2 who had refused to engage in any resolution with me) were in an uproar. PEAC board of directors was blindsided.
We had a flop of a conference in terms of turn-out, had spent funds and time in the effort, and were exhausted. More importantly, we had no agreement to mention SMM on promotional materials. We coordinated with scheduling, as agreed, and had provided outreach for SMM by acknowledging in the past. In this case, the aim was to attract participants who might be off-put by any religious associations, and given that neither NVC or PEAC were representative or derived from any faith, the board member had chosen not to mention SMM.
Instead of cancelling the series, PEAC offered to engage in mediation with members of Meetinghouse committee, which was responsible for communications. Dave Hilsheimer and Lesley Jacobs were co-clerks of this committee, but the complaint had arisen from Lesley Jacobs and Ann Sundberg, the latter serving as Treasurer or ex-officio Treasurer. These two refused to attend, citing my anger for their behavior during Quaker Market as their reason. Note neither of them had engaged in any resolution with me, so references to my anger were projections, not observations. And they were specifically responsible for the trouble that had arisen with PEAC.
During this evening meeting (of some 10 volunteers who had to drive to the Meetinghouse), it was determined that SMM was culpable for the upset. There was no agreement about citing the church for events sponsored exclusively by PEAC and making the demand to cancel the series was presumptuous. Although all in attendance got practice in peace making, we had handled a conflict caused by those who made excuses (blamed me) for their absence in resolution. They left other Friends to apologize for their behavior and agree upon new terms with PEAC.
Simultaneously, I had to work with M&W on my status as a target. I wrote out everything in AVP language, per their request, and emphasized my concern that the situation would be viewed as conflict originating from all parties when I had simply defended myself. I was assured that the refusal to engage in resolution process was indicative of fault, or at least not upholding the peace testimony. I resigned as clerk of P&SC, finished the term as vice-chair and SMM’s rep with SWFCPJ, and maintained the role on PEAC board.
Division within SMM became more prominent. Dave Hilsheimer had taken the role of Clerk and left Lesley Jacobs in charge of Meetinghouse committee. Small complaints about PEAC were consistent or escalated. I stayed in contact with M&W, but stated my reasons for a slackening of attendance in Meeting for Worship. PEAC hosted a second Teach Peace conference in the Meetinghouse and soon after voted not renew our annual contract for in-kind space with SMM.
All of the other board members felt targeted and unwelcome, so I was chosen to relay the decision to SMM and also to inquire about the potential to leave our lending library in the closet of office. As a board member of PEAC, I contacted Lesley Jacobs, then clerk of SMM Meetinghouse committee, but a member of Westbury Monthly Meeting in NY, with this request in writing. I received no response after multiple emails and follow up telephone call during a period of 6 weeks. I inquired with other members of Meetinghouse committee if the item has been on agenda. It had not. Two weeks before out contract ended, Lesley Jacobs sent an email to another board member asking when PEAC items would be out of the building, as the contract was not being renewed. PEAC board members had turned in our keys months earlier in response to exaggerated complaints about security. Clerk of Meetinghouse committee had simply bypassed me, against whom she had displayed bias, and acknowledged another person, who was dealing with personal issues at the time.
I took it to M&W, who agreed that it was not in keeping with Quaker practice.
The attitude remained neutral, however, in that I was expected to remain calm in the face of this and other flagrant abuses of authority, some of which outraged other Friends. Lesley Jacobs had purchased a confection oven, for example, that cost more than $2000 without SMM having approved such expenditure. This had occurred during MfWwCfB in the interim and pertained only to SMM, but a small core of environmentalist Friends had for years spoken against acquiring a stove or oven. Even the treasurer was appalled by the circumvention of process on the issue. This had occurred in an atmosphere of leniency for Lesley Jacobs via those she had solidified as allies.
Note I did not consider terms like “ally” appropriate for a Friends Meeting. A Quaker speaks his or her own mind and stands for his or her own actions.
My project of working professionally with elder Mary Elmendorf on her memoirs overlapped some of this period. It was among many projects that involved Friends and responsible in part for the upkeep of my identity as a Friend.
