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Safe Meetings Don’t Avoid Conflict - Friends Journal

Safe Meetings Don’t Avoid Conflict

July 18, 2022

By Donald W. McCormick

Illustrations by Good Studio

Originally published March 2022

Ibecame aware that our meeting wasn’t safe when a friend (I’ll call her Barbara) told me that she spoke to an older woman from meeting. The woman said, “I’d like to come to meeting more often, but I don’t feel safe. John corners me in the parking lot and tries to sell me things.” John isn’t his real name.

Barbara said, “I’ll meet you in the parking lot every Sunday. I’ll walk you to your car after meeting. This is not OK.” After the call, Barbara looked into things and found that John had been trying to get relatively well-to-do widowed and single, older women from meeting to buy expensive, sketchy vitamin supplements and dubious investments, including mining operations on asteroids. Although he had been doing this for years and many people knew about it, no one had done anything.

This didn’t surprise Barbara. Years earlier she’d been struck with Meniere’s disease and suffered from episodes of vertigo and vomiting. In meeting, people asked that Barbara be held in the Light. Soon after, John called her and gave her the hard sell: “These vitamins will cure your problem!” She listened for a while and then blurted out, “Do you even know what’s wrong with me?” He quickly got off the phone and avoided Barbara at meeting. (Although for weeks afterwards, John pestered her husband to buy the vitamins for her.)

Barbara was angry. Unafraid of conflict, she brought this problem to Ministry and Worship Committee and the meeting’s clerk, and they became concerned. This started a months-long process of discernment, during which the committee and the clerk dealt with open conflict in business meeting and the meeting as a whole. Eventually, the meeting decided to expel John.

What Is a Safe Meeting?

We want safe meetings, but what does that mean? In safe meetings people are free from bullying, bigotry, predatory behavior (like John’s), abuse, harassment, racism, and being attacked for their vocal ministry.

Quaker meetings need more psychological safety than ordinary organizations—even more than churches. That’s because we share intimate messages from the Spirit in our worship services. To say, out loud, things that are close to our soul makes us vulnerable, but we need to be able to share these in meetings for worship, business meetings, and clearness committees without fear of being attacked or excluded. If we don’t speak because we don’t feel safe enough to share what the Spirit calls us to say, Quakerism falls apart.

To say, out loud, things that are close to our soul makes us vulnerable, but we need to be able to share these in meetings for worship, business meetings, and clearness committees without fear of being attacked or excluded. If we don’t speak because we don’t feel safe enough to share what the Spirit calls us to say, Quakerism falls apart.

If We Avoid Conflict, We Can’t Confront Behavior That Makes Meetings Unsafe

Why did so many of us stay silent about John? Why did we take years to work together to protect the meeting? Why didn’t we feel safe enough to raise our concerns?

Conflict avoidance is a big reason. It prevents us from confronting people who make a meeting unsafe. And as long as we avoid conflict, the meeting stays unsafe.

My first taste of Quaker conflict avoidance came soon after I began attending meeting. Much like in high school, where I got the message about what clothes to wear even though no one told me directly, in meeting I got the message that conflict was unquakerly and that good Quakers don’t get angry. This impression lingered for years until I organized a Quaker movie night at my monthly meeting, watched a video about George Fox’s life, and saw that he wasn’t afraid of conflict. Sometimes he got really angry. He did things like stand up during a Church of England service and ask the preacher: “You will say, Christ saith this, and the apostles say this; but what canst thou say?”

Learning about Fox made me realize that I didn’t have to suppress emotions like anger or avoid conflict to be a good Quaker. I asked a psychiatrist friend, who has been an active Quaker for decades, if there was much conflict avoidance in Quakerism. She emphatically said there was. She also pointed out the importance of distinguishing between feeling angry, and acting on your anger to hurt someone. Healthy anger, and the response to it, brings people closer together.

Where does Quaker conflict avoidance come from? In Friends Journal, George Lakey said:

It’s very middle-class, professional behavior to mince words, not to tell the truth that’s uncomfortable, and to avoid conflict. . . . Among early Quakers there was real conflict and expression of a range of human emotion.

He says that over time, as the middle class increasingly captured Quaker culture:

we also became reluctant to state hard truths. . . . [E]arly Quakers . . . were willing to call things as they saw them, being chiefly concerned to be faithful to the truth even at considerable cost.

Reluctance to state hard truths isn’t an essential part of Quakerism. It’s just a preference of the middle class—one that can make meetings unsafe.

Although some may see conflict as destructive, our experience shows that a meeting can grow and become healthier if it doesn’t avoid conflict, maintains its integrity, and is willing to set boundaries by confronting behavior that makes the meeting unsafe.

How Can We Encourage People to Confront Behavior That Makes Meetings Unsafe?

First, we can create a climate in meetings that encourages people to raise their safety concerns. In Friends Journal, Herb Lape writes about a committee in his meeting that created this climate. The committee members called everyone in the meeting and asked them how well the meeting was serving their needs. This made it clear that the meeting wanted to know their concerns. These calls also allowed the committee:

to hear first hand the frustrations that some individuals have about individual behavior and messages in our meetings for worship and business. In the past, these folks might have left, figuring that there was no avenue for expressing their concerns or that no one would take action.

But the committee did take action—eldering some people and holding adult education sessions that addressed concerns that were raised. I suspect that if this had happened in my old meeting, people would have raised their concerns about John’s behavior much sooner.

Second, once concerns about safety are raised, a meeting can take steps that range from the empathic to the forceful. If possible, it’s good for the first step to be empathic. One or two people could talk with the person who is making the meeting less safe, try to understand their perspective, and share the meeting’s concerns. This is kinder and more effective than just telling them what to do. After all, we’re all more likely to be persuaded by someone who first genuinely listens to our views. My psychiatrist friend and I took this approach when eldering a member of our meeting, and while it didn’t stop the member’s offending behavior permanently, it did cause it to stop for quite a while.

Herb Lape writes that in his meeting, when this step doesn’t work, the committee’s next step is writing the person a letter that spells out the behavior that needs to change. A third step has committee members commit to speak to the person right away if they see them engaging in the behavior. If the behavior has significant enough consequences and continues (like John’s did), a fourth step may be to expel the person from the meeting. In Friends Journal, Margery Mears Larrabee urges people involved in eldering to be open to strong action. She also suggests that:

any desire to elder be taken to the appropriate standing committee first [as it can offer] clarity and direction [as well as] safeguards against individualism [and] egocentricity.

Unfortunately, we can’t always do this. Sometimes there isn’t enough time.

Third, we can interrupt the behavior by letting the person know that their words or actions won’t be tolerated. Sometimes you need to stop a person right away before they continue bullying, making racist comments, or verbally abusing someone. Committees can’t act in the moment, but individuals can. And each time someone publicly confronts behavior that interferes with meeting safety, it emboldens others to speak up in similar situations.