I was forthright about these issues and my personal issues. I struggled with self harm in a complicated scenario of repeated and severe traumas to my physical and psychic bodies. A majority of Friends were compassionate and supportive toward me in several arenas---personal, right livelihood, spiritual gifts, etc. The partnership of Lesley Jacobs and Ann Sundberg, with a few others drawn in on occasion, demeaned and belittled me for details that are not the business of Friends. Neither of them attended events organized by P&SC, PEAC, or SWFCPJ, and yet their complaints that I was “unprofessional” made their way to me.
I kept in contact with M&W, attended once a month, reached out to other Meetings with a minute in support of my poetry/storytelling performances for Friends, and tried to detach from the difficulties being presented to the core of members who were aligned with non-violence and progressive ideas.
Until this point, the situation I have described is a stalemate caused by individuals. Indeed, my access to the spiritual benefits of Religious Society of Friends was truncated, but not directly due to actions taken by SMM. Instead, the Meeting was at a loss for how to resolve it and understood that receding from activity level was in keeping with my commitment to peace.
Abrupt pivot occurred at the end of 2013. In September, after months of planning, I performed for Annapolis Friends, which happened to have 2 individuals with dual membership in SMM, neither of whom resided in MD. Per usual, I had alerted M&W about the process and the clerk of that committee was among those Friends I held dear. She inquired about the success in MD and lamented that I had not performed that true story for SMM in the past, as she was familiar with the written version.
The following month, I received an email flyer from Clerk of SMM, Dave Hilsheimer, for a concert in our Meetinghouse scheduled for December. It was a benefit for ProNica and a guest musician Tom Neilson, with whom I had been in contact on more than once occasion in the past about the potential for a concert. Both P&SC and PEAC had declined his offer due to poor turn-out for such events and I had inquired with him about how he processed such rejection because it was new to me as a spoken word artist.
It was a few years prior, but he had offered to share the stage if he ever set up a concert in Sarasota. When the offer was made, I had just done an event at SMM, so it was not my intention to make such arrangements. At this time, however, I appreciated the possibility of having a 10 minute window to recite the true story entitled Silent Owl.
I emailed the Clerk to alert SMM that I planned to inquire with Tom Neilson about this, and also with a question regarding the fundraising status because SMM had written a policy that prohibited having events specifying a beneficiary. He responded in a neutral manner about me approaching Tom and in a negative manner about the policy---it had not changed, but I misunderstood the nature of no earmarking, which he believed to apply only to donations, not to fundraising. I persisted as I recalled the policy clearly applying to both donations and fundraising and I knew the Minute was written before he had relocated to Florida from Wisconsin. We volleyed emails that involved him actually mentioning ghow long ago the policy was written and inquiring how long I expected SMM to uphold old policies.
The nature of my inquiry had initially been hopeful about an atmosphere conducive to P&SC activities that were curtailed by the policy. When confronted with such scant understanding or concern about MfWwCfB decisions, I called for review of the minute. Instead, I received a telephone call from a Trustee, Ann Sundberg, acknowledging that I recalled the policy correctly, claiming that she had just shared it with First Day School who had wished to host a dinner to raise funds for homeless, and that the concert was approved in error because she was absent from MfWwCfB that day.
I had made efforts with Ann and her young family in the wake of her behavior years earlier. I engaged respectfully, but noted that it is not a single person’s duty to uphold policies and that a review of the Minute remained in order. She mollified and took no action on my request.
Early in December, I had to leave an event I had organized for PEAC in its new space in order to attend an event at New College for Mary Elmendorf. She had pneumoni so her dog was in my care, but I was responsible for the physical labor of carrying copies of her book and selling them. I arrived moments before the event started, so did not go unnoticed. Nonetheless, the small number of Friends at the event did not acknowledge my presence; it was the atmosphere of shunning. I bustled to the front of room after the content by New College administrators so that Mary could have her lapdog in photographs and see him. Lesley Jacobs went to the microphone, claimed to speak “on behalf of Sarasota Friends” and launched into, “We are so proud of Mary…” No mention of the other member of the Meeting, me, who was instrumental in the production of this memoir. (Mary had approached me in 2003 about working of a private book for friends and family and I agreed only to work on a book for public publication. Subsequently, I established publications business for my own work and purchased 10 ISBNs, one of which I provided as her publisher.) I shuffled into the adjacent room and sold copies to the plethora of Sarasota residents who adored Dr. Elmendorf. No one from SMM even greeted me.
I took it to M&W, who were familiar with Lesley’s tendency to use the phrase “so proud” about the sentiment of the Meeting. The clerk of that committee, Carol Bechtel, confirmed that selecting oneself as speaking “on behalf” of the Meeting was similarly not in keeping with faith and practice. It was, however, a public event and not subject to oversight. A couple in attendance, who were active with SMM claimed not to even know who I was, so weren’t ignoring me as they sat among the others who were. Later that month, I opened for Tom Neilson. Six tickets sold to those in support of me. Carol Bechtel made a comment about my second hand coat that reached ankles and beyond my wrists, insinuating I looked like a flasher. Ironically, Tom performed a sing-along with lyrics about “balls” regarding draft dodgers. Male genitals were kosher and humorous material, but I was a figure to be cast as sexually suggestive for a coat from Goodwill. (I had no objection to Tom’s sign-along and found it funny to hear my beau’s conservative mother singing along, but the double standard was obvious.)
I had been told by SMM that my requests to review the Minute were not being honored because a committee, not a individual, had to make this request. I had never heard such nonsense and had participated in dozens of MfWwCfB during which individuals called for review and started the process.
Sandy Hook massacre reshaped my stance about gun violence and bullying and I followed strong guidance to request to return to P&SC committee. I wrote to Nominating committee, clerked by Lesley Jacobs. Our policy was attenders or members could serve on that committee and notify in person, via phone, or email. I received a response from Lesley, “Let’s take this off email.”
In January 2014, I represented PEAC at World Peace Day, hosted by SWFCPJ. It went on longer than expected and I opted to go to the Meetinghouse for grounds’ work rather than a landscape client due to limited time and still having Mary’s dog in my care. When I arrived, there were cars in the parking lot and I realized that Friends were convening to discuss the State of the Meeting report produced annually. I awaited the arrival of clerk for M&W to relay that I was not on premises to join them, but for some weeding in our wooded area. I was not active enough to contribute to the report and had been sitting most of the day.
As I headed toward the woods, I observed what appeared to be irrigation lines and the beginning of a garden in the dry retention area. Having a specified area for retaining storm water was a condition for SMM to have permission to build on the property and SMM had written a Minute in support of this after an event called Water Wellness, hosted by Earth Care committee. This garden and irrigation were in violation of our civic integrity and an official Minute.
The State of the Meeting report was circulated before being approved in MfWwCfB. There were some aspects that resulted from labored points of contention, from what I understood, due to reports from staunch P&SC figures opinion that their efforts were squelched. It also cited poor attendance to MfWwCfB and volunteers to handle to work of the Meeting. By happenstance, I attended Meeting for Worship on that First Day.
I was a member who had more than 10 consecutive years of maximum level participation, but being treated as an annoyance and trouble-maker unfamiliar with Quaker practice. Ironically, Lesley Jacobs passed around a snack that would address my low blood sugar, so I summoned the courage to stay.
First item on agenda was State of the Meeting. When it was appropriate, I stood and framed my commentary with my record of attendance in MfWwCfB. I was speaking to a group of Friends with a predominant clique that clearly disliked me. My voice quivered because I was nervous. I explained that it was unreasonable to participate in decisions that were going to be deemed moot and used an example that “had no charge” and referenced having spent time in the classroom at New College for MfWwCFB discussing if Meetinghouse would be one word or two and if we would capitalize, as the protocol varied. Years later, I witnessed all of the possible word configurations being used, so how that time on a Sunday afternoon be deemed less than a waste? Of course, I emphasized that I had not preference about such a detail, but was using it as an example of contributing factors to poor attendance in MfWwCfB. Others stood and spoke of their frustration with process, particularly how decisions were being made by Trustees rather than the sense of the Meeting.