I received this kind of eldering years ago when I was new to Quakerism. During meeting for worship, another relative newcomer said something in vocal ministry that I strongly disagreed with. After a minute or two, I said something that—while not addressing him directly—did disagree with what he said. A couple of minutes later, he said something that refuted what I had just said. We went back and forth for a while. Then the meeting’s clerk eldered us. He interrupted us by standing up and saying that vocal ministry wasn’t a discussion. Although he didn’t single us out or address us directly, he was clearly talking about me and my unofficial debate partner. I’m glad he interrupted us; we were degrading the quality of meeting for worship and were likely to keep doing so. Also, we were giving people in meeting who were unfamiliar with Quakerism the wrong idea about worship. It’s important that people feel safe enough to give vocal ministry. My slow-motion argument with this guy could have led newcomers to think that if they gave vocal ministry, people would argue with them. In the future, this could scare them off from sharing a message from the Spirit.

Fourth, we can debunk mistaken beliefs that support conflict avoidance, like the idea that good Quakers don’t express the full range of human emotion (including anger), are always loving, and are nice all the time. For me, learning about George Fox broke the myth about anger. Margery Mears Larrabee debunked the continuous niceness myth when she wrote about John Woolman visiting slave owners’ homes. Many of them were his friends, were happy he was their guest, and made him feel welcome. He felt obligated to be nice to his hosts but knew this would interfere with the work the Spirit called him to do: initiating difficult conversations with them about owning slaves. He didn’t feel that he could avoid confronting his hosts about this. He believed that doing God’s work was more important than avoiding conflict.

Fifth, we can become more welcoming to people from a variety of social classes, ethnic groups, racial groups, and other societal groups that have different approaches to conflict.

And finally, we can celebrate eldering and teach people when and how to do it. We can teach this in sessions and workshops at monthly meetings, quarterly meetings, yearly meetings, Quaker retreat centers, and Friends General Conference Gatherings. We can also celebrate and teach eldering through Quaker magazines, newsletters, online discussion groups, online courses, pamphlets, and books. This is essential; people won’t engage in eldering unless they know when and how to do it.

Eldering gives us a way to confront people who make our meetings unsafe and a way to manage this conflict in a spiritual manner. If we don’t provide a spiritual way to do this, what will happen? Without a positive model for confrontation and handling conflict, we’re likely to accept the idea that conflict is inherently destructive and try to suppress it. When conflict finally surfaces, we’re likely to handle it in the only way we can think of—destructively. Either that, or the conflict will be denied or driven underground. And we will avoid issues that we should address. Luckily, though, our tradition of eldering gives us a model for how to confront unacceptable behavior and make our meetings safe.

So what happened to my meeting after John was expelled? Did the conflict over the decision tear the meeting apart and drive people away? No, just the opposite. Many people who hadn’t come to meeting for a long time started attending again. The total number of people who participated in our meeting increased. Although some may see conflict as destructive, our experience shows that a meeting can grow and become healthier if it doesn’t avoid conflict, maintains its integrity, and is willing to set boundaries by confronting behavior that makes the meeting unsafe.

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Donald W. McCormick

Donald W. McCormick is a member of Grass Valley Meeting, which is in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. He has long been interested in conflict in organizations. He received an award from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management for his research on gender and racial conflict at the National Institutes of Health. Contact: donmccormick2@gmail.com.

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June-July 2022

The Clear Light: Spiritual Reflections and Meditations - Friends Journal

The Clear Light: Spiritual Reflections and Meditations

Reviewed by Claire J. Salkowski

January 1, 2022

By Steve Taylor. New World Library, 2020. 136 pages. $18.95/hardcover or eBook.
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For many of us, sustaining the habit of a daily, or at least consistent, meditation practice is a real challenge amid the demands of a busy schedule and life in the twenty-first century. Being open and truly present to each moment is the overarching goal for those who seek to practice the art of mindfulness. As Quakers, we often strive to incorporate such practices into our life as a way of living in the Light and practicing our faith.

Poetry and inspirational readings can be useful tools for moving into that sacred space. Steve Taylor’s “spiritual reflections and meditations” in his most recent book, The Clear Light, are such tools. His lovely poetry and artful reflections are filled with suggestions and lessons for how we might still the mind and open the heart as we journey within to find the inner Light and hear the quiet voice of our own inner teacher. He inspires and challenges the reader to embrace the beauty and profound truth in each moment by being fully present, open, and aware, even in the midst of the mundane and repetitive but necessary tasks and challenges of everyday life.

In his very first poetic offering, “Meeting Purely in Presence,” he speaks directly to readers, connecting and inviting them to the present moment, “because we’re already related / knowing that there’s nothing we need to do / except allow ourselves to be.” The invitation to self-discovery and a deepening spiritual experience is woven throughout each page in the 60 poetic meditations that spark the imagination and inspire the soul.

The offerings in Taylor’s book, which is part of the publisher’s Eckhart Tolle Editions series, remind us of the daily choices we face when confronted with the stark realities of the world we live in and urge us to go “Beyond Fear” to “find a stable place, a vantage point / where you can stand still and watch the thoughts pass by / without being carried away.” Whatever our challenges or heartbreak, we are gently yet firmly entreated to open ourselves “to that spacious fullness,” and we’re promised that “Soon your mind will be empty / like a clear sky after a storm has passed. / And then there will be no more fear.”

Like the master teacher he is, Taylor illuminates a simple truth in “Creating Your Reality” when he reminds us that “To the mind there are no truths, only possibilities / that become manifest when it selects them / like particles that are everywhere and nowhere” until observation makes them real, so “why create your own reality / when reality already exists?” We would be more content and at peace if we “[l]et the past sleep, let the future wait / and let the present exist as it is / without your interpretation.”

The lessons continue page after page as he poses questions, lays bare the obvious, and guides us with words woven into the fabric of poetry. If you are looking for inspiration, reminders to be mindful, and the words of the wise to help you on your own spiritual path, this is a guidebook you’ll want to have.

Claire J. Salkowski is a member of Stony Run Meeting in Baltimore, Md., where she is active in the life and committee work of the meeting. Claire also attends the Northern Neck Worship Group when she stays at her home in the Northern Neck of Virginia. She is currently an educational consultant and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) specialist.

Is Quaker Worship Meditation? - QuakerSpeak

Is Quaker Worship Meditation? - QuakerSpeak

Is Quaker Worship Meditation?
August 10, 2017

Can you meditate in Quaker meeting for worship? According to these 5 Friends, having a meditation practice can be fine, even helpful. But it shouldn’t end there.

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Transcript:

Amy Ward Brimmer: So is Quaker meeting for worship the same as meditation? Is meditation practice the same as sitting in meeting for worship? The short answer is no, they’re not the same thing. Not at all. The other short answer is yes, there’s a lot of overlap. And I think both Quakers and Buddhists or meditations practitioners would appreciate that “yes and no” answer.

Is Quaker Worship Meditation?

Valerie Brown: The question about the difference and the common space between meditation and meeting for worship is a really important question and it’s something that I struggled with initially.

Doug Gwyn: The meeting for worship can be mistaken for meditation. If you bring a background or intention in meditation to it, that’s what it’ll be. But I think over time as you listen to messages coming out of the silence, you probably will begin to shift your understanding of what’s going on to something that maybe includes meditation but is also something larger than that.

Individual vs Group Experience

Amy Ward Brimmer: There’s a difference in intention between meditating and gathering for meeting for worship. While it’s true that I can meditate in a big hall with a hundred people, for the most part each of those hundred people is in their own experience of meditation.

Mark Helpmeet: I’ve seen for Zen Buddhism when you sit in meditation there, oftentimes they have you sit facing a wall. It’s explicitly not looking into the center of the group. But I find worship to be a central… it’s like there’s a prism of light that we’re all focusing together in our center. So it’s invaluable to have other people there.

Valerie Brown: This is not just disparate people that decided to show up on a Sunday morning or whatever. We’re here and we’re engaged in an act of being in the presence of something that is quite mysterious. Mystery. Sacred.

The “Point of Reference” of Quaker Worship

Doug Gwyn: The point of reference of worship is a transcendent God, the divine—or perhaps another non-theist understanding of what that transcendent reality is—but something we’re giving worth to in the basic meaning of worship, “worth-ship”.

Kevin-Douglas Olive: For me, the Spirit is my high priest, or my high priestess if you will. The Spirit is the one who guides the worship. The liturgy—the works—depend on what the Spirit wants me to do. So I come in with one intention (on a good day) and that intention is to be faithful.

Amy Ward Brimmer: We gather together as a faith community and as a faith community open our minds and hearts to receive whatever Spirit, God, the universe has for us in that intended hour of worship.

Mark Helpmeet: It’s kind of like I go through my individual experience, and I think we all do that to reach that common thing that’s in the center. A voice that we all can hear, and we’ll hear it differently and that’s fine. But in the worship, by clearing out our chatter I think what we find is a stillness that enlightens us.

Vocal Ministry in Quaker Worship

Amy Ward Brimmer: Sometimes it’s completely silent for an hour, but most of the time there is vocal ministry. And so it’s different in that way than meditation as well. So I’ll hear somebody give a message, or I’ll be moved to give a message myself.

Valerie Brown: When I first started, everytime somebody would stand up to speak I got irritated, like, “You’re interrupting my meditation here with words!” But over time I came to understand and got it a little bit that in meeting for worship, this is a practice of waiting and a receptivity as well.

So can you meditate in Quaker Worship?

Amy Ward Brimmer: I use actually a lot of my meditation skills—my mindfulness skills—to center down, to get prepared. I’ll follow my breath, I’ll feel my body, I’ll scan through my body and release where I’m holding tension as a way of saying I’m open to divine revelation.

Mark Helpmeet: Meditation can teach you—and there’s a lot of different forms of meditation—can teach you disciplines that allow you to remove your focus from where it normally sits. So there’s overlap in any case with meditation.

Kevin-Douglas Olive: Sometimes worship is work, you know? Turn. Feel. Sense. “Oh crap, there’s another thought in my head.” Turn my mind to God. Turn my mind to love. Turn my mind to that healing energy. Turn my mind to that small voice and feel the love, the growth, the creativity.

Valerie Brown: And so it does take a discipline. It’s takes a capacity to notice that the mind has wandered to Tahiti, or wherever I’m not. Here. And to, with a sense of awareness and compassion, to bring back that wandering mind, to refocus.

Amy Ward Brimmer: There are many ways to meditation but the basic Vipassana meditation is to do as little as possible, just meeting each moment, any object that arises moment-by-moment for your attention, you meet it with your attention and see what’s here. But the idea is not to connect to anything in particular, or be inspired by another being or a divine being. And so in Quaker expectant, waiting worship, there is this sense that altogether, here we are. What do you got for us today, God?

The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Journal or its collaborators.
Resources:Subscribe to QuakerSpeak so you never miss a video
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Read Friends Journal to see how other Friends describe the substance of Quaker spirituality
Discussion Questions:Have you ever meditated? Did you find the experience spiritual? How was is similar or different from meeting for worship?
Mark Helpsmeet describes the unity of Quaker worship as “a prism of light that we’re all focusing together in our center.” What visual metaphors have you come up with for what happens in meeting for worship?
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Irene Oleksiw
August 11, 2017 at 7:43 pm

An educational QuakerSpeak for new attenders who seek guidance as to what’s going on in Quaker Meeting for Worship
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James Supplee
August 23, 2017 at 3:34 pm

This is a helpful QuakerSpeak because new attenders will often perceive that Meeting for Worship is a lot of folks meditating individually or as a group. I am amazed at how much I learned in a short time. Often the more powerful part of Quaker worship happens when those there are present to both the divine and to each other and the separate self dissolves. Zen practitioners know this experience as well as big mind, an experience beyond concepts. So as some of the folks in the video said- there is some overlap.
Reply

Edward Fido
August 29, 2017 at 5:10 pm

Simply illuminating. For someone new to the Quaker way it does succinctly point out the difference between Vipassana (or other Buddhist) meditation and Meeting for Worship. I think this is important because those not familiar with the Quaker way may be lost as to what to expect.
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Ray Regan
Downingtown, November 19, 2021 at 2:30 pm

I feel no conflict in studying Buddhism, meditating for 11 years, and attending Meetings for Worship every Sunday for the last 7. Everything can be seen as mediation, knitting, folding clothes, driving a car, or sitting in silence.

Advanced mediation is not disturbed by anything, including vocal ministry; all of our senses, hearing, seeing, and awareness, become alive in Meeting. Meditation can include contemplation, which one can bring to Meeting, on say gratitude, forgiveness, or love of God.

On the other hand, Non-meditation at Meeting is when we sit sleepy, or our mind is stolen by unconscious discursive thinking and worry.

I see the question as different labels with the same result—helping our mind feel our light, our love, and seeing it in others.
eply

My Experience as an African American Quaker - Friends Journal

My Experience as an African American Quaker - Friends Journal
My Experience as an African American Quaker

October 1, 2014

By Avis Wanda McClinton

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Part I

The concern I have is to express my experiences as an African American Quaker and also to be believed. This story began long, long ago when our country’s policy supported the system of buying and selling Africans for profit. Black, Native American, and white abolitionists worked together on the Underground Railroad. From 1852 to 1865, Quaker abolitionists Thomas and Hannah Atkinson’s farmhouse, located in Maple Glen, Pennsylvania, was used as an Underground Railroad station. Many fleeing runaways were helped by them to get to northern states or Canada. The former Atkinson farmhouse is still in use today as the Upper Dublin School District administration offices. This building still contains some of those secret places where terrorized fugitives were hidden. Adjacent to the farm is the Upper Dublin meetinghouse and graveyard. The Atkinsons were members here. When runaways died on this branch of the Underground Railroad, they were buried secretly at night in the meetinghouse graveyard because the law prohibited any assistance to runaways. I personally admire the people who risked their lives being abolitionists because they could have been imprisoned for assisting runaways. Both Thomas and Hannah Atkinson are buried in the meetinghouse graveyard along with many of the people that died seeking freedom.

I began to attend Quaker worship at Upper Dublin Meeting at a difficult time in my life in 2009 when I needed a quiet place to connect with God. I am the only African American member the meeting has ever had. This meeting is a very old one which usually has less than ten in attendance each Sunday. Many of the members are descendants of Hannah and Thomas Atkinson. I was in awe when I became aware a few years ago that enslaved people were buried in a section of our meeting’s graveyard. I knew that Quakers were abolitionists in the era of slavery in America, but this concrete evidence of our history had a powerful impact on me. I knew this was sacred ground because the sacrifice of my ancestors held in bondage made it possible for all African Americans to be free. These historic heroes were never mourned, never had their voices heard or their place in history truly recognized. They deserve to be remembered and commemorated. It makes me proud to know that the religion that I converted to was a part of the anti-slavery movement.