The next item on agenda was the new garden! When the glowing report about the plans was spoken, I crosstalked by asking Rolf Hanson how the spot was chosen, listened to his reply and then engaged in adamant tone that, “We aren’t allowed to plant anything there except turf, by building code, and also wrote a Minute about the civic responsibility to minimize flooding and adhere to code.” He claimed, “We didn’t know” with almost a shrug. I called for review of the Minute. In this exchange, I was not demonstrating the countenance or order befitting a Friend.
On the way out of the Meetinghouse, I was approached by Linda Paul, who had first started to attend when the bullying of me began. She asked about those former decisions and policies I referenced as not honored, specifically, where they would be. Without pause, I replied, “Minutes from Business Meeting.” She gestured and implied vaguely, “Now you may be seeing the problem.”
I dismissed her concern as undecipherable. It was as if she thought they were missing, and as much as SMM seemed to be operating without reference, it was ludicrous to consider a Meeting functioning without them.
However, both my inputs were left out of the minutes by Recording Clerk, Tom Corindia. He claimed that reflection on my anger justified omission. My calls for reviewing this second Minute were ignored. He happened to be one of the two Friends who did not know me at the event for Mary. A refrain of “Sharon’s anger” seemed to have developed in the “Let’s Ignore that Friend” song. In the next MfWwCfB, I raised the topic of omission and reminded of the call for review of the minute about the garden. It was met with hush-hush. I stated that if review of the Minute did not occur, I would contact Southwest Florida Water Management District to verify the facts. That government agency was responsible for these matters and had sent representatives to the Water Wellness Forum years earlier.
March rolled in and no action in these matters from SMM, but co-clerks of P&SC welcomed me to the committee. Tom Corindia sat in on the committee meeting and one of the clerks, elder Pat Murphy, made some reference to the intense activity level when I was clerk. Tom actually diminished the comment with, “Even if that is true…” I was flabbergasted, not due to being diminished (which had become modus operandi for this clique), but that a newcomer to SMM (albeit with history as a Quaker) would cast a shadow of doubt on a statement from Pat Murphy, who had established his role as a weighty Friend for decades. An octogenarian, Pat’s health was precarious and his stamina dwindling. He was among the most frustrated with SMM and privately admitted that he had never observed a Meeting operating in such mayhem.
As I openly had claimed I would, I contacted SWFWMD to verify that the irrigation lines and nascent garden were in violation of the terms for SMM to build. An agent visited the property, determined this was accurate, and emailed a reply worded such that it was in violation with a laissez-faire tone. This sent Nancy Corindia, perhaps for Meetinghouse committee, and others into a state of attention. I checked with SWFMD about clarity and the agent had intended to reply that the violation was not of much concern, but had left out the word “not.” I copied all parties, as was my mien, in these communications, identifying my objectives.
In the subsequent MfWwCfB, there was an assertion that Meetinghouse committee had researched the issue as soon as made aware of it and searched the office “high and low” for any restrictions. I objected strongly to this wording. It had been 3 months since I called for review of our own Minute in support of the civic responsibility to contain storm water displaced from the building and parking lot. The wording was changed, but I did not miss the mounting evidence about disorganized records. And I continued to call for that Minute to be reviewed. Friends pulled the stand in silence move. Pause here to note that 10 years of the Minutes were missing, only a few were aware of it, and this behavior has begun to resemble gaslighting.
At rise of MfWwCfB, I was approached by Carol Bechtel, clerk of M&W. She claimed that my memory was excellent (a known fact), institutional memory was poor, the demographic of SMM exacerbated that truth, but my requests for review were not gentle enough to be honored. I asked if my tone was gentle enough in the moment, and once established, called for review of a third Minute, regarding M&W or Pastoral Care taking a proactive position if any member or regular attender was absent for a prolonged period. I was fully aware of and had referenced those who were not attending because of feeling unwelcome or violated. She looked miffed and pivoted.