My leading from God is to do everything in my power to protect the earthly remains of the enslaved African Americans interred in the Upper Dublin meetinghouse graveyard. I have taken this leading personally because these are my ancestors. At a meeting for business, I learned that my meeting was making plans to sell the plots where they knew the enslaved African Americans were buried. I thought that was a desecration of my ancestors’ final resting place. How would you like it if someone disturbed the remains of your loved ones?

This is what my leading has accomplished so far:On Saturday, February 9, 2013, a memorial service was held in the Quaker manner for the interred enslaved African Americans.
On Saturday, February 16, 2013, a second memorial service was held.
In March 2013, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission designated this place as a Pennsylvania Historical Site. The placement of this Pennsylvania historical marker, recalling what happened here during the era of slavery in the United States, is pending.
Starting with the 2013-2014 school year, the Upper Dublin School District in Montgomery County made this significant local history part of their social studies curriculum. Before doing this, the district had instituted a community-wide diversity program for community residents, and all school staff, including librarians, cafeteria workers, maintenance crew, bus drivers, teachers, and administrators, so that they could implement this new curriculum with sensitivity. All of this was done under the leadership of Dr. Michael Pladus, a Japanese American superintendent. In this way with this new curriculum, all students can gain a more complete understanding of American history. I was unable to do this when I was a student in the district in the 1960s and 1970s.

On October 26, 2013, the dedication ceremony was held for the graciously donated granite memorial marker where the enslaved African Americans’ graves are. The Upper Dublin School District, including students, their parents, and the superintendent all participated in this celebration. The marker inscription reads:

IN HONOR OF THOSE KNOWN ONLY TO GOD / THE BRAVE AFRICAN AMERICAN MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN TRAVELING ON THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD WHO DIED SEEKING FREEDOM / 1852–1864

The three well-attended services that we held at Upper Dublin were multiracial, intergenerational, and interdenominational gatherings of folks who were profoundly moved and freely spoke of their deepest feelings. It has been a great honor to be able to remember my ancestors from the time of slavery in America in this way.

By being awarded a Pennsylvania historical marker for this site, a page has been put in our nation’s history. This is a remarkable achievement.
Part II

Enslaved people had to hide in the daytime and travel by night, so as not to be caught. There is a story that I read about the Underground Railroad that still haunts me; it’s about a woman with her children. One night when this woman stepped away from her children suddenly a predatory panther took one of her children away. She could hear the cries of her child as he was being eaten. Then there was silence.

My experience at Upper Dublin Meeting is not a happy story, but it is a consequence of slavery.

The unfortunate racial hatred that my meeting members have directed toward me because of this project has made a hostile environment, so it is impossible for me to attend weekly meetings for worship. But, in order to carry out the work of my leading, I need to go to business meetings. Since March 2014, my quarter and yearly meetings have arranged for my safety to have two Quakers from other meetings accompany me for meetings for worship for business to carry out my leading.

One true example of verbal abuse directed at me by a meeting member occurred just before worship started one Sunday. We were taking our usual places on the benches, and a member walked up to me as I was sitting ready to worship, and said, “I don’t want to sit near you. Get up, and go sit in the back somewhere.” This intimidation didn’t work on me. I didn’t move.

Another time a generous member of the meeting offered to cater the repast after the memorial service. I took this to business meeting and was told no; the African American guests would not be fed in the meetinghouse. Finally, after a lot of frustrating discussion, the meeting agreed to serve only cookies and juice to our guests.

The meeting has withheld the contributions made for this project, so there are outstanding bills.

As a group, we went out to the graveyard and agreed on a spot to place the memorial marker which was donated by a local company. After taking pictures and measuring where the memorial marker would be placed, I informed the Graveyard Committee that I wanted to be there when the marker was installed to take pictures of the installation, and make sure that no bones were uncovered. However, that didn’t happen. No one from my meeting informed me that the stone had been installed. A neighbor who lives near the meetinghouse called and told about some activity in the graveyard. I went over and found the marker installed about four feet nearer to the wall at the back of the graveyard, not at the spot that we had all agreed on. I was very angry. Everyone knew how important this memorial marker for my ancestors was to me.

When Upper Dublin fourth grade teachers asked to bring their classes to visit the meetinghouse and memorial marker during February, Black History Month, the meeting didn’t think Black History Month was important, so they took no action. The students’ visit happened in June, just before the end of the school year.

At the last meeting that I attended of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Ministry for Racial Justice and Equality, hosted at my home, the clerk of Upper Dublin Meeting at that time who was also a member of this group turned to me and said that white people are more civilized than black people. It was as if the ceiling had opened up and dropped ice water on me. I was speechless. To add insult to injury, neither the clerk of the Ministry, nor the other members of the group sitting there, all of whom were white, said anything. The insult went right over their heads. After the meeting was over and everybody left my home, I immediately wrote a letter of resignation to the clerk of this group. Later one member of the group called me and apologized. This incident made it extremely difficult for me to interact at Upper Dublin Meeting to carry out my leading to honor my ancestors since I had to take everything through the clerk.

The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission approved this site at Upper Dublin Meeting as an historical site back on March 26, 2013. There is paperwork that has to be finalized by the meeting so the roadside Pennsylvania marker can be permanently placed. As yet, more than a year later, no action has been taken by the meeting. If we don’t take action soon, this distinguished award will be forfeited.

The most serious incident that I have experienced took place during our worship hour one morning in February: I was moved by the Spirit to stand to share a message that had come to me, but before I could say a word, a member jumped up and said, “Shut up, you are a bum! I don’t want you in this meeting any more. Get out!” I was so astonished at these hateful remarks that I picked up my pocketbook, and as I was leaving I paused and said to each and every one there, “You see what is happening, and you say nothing? That makes you just as bad.” Then I told them, “God will get you for this.” And I left and drove home. How humiliating it was to be run out of my meetinghouse! Later, I found out that they had called the police and told them I had made a terroristic threat, which I did not.

There are members of my meeting who would like my membership taken away from me. I feel as if I am desperately fighting for my very soul and my right to worship at my own meeting.
Part III

Where is God here? Historically injustice and inequality have been a part of American society and of the Religious Society of Friends. This situation at Upper Dublin Meeting is horrible. Obviously, if these incidents happened to a white Quaker, things would be a lot different. Sadly, the kinds of things that happened to me in my meeting continue to happen to Quakers of color in other meetings. This makes me feel frustrated, marginalized, and alienated. A faith community is supposed to be a nurturing place whose members should not tolerate such hateful actions.

Query: Does your faith community face the need of having honest and open discussions about the legacy of slavery with all its hurtful facets? Can we accept the strong feelings that will arise from these discussions?

Query: Is your faith community prepared to work with your local community to create a racially diverse and equal society?

Query: As a Friend would you allow another individual to insult, demean, hurt, or exclude another from his or her worship? How can people just stand there and let bad things happen?

God has given me the leading to do this work. God is real to me. If God asks me to do something, He expects me to do it to the best of my ability because He said, “I will never forsake you.” The legacy that I want to pass on to future generations does not include hatred.

Where, as a Quaker, do you personally stand on this issue, and where do I go from here?

Updates: Historical Marker Unveiled (9/28/14)On September 28th Upper Dublin (Pa.) Meeting of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting celebrated the unveiling of a Pennsylvania historic marker which honored the lives of Thomas and Hannah Atkinson, members of the meeting who offered safe haven on the underground railroad. The AFSC’s Acting in Faith blog covered the unveiling.
The clerk of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, Jada S. Jackson, responds (10/9/14)“As clerk, I am concerned with the spiritual state of the entire meeting. When we become a member of Religious Society of Friends we commit ourselves not just to our monthly meeting but to a communion of Friends seeking that of God in everyone. This community, as the individuals within it, is imperfect. Yet we obligate ourselves to love each other.”
Members of Upper Dublin Meeting respond (12/1/14)A letter from a group of Friends in Upper Dublin came to us from the co-clerks of the meeting and represents an informal collective response from some meeting members who felt concern with this article.

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Avis Wanda McClinton

Avis Wanda McClinton is a resident of Glenside, Pa., in Upper Dublin Township. She is a board member of the Grandom Insitution, a grant making project of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting.
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46 thoughts on “My Experience as an African American Quaker”

Barbara Harrison
October 1, 2014 at 10:04 am

It has taken me several hours to recover from reading Sharon Smith’s article and I find Avis Wanda McClinton’s just as appalling. I am wondering if I will be able to work up the courage to read any more of this month’s articles. I am frankly ashamed of my white brothers and sisters and applaud the bravery of our brothers and sisters of color in remaining among us.

Editor: please feel authorized to integrate my two posts this morning if you wish to do so.

Sharon Smith
October 1, 2014 at 4:20 pm

Dearest Friend, Wanda, please know that my heart, spirit and prayers are with you. We are in this together. You are not alone.

Dawn Hirsch
October 3, 2014 at 8:57 am

As one of the two clerks of the Upper Dublin Meeting Graveyard I AM appalled at the absolute untruths once again told by Avis McClinton about our meetinghouse AND it’s members. I am the only person that speaks to Friends interested in a burial in our graveyard and NEVER have I EVER stated to someone NOR attempted to sell a plot NOR discussed the possibility of EVER using the grounds that we have held sacred for the last 200 years. Avis has only been with us for the past 4 or so years but for some reason she is under the impression that we have only, “through her leading’s”, held that ground sacred since her arrival. There has always been a Graveyard Committee in place there to protect the grounds, those buried in our cemetery and our proud history. I am a descendant of the Atkinson family so this means so much to me, my family and all of our members.
As far as the other hateful untruths told regarding “racial hatred” I don’t even have the words to express the upset that these very serious allegations have caused and will continue to cause.

Nikki Mosgrove
October 4, 2014 at 8:26 am

I am so very saddened by Ms. McClinton’s experience–I felt physically ill after reading this! I am a member of the Trenton Meeting (NJ) and I couldn’t imagine being treated in this manner (I am also an Black woman). We should all hold her and the entire Upper Dublin Meeting in prayer!

Alice Yaxley
October 5, 2014 at 5:10 am

I hope it’s clear to all Friends that the only qualification we have is how we stand in the presence of God. No Quaker ancestry, no worldly wisdom or experience has any significance in our lives of faith besides how we live from that Divine Life which blesses and leads us.

Unfortunately there are cultural residues which get in the way of our faithfulness to the divine Life and lead to idolatry and injustices. Meetings which are not attuned to the needs of those joining the Society can be extreme in their lack of welcome. Lack of attention to the Divine Presence is of course going to cause failure and inability to carry out the duties entrusted to us, because God is the One who gives the power to do what we are supposed to do, and all that is good comes from that Soucre.

The structual violence of racism that surrounds us in society is easily carried through and acted out in Quaker circles, as many can attest to, including the authors of the articles in this months’ FJ, as well as the classic text ‘Fit for Freedom . . .’. I believe that it is only when we enter into the transformative Divine energy, drinking deeply from that Living Water, that we can be cleansed of our faults and prejudices and set to rights, able to live a life of mercy and justice under God’s guidance. All of our administrative tasks for Meetings must be secondary to our faithfulness to the Holy Spirit of God. No ancestry can do this for us: only our own daily effort to take up our cross and follow that Teacher who alone can lead us rightly.

My prayers are with all those who are responding to the issues of this months’ FJ, especially with those who have suffered much at the hands of white Friends, and my hope is that the divine spirit can show mercy by moving to lift the burdens of those who are suffering most, and gently reach and heal the hearts of those who are most in need of change.

Thanks for your faithfulness in your work for God and for writing this article, Avis Wanda McClinton. Perhaps an outpouring of God’s love will occur from your faithfulness, and that of the other authors in this issue. That is my hope for healing the bitterness and hatred in the hearts of those who are amongst us in Meetings, so we can once again respond to the Holy leading upon which we are relying for transformation and healing in the world around us as well as within our own hearts, families, and Meetings.

patricia walsh fingeroff mrs
October 5, 2014 at 7:44 pm

I am stunned. Absolutely stunned by this treatment of Avis Wanda McClinton by Upper Dublin Meeting. What about “That of God in every person”???

Pat Fingeroff, Abington Friends

William Frank
October 6, 2014 at 1:13 pm

I was married in the Upper Dublin Meeting, and had several friends (the personal type, not the Quaker type) in attendance of the ceremony. All persons in attendance were offered seating on a first come, first serve basis, and not one person was asked to move. Neither during, nor after, the ceremony did any one of my friends ever complain of any slight or innuendo to, or about, their genetic inheritance. I remember a homogeneous group of human congeniality seated before me and my wife-to-be; the space between persons seemed equitable to the general amount of personal space required by this particular species, and there were no obvious grouping(s) by family origin, primary language, chosen gender reference, height, weight, or skin pigmentation. However, what appeared to a random seating of humans, was more likely influenced by long-term friendship alliances, time of arrival, and/or each person’s habitual use or non-use of tobacco.

I speak not to individuals involved in any, implied, dispute above, but only to my experience with this establishment. I have no intimate knowledge of any event relevant to this editorial piece, other than that of which I write in this short comment – a comment which speaks only to a single, fond memory etched in the infinitesimal synaptic spaces of my ever deteriorating mind. Sigh.

Go thee in peace, be thee in harmony with the divine, and avoid thee solitary confinement at all costs.

Andy Rose
October 6, 2014 at 3:04 pm

Kudos to FJ for publishing Avis’ experience. Y’all “thresh” or whatever, I believe her and recommend “laboring with love” with Upper Dublin and “reading them out” of whatever quarterly and yearly meeting condones and perpetuates this behavior. Who will care for this meeting? What in the world is “sacred ground”? Spirit moves in all things. Let them reapply for care from quarterly or yearly when they

are clear on Friends values and ACT like they know what our testimony means, which are not a mystery

This “Dawn Hirsch” could read The New Jim Crow and get on the right side of history and act Quakerly.