On P&SC, I had gotten busy. Someone I had encouraged to speak on his net-zero residence for 2 other groups agreed to give the same talk at SMM before leaving Florida in May for the summer, per usual. And the idea of coordinating with PEAC on a statewide essay contest for students had begun to coalesce. En route to committee meeting, at rise of MfW in April, I was approached by Carol Bechtel and Sarah Hernandez, who insisted that follow them to the office before I could attend P&SC. I was leery and explained that I had items on P&SC agenda. It was 2 weeks before the speaker on solar and delegation was priority. I was told that I was not allowed to attend P&SC until I had complied to meeting with them.
In the office, I was read to by Carol Bechtel from a script that both Friends had on their laps, but I was not provided a copy. There was extemporaneous commentary that was difficult to distinguish because of being left out of the read-along version. Overall, I was being provided a condition for being a member of P&SC committee: not to mention the past in any capacity. Carol repeated, “The Meeting doesn’t care about being right, it cares about being in right relationship.” She referred to a longstanding conflict and took the position that all parties were responsible. This was the same person who had clerked M&W years earlier and promised that my compliance with writing out everything in AVP and the other parties’ refusal to engage in any steps toward resolution would not be forgotten. I objected strongly and reminded her of the instance when I was ignored as a board member of PEAC and Lesley Jacobs failed to represent Meetinghouse committee without bias. Carol admitted to having forgotten about “that instance.”
I was evidently upset. Their script and position translated to, “We like our clique and if you aren’t going to flatter us and falter in bearing witness for former Minutes, then you can’t play Quaker.” I stated that I did not know what they were suggesting---that I not “bring up” former Minutes, or commitments I made to deceased Friends (such as her late husband who asked of me to do all I could to hold SWFCPJ together during his final weeks of his lung cancer), etc., but that I was unwilling to concede to any of it. Their demand violated the testimony of Integrity. She looked appalled and asked if I was suggesting that the Meeting was less than truthful. In no uncertain terms, this Meeting was less than truthful. She even referred to the testimonies as “ideals,” but Friends were “human,” and couldn’t be “expected” to uphold those ideals.
This interview was almost four years ago and I still have angst about the interview, which I refuse to call an eldering because of its atrocity.
I excused myself from the room, apologized upon entering P&SC, maintained composure for that committee meeting, and followed through with my responsibilities for the speaker, including introduction, promotion, and ensuring his comfort by not disclosing any discord.
Soon thereafter, I received a call from outgoing Clerk of the Meeting, Dave Hilsheimer. He claimed that the “reason” my requests for review of Minutes were denied was that 10 years worth of Minutes were missing. Aghast was an understatement for my response. I asked who knew. He claimed, “Everyone.” I asked what had been done to locate copies. He claimed, “Everyone has been asked if they have copies.” Tersely, I asserted that I had not been asked and he qualified with some reference to attendance.
I asked for the list in writing so that I could search my records. Minutes were emailed by Recording Clerk or Clerk for years, but I was using new email account.
I received this:
Hi Sharon:
Here I am at the meetinghouse and can relate to you we are missing the following MfB minutes of the procedings:
• 1995: Feb; March;
• 1996: May; Nov; Dec;
• 1998: Sept;Oct; Nov; Ded;
• 1999 - 2007: All MfB minutes missing.
Thanx for any assistance you can give in relation to these minuets.
In Peace and Love,
Dave Hilsheimer
Clerk of the Meeting
(941) 794-0584 - Home
Sarasota Friends Meeting (Quakers)
3139 57th St. Sarasota, FL 34243
http://sarasota.quaker.org
If the refrain to “Let’s Ignore that Friend” could be any more dissonant, cue up the clique chorus because it got worse. I was unable to get into my msn account to search, but I started asking Friends and attenders if they were aware of this situation. My queries garnered assumptions that I was as crazy as Lesley Jacobs, Ann Sundberg, and others said I was. A Meeting can’t function without its Minutes!