Bettye
October 6, 2014 at 5:00 pm

After reading these journals for two months, I knew that the Quaker method of Sunday worship was for me. I had located a meeting house that was not far from my home, and had made up my mind to attend this coming Sunday. Now, after reading the article by Avis Wanda McClinton, I’ve changed my mind; the service would provide no respite from the ugliness of the world.

Esther Cowley-Malcolm
October 6, 2014 at 6:27 pm

I couldn’t believe I was reading this about ‘Friends’ …How can they sit and worship as Quakers when their behaviour is so racist?.I am normally so proud of what I read in our Quaker Journal that I want to share it with the world but this I am so ashamed of that I want to hide it…it is like a big white horrible stain on my Quaker family. However, I applaud Avis for speaking her concern and for telling her story. I really hope and pray that she will find a meeting place that embraces and loves her in all her full-ness. I am so sorry that Avis has been treated so appallingly by people who deem themselves to be Quakers. In reading Avis’s story I am filled with this sick feeling in my stomach and a real pain in my soul. Thank you for publishing Avis’s story as horrible as it is we need to know so we as Quakers can respond appropriately to eradicate this horrible disease of racism from our society.

Andrew Swartley Cohen
October 6, 2014 at 6:34 pm

You have brown eyes
I have blue
why don’t you see the truth
as I do

Wade Wright
October 7, 2014 at 11:35 am

I believe the story Avis Wanda tells about how some individuals in her Meeting have treated her. I ask that all Friends/friends who read this story look in their hearts and listen to the still small voice of God and find out what the Spirit wants from them. What does Love require? How can justice flow? I am praying that we all look around and see the Grace that is being brought to our community in this situation.

Lee Henkel
October 7, 2014 at 4:54 pm

I’m not going to address who’s right and who’s wrong in their perception of the truth; both probably believe that what they said is true. This is what concerns me the most: “To add insult to injury, neither the clerk of the Ministry, nor the other members of the group sitting there, all of whom were white, said anything.” This is absolutely plausible, as I have seen similar things happen in other Quaker settings. I have attributed it to Friends’ dislike of conflict, but we are complicit when we don’t speak up.

Maia Simon
October 8, 2014 at 10:38 am

Avis Wanda does not have access to the internet, so I have printed these comments so she can see how her article has been received. If friends want to address support to her directly, please send snail mail c/o Maia Simon 6 Collins Rd, Trenton NJ or email at maiasimon@me.com

Patricia O'Donnell
October 8, 2014 at 2:02 pm

Is it possible that the situation at Upper Dublin is a result of an enthusiastic person who is new to Quakerism running up against people who are set in their (slow Quaker) ways? I’ve seen this sort of situation in many different types of groups over the years, but normally, the enthusiastic newcomer either figures out how to work within the organization’s constraints, makes changes to the group from within, or gives up and goes elsewhere. But in this case, instead of viewing it as a “new vs old” culture clash, Friend Avis Wanda has made the assumption that her conflicts with the Meeting are purely because she is African American.

It sounds as if this group initially welcomed her with open arms (there is no mention anywhere of these “racists” attempting to dissuade her from joining their Meeting). It also sounds as if the problems started with this new Friend when her leadings conflicted with the burdensome process of obtaining consensus from the Meeting. This is indicated by her own words: “Another time a generous member of the meeting offered to cater the repast after the memorial service. I took this to business meeting and was told no; the African American guests would not be fed in the meetinghouse. Finally, after a lot of frustrating discussion, the meeting agreed to serve only cookies and juice to our guests.” It sounds as if, in Avis Wanda’s experience, it would be disrespectful to invite people to an event and not provide lunch, but the Meeting may have felt that a full catered meal would be a logistical impossibility and argued that punch and cookies had been adequate in the past. Does this tiny Meeting normally provide full catered meals when they host larger events, but punch and cookies when some of the people at an event will be African American? Does she believe that “a lot of frustrating discussion” is something that could have been avoided were she not African American?

We have not been provided any perspective from the Friends at Upper Dublin – this article is details the perspective of one relatively new Quaker who feels that her Meeting is not adequately supportive of all of her ideas and plans, and she attributes this lack of enthusiasm to racism. Please think hard on this, Friends, before leaping to assumptions about a situation you do not know firsthand (and I do not, either). Think hard about how your Meeting (or any other group you belong to or work for) has handled energetic and enthusiastic newcomers who are full of good ideas, but are not yet familiar with your corporate culture. We may yet learn something from this conflict, but in the end, it may not have anything to do with race.

Diana Collinelli
October 8, 2014 at 9:02 pm

.
I recently met Avis at PYM and was inspired by her spiritual sincerity to honor her ancestors As a former abuse counselor I can say that she spoke to me about the members of her meeting in a way that other women who had been marginalized spoke. I felt that she needed support and continue to feel this way. I along with my grandson, Dante sat with Avis Wanda at Upper Dublin Meeting at the Dedication of the Offical Pennsylvania State Historical Marker. It brought tears to my eyes to see God flowing through Avis Wanda.
This is our opportunity to show our love and compassion to follow Black Quakers. Let us not ignore this Way Opening for us all to love each other no matter what .

Sam Lemon
October 9, 2014 at 12:44 pm

Having read the letters by Sharon Smith, Vanessa Julye, and Avis Wanda McClinton, I was greatly saddened by them. For some time, I have also been aware of the serious concerns regarding the conflict at Upper Dublin Meeting and I attended all three events to honor the former runaway slaves buried in the graveyard there. As a descendant of former runaway slaves, this was deeply meaningful to me. Each of those events — including the most recent on September 28th when the historical road marker was unveiled — were well attended with a rich mix of culturally and ethnically diverse people. Everyone present appeared genuinely moved by this spiritual and commemorative gathering. And it is difficult for me to believe that these three noteworthy and wonderful events could have happened without the cooperation of the members of Upper Dublin Meeting.

Over the many months of this controversy, I found myself accepting on face value the many allegations concerning some of the members of the Meeting and the Atkinson family, which alarmed me — without ever having been present to personally hear or witness any of these reported events. That is not to say that these things could not have happened. But it dawned on me, that I had never heard the other side of the story. From my personal contacts with her, I believe that Avis is a deeply spiritual person with strong, inspirational leadings. But the same may be equally true for other members of the Meeting or the Atkinson family.

While racism continues to be a major and destructive problem in our country, perhaps even in some of our Meetings, it is essential not to discount some of the critical points made by Friend Patricia O’Donnell above. The slow, deliberative nature of Quaker process can be very frustrating, even maddening, at times. And Patricia raises a good point in wondering what would have been the outcome had all the people involved been of the same race. I understand the need for Quaker process, but I feel that sometimes Friends adhere more to the letter (of the law) rather than the Spirit. In this way we cling to the very forms and structures we eschew. And what can understandably be viewed as foot-dragging would be better served by a more nimble process.

None of what I have said is an apology for racism and insensitivity, as I have experienced both in my life. And both continue to exist in the world and within the Society of Friends. As Sharon and Vanessa mentioned in their respective letters, it can be difficult — and lonely at times — being a Quaker of color. Perhaps the Society has rested on its theological laurels too long, because there is an arrogance that has developed over the years among some Friends who feel they can tell others what to believe, or have no problems shouting at or disrespecting others in meetings. We have lost members of my own Meeting because of such behavior.

Being tried in the press is never a good way to discern the truth. A better way of addressing this conflict would have been to have all parties involved meet together with objective third-party Friends to have a frank discussion and arrive at a peaceful resolution. Perhaps that has already happened. But regardless of their veracity, to air these grievances in the media, particularly after the fact, is unfortunate and unfair to everyone at Upper Dublin Meeting. Because warranted or not, it is public shaming that only encourages further conflict and prohibits understanding and reconciliation. Whether true or not, had I been accused of such racist acts I would be quite angry and defensive, too. And I would not be particularly eloquent in responding to them.

William Penn said: “For me to be right does not mean that you must be wrong.” I don’t know if this situation is reconcilable, because there are now such serious divisions and deeply hurt feelings on both sides. But I hope that everyone involved would be willing to put that aside to try to reach a better level of understanding. What I experienced at Upper Dublin Meeting on Sunday, September 28th, with the Meetinghouse packed to capacity with people of all ages and colors of one human family in worship and in sharing — was not only spiritually inspiring, it was magical — and worth repeating there, and everywhere. And that would help us grow.

A young lady with an angelic voice closed the ceremony by singing the song “Imagine” by John Lennon, a capella. We should contemplate those lyrics and take them to heart. And strive to be a better Religious Society of Friends.

Takashi Mizuno
October 9, 2014 at 3:32 pm

Dear Sam,

I read your comment a couple of times. I had not written a comment until I read yours today because I was the one who indirectly recommended you as one of the speakers for the ceremony on September 28th at Upper Dublin Friends Meeting. Although I do not share some of your views, I share your following hope : ” I don’t know if this situation is reconcilable, because there are now such serious divisions and deeply hurt feelings on both sides. But I hope that everyone involved would be willing to put that aside to try to reach a better level of understanding. ”

As people say, we can not change people , but we have the power to change ourselves. I think that it is now helpful to not take action but to have enough space and time for both sides in order to get to the place that you and we have hoped for.

Takashi Mizuno

Suzanne
October 9, 2014 at 11:12 pm

In the Facebook comments on this article (found on FJ’s official page), Friend Robyn has posted a series of pictures from the dedication ceremony that are worth seeing.

Martin Kelley
October 10, 2014 at 10:29 am

In case readers on this thread miss it, Jada S. Jackson, the presiding clerk of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, has written a response: https://oldfj.wpengine.com/presiding-clerk-philadelphia-yearly-meeting-responds/

Bill Samuel
October 22, 2014 at 9:39 pm

I assume it was the intent of FJ in publishing the articles, including this one, in which individuals relate the experiences they felt at the hands of Friends Meeting, to provide an opportunity for the largely white readers of FJ to hear directly from Friends of color in their own words and understandings. This kind of hearing is one of the steps needed if Friends are to grow into consciousness of the racism that is embedded and awareness that changes of heart and mind are needed. I hope some will be ready to have their understanding expanded, but the cold reality is that some will have difficulty in accepting the need for change.

It seems to me that it is important in this that the Friends be able to name the specifics of their experiences. I understand the distress that this may cause other Friends involved in the situations described in this and other articles. However, I believe that attempting to provide a “balanced” perspective would result in the failure to really hear the experiences of Friends of color. It would sort of bury their experiences in a mix of voices. There is a difference in the way we need to treat the voices of those who have been excluded in many ways and the voices of those who have been in the dominant role. It is true that no single person’s experience of a situation involving a number of people can provide the whole story, but it is vital to highlight the stories of those who have not had much of a voice.

I pray that this and other efforts to address the embedded racism in the Society of Friends in North America will touch many hearts, and help many Friends to grow in recognizing and struggling with racism.

Black Quaker
November 21, 2014 at 10:25 am

All of these white people tears are funny. One person claims an injustice and you automatically switch into white guilt mode. It’s embarrassing. We are a people built on an investigation of truth. It is possible that this Friend is hurting in a profound way that has made her see this situation in a way that doesn’t reflect the reality of her surroundings. I hear and feel that in the subtext enough to not automatically lash out at a meeting that I’ve never been to and people that I don’t know.

Now, is there racism within the society? Absolutely. Have I experienced in profound and hurtful ways, you bet. Should these folks be allowed to bully a fellow member for any reason? Absoluely not. I’m simply suggesting a level of empathy for all in the situation.

Kur B.
November 26, 2014 at 11:56 am

I felt emotional a few evenings ago when I read through this article and thread. Having only been attending Meeting for a few months it does not feel right to voice an opinion. I really tried not to but here I am a few days later….meant to be electronic humor 🙂
Recently a weighty Quaker suggested we use life stories during an informal Worship and Ministry . Shortly afterwards I felt moved when I heard Christie use life stories and analogies. So I thought I’d refer to my experience without the gory details.
My opinion is that I have no opinion. It’s been my experience that using a public forum for sensitive issues is an accident waiting to happen. Regardless of how good my intensions were and how sensitive I tried to be, I found electronic communications- (e-mail before the new millennium in my case) such as Social Media, websites (passwd protected or not), e-mail, SMS (aka TXT messaging), etc.; are not a good place to try to resolve or even discuss sensitive issues. I suppose I’m in the minority because I’ve come across many wonderful people (some with the best of intensions) go at it electronically since Netscape 1.0. Actually, I didn’t find it painful just over data but voice comm. lines (the phone) as well.
Whether I felt right, wrong or indifferent if someone asked for my experience; I found it more productive (and less hurtful) if I shared it in person.
This article/thread and all of its content has been very insightful. I have taken many things from it, learned a bit more about the Quaker way of life and have (happily) stumbled upon an acquaintance’s post. With all the good that data communications (including this one) provide, I found not going there difficult at times but (eventually) it felt like the right thing to do.
I.E. I had a Facebook account for a few months in order to take part in a group regarding an historical topic. We created the group with the mission of remaining loving and caring; anyone who was not would be removed. The sense of that group evolved into something else. As much as I adored the topic, I bugged out of Facebook.

Obviously, none of my experience is unique and some of you had heard this before but I thought I’d share it anyway. I was hoping to keep this post to a paragraph or two. Boy did I fall short…LOL (or would that be long?)

Shelia Bumgarner
December 29, 2014 at 7:14 pm

The whole October issue weighs heavy with me and not in a good way. A failure to communicate and maintaining “this is the way we have always done it” only explains part of the unpleasantness. However, when someone insisted that she sit in the back of the room, as well as the clerk’s comments followed by someone calling her a bum when she tried to present a leading in Meeting for Worship cannot be explained away. Either those things were said or they were not.

Joe Uknalis
January 3, 2015 at 11:50 am

We submitted this for publication in the December FJ issue […]

[Eds.: The response from some Friends in Upper Dublin Monthly Meeting appears in the December 2014 Forum]

Comments are closed.

A Gospel of Quaker Sexuality - Friends Journal

A Gospel of Quaker Sexuality

May 1, 2016

By Kody Gabriel Hersh

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Quakers have sometimes been described as “a peculiar people.” That’s a fair way to describe my religious upbringing, in a geographically remote outpost and an extremely liberal wing of a kind of wacky denomination.