I was at a total loss. SEYM had no oversight. SMM went on hiatus every summer. And my dear friend Pat Murphy was dying. I had promised him I would get back to work on peace and environmental concerns, but instead the little clique grooming their own children and putting up a persona of perfect-Quakers were outright frauds. I dealt during his memorial service and receded entirely, just maintaining my friendship with Mary Elmendorf.
At some point, a subsequent Clerk found the Minutes, at least that is what she claimed in 2017 in a private telephone call with me. This was not made public because their missing status was not public. Her stance seemed to be, “They were in the office all along, so not really missing.” Such a stance is semantic at best, and manipulation of the truth in any estimation.
In April 2015, I was hit by a car while rollerblading. My penchant for trauma and bizarre situations reached apex and I struggled for health of all kinds. For this entire period described, I was an active Sufi, so I had spiritual community. I am a theist. I require weekly worship with other humans in achievement of a relationship with God. The health crisis dragged on for 9 months. Leg amputation was an actual possibility. I heard not a word from Sarasota Monthly Meeting. Dave Hilsheimer visited and showed his affection as a “lower case friend.” I did not drive and I was hospitalized 3 times culminating in medical treatments at home from Nov. 2015 to January 2016 that prohibited activities except for doctors, church, and haircuts. I went weekly with a ride to the Sufi center. I got a ride to Christmas eve Meeting for Worship despite having IV antibiotics and a wound vac attached to my body. I greeted Friends, but sat on the periphery due to the noise of medical equipment, and exited early because my ride had a coughing fit. (He is a yoga instructor and veterinarian shocked by the atypical bout in his first and only attendance to a Quaker meeting.)
Dated January 2016, a letter reached me although forwarded from several addresses prior, laying down my membership, signed my Nancy Corindia, recording clerk. It claimed that I had not been to Meeting “in a while,” that I had not responded to previous communications, and therefore the only assumption to be made was my desire to not be a member. My cell phone number has been the same since I moved to Florida in 2001. I received no calls, no emails, and no other communication about the status of my membership. I had been to Meeting for Worship on Dec. 24th. And most importantly, a Meeting acting in Integrity would be able to make more than assumptions about one of its members. It would access the consequences of HAVING LIED ABOUT ITS RECORDS and BLAMED the Friend UPHOLDING testimonies plus ABUSED that Friend with a convoluted GAG ORDER.
How convenient that my anger is their tool to discredit me.
Upon opening that envelope, I sobbed and called a longtime member, Mimi McAdoo, who expressed confusion that I could have gotten such a letter when the item of laying down my membership had just made it to MfWwCfB. The Recording clerk, Nancy Corindia, will deny that order or events, as she has denied anything but a glowing report for her actions being in the manner of Friends. I have put in considerable effort since that time to bring these truths to Light; to mend the distorted perception about me propagated by these individuals. As mentioned in the beginning of this missive, a clearness committee held in March 2017 devolved into those convened not doing a single of the 4 things promised or honoring the 4 things I set forth as my objectives in asking for a clearness committee.
Discrediting and vilifying me has continued to be the modus operandi of Lesley Jacobs, Clerk of the Meeting, and the others who prefer to be included in the clique than to uphold Peace, Truth, Simplicity, and Equality.
Calmly upholding FALSITY and LIES is regarded as more Quakerly than my emphatic demeanor in standing for TRUTH.
I have stated that I will be protesting until this is resolved. I regret that this is required of me. I have healed in body and mind, but my soul has been dismissed as negligible and/or not meeting the standards of those who continue to mistreat me.
It is not pleasant or easy for me to apply energy in dealing with this. It is toxic and difficult for my on mind, body, and sprit levels.
I realize that I am verbose and focused on sequence, but I have actually left out many parallel sets of facts that demonstrate my values and actions as a Quaker in spite of the tendency for his Meeting to avoid any query or reflection about how its members are treated if not in the condoned clique enjoying quiet time together on First Day.
I pray that my strength will lead the Way for the Religious Society of Friends to be prepared for situations as unconscionable as this to bring to them clear consciousness.
And I pray that SMM will take responsibility for this series of events, evaluate a tendency to exclude, and make the amends owed to this soul.
In the Light,
Sharon Fitzpatrick