My weird and lovely little faith community was one where people spoke often about their grief and their hope for the brokenness in the world. Growing up, I heard a lot about Quaker values, commitments, and beliefs. I came out as queer without feeling any conflict with my identity as a Friend. But as my commitment to Quakerism as a spiritual path deepened, I realized that there was a disconnect between Quakerism and my emerging sexuality. Sexuality had generally been treated as a private matter in my family and community. I had been taught, however, that taking Quakerism seriously and listening for the leadings of God could potentially change my approach to everything. I realized that I needed to figure out for myself what a sexual ethic grounded in Quaker faith might look like.

Over the course of a decade of thinking, praying, and talking with people about the relationship between sexuality and Quakerism, I’ve come to a number of core convictions. In the most technical sense of the word, “gospel” simply means good news. I believe that this world is sorely in need of good news about bodies and sexuality, and that there is a lot of good news to be given! What follows is some of my gospel.

The gift of our sexuality

As a Christian, I am a disciple of a leader whose first miracle—according to the Gospel of John—was to turn water into wine. Jesus didn’t just refresh the supplies of a three-day-long wedding party that had run out of alcohol; he made really good wine—the best that had been served at the party up to that time.

These are not the actions of a God who feels negative, or even neutral, about pleasure, enjoyment, and riotous joy. We have a remarkable capacity for experiencing pleasure in our bodies—from the feeling of warm sun on skin to the smell of rain on pavement to the taste of rich food. Our capacity for pleasure is part of our humanity, a gift from God. Sexual pleasure is part of that gift.

Humans were created for love, in the broadest sense: familial love, spiritual love, the love of deep friendship, romantic love. Our sexuality is one of the ways we can experience and express love in and through our bodies, and that makes it important and potentially very beautiful.

I believe that how we live our sexuality is critically important in our spiritual lives. But I don’t think the rules are all that complicated. I don’t think God is judging us based on whether we have sex, how many people we have sex with, or what kind of sex we have with them. I don’t think God cares what genders of people we’re attracted to or whether we wait to have sex until we’re married. I believe that what God wants from us in our sexuality, as in all other things, is that we act with love and compassion. As the prophet Micah said, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God?” Or, as the prophet Kurt Vonnegut said, “There’s only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.”

Including sexual violence in our peace witness

As a child growing up in a Liberal Quaker meeting, nonviolence was one of the first things that I was taught to associate with Quakerism. I learned that the Quaker commitment to nonviolence is a witness of our care for everything that is a manifestation of the Divine. I learned to think of peacebuilding as the ultimate goal of Quakerism, and of everything else that was described to me as a Quaker testimony—simplicity, equality, integrity—as a blueprint for what true peace would look like and how it might be achieved.

I was not taught to understand, as a child, that violence intimately permeated the lives of people in my own family and community. I was not taught that, as a person assigned female gender at birth, I would have a one-in-four chance of being a target of sexual assault during my life. I don’t remember sexual violence being identified as part of the culture of violence that we sought to dismantle.

If we long for peace, we need to acknowledge the pervasiveness of sexual violence. I need to remember that there are people, among those I love, who experience street harassment every time they leave their houses alone. Survivors of sexual abuse have been my friends, partners, coworkers, and kids I work with, and those are just the ones I know about.

There have also been perpetrators of sexual abuse among my friends and community members, including kids raised in Quaker communities similar to my own. On multiple occasions, in different communities where I’ve held leadership roles, I’ve known sexual violence to have occurred between Quaker young people. I feel a profound responsibility, out of love for my faith community and the kids we raise in it, to do everything in my power to transform the systems that put their safety and well-being at risk.

Sexual violence is a problem in Quaker communities. It is not restricted to any particular group of Friends. I have seen too much of it to perceive it as anything but a systemic problem: a collective failure to interrupt the cycle of sexual violence that pervades our society as a whole and to prevent it from running similarly unimpeded within our own house.

Friends must start teaching our children, and each other, that understanding and practicing consent is critical to a life of nonviolence. Silence isn’t going to do this teaching for us. If we can’t talk about sex, we leave ourselves at the mercy of the uninterrupted discourse of rape culture, because we have offered no challenge and no alternatives.

Quakerism and rape culture are fundamentally incompatible. Quakers will know we are working for peace well when we find ourselves butting heads with this culture at every turn. We must preach a sexuality of nonviolence, in which every human is allowed to choose freely how, when, and whether to use their body for pleasure and connection. To be an agent of sexual nonviolence, I must cultivate my capacity for listening, empathy, and honest communication. I believe this is within every person’s ability, if we teach and support one another in making it so.

Body positivity

Icame to Christianity somewhat reluctantly. I was already out as queer, comfortable in a progressive-nerdy-renegade role. I never felt like Christianity was for people like me. But then, like some lead character in a cheesy, gay, young adult novel, I started to develop these . . . feelings. At first, I thought I could push them away, or deny they meant anything, but I kept finding Jesus kind of unnervingly compelling.

The Jesus I fell in love with doesn’t feel scary or dogmatic or really anything like I expected. I’ve come to understand Christianity in a much more radical and countercultural light than I did as a child. In my view as a sex-positive person, Christian theology provides a powerful center of gravity for my understanding of the goodness of the human body.

Christianity represents an intersection of the spiritual and the physical, the sacred and the profane, that blows those distinctions out of the water. If God chose to take on human form and experience and participate in everything that comes along with having a body—eating and pooping and nose blowing and stuff—how can I consider any part of my life so mundane that it is without goodness or significance? How could I believe that having a body is anything other than a profound and beautiful mystery?

I’ve found body positivity easy to affirm in theory but incredibly challenging in practice. Body shaming is disproportionately leveraged at women, and people perceived as women, as well as people of color, people with disabilities, and lots of other marginalized groups, but it affects everyone. It’s a critical component of the systems of oppression that police certain populations of people and consolidate power among others. I’ve had to convince myself that “fat” isn’t a bad word but a neutral descriptor of lots of amazing, powerful, and beautiful bodies, including my own. I’ve only begun to dismantle some of my ideas about what bodies are “supposed” to be able to do, and to release judgment when my own or other people’s bodies don’t live up to that. There is still so much to do.

Conscious reproduction and village-dwelling

When I talk with people about connections between sexuality and Quaker values and beliefs, the connection that people seem to struggle with most often is between sexuality and earthcare. I’m not talking about places where sex-related consumer decisions have an environmental impact; I’m talking bigger, and also more personal.

By far, reproduction is the most significant environmental decision most of us will make. We are living in a pivotal moment of climate change and its effect on long-term survival prospects of every species on Earth. The prevailing scientific agreement is that this is now an unstoppable catastrophe. We are in a crisis, and it’s time to do what damage control we can, and start to imagine a new way of being on the planet.

In this context, I believe reproduction constitutes a serious moral choice. Humanity desperately needs rising generations of creative, thoughtful problem-solvers and leaders, but we also need fewer humans competing for the available resources. The moral questions related to bringing a child into what may be a dying world are ones for which I have no glib answers. So many factors go into reproductive decision making that any judgment of other people’s choices or experiences would be harmful and ignorant.

The dignity and importance of good parenting and the need to care for the earth by limiting reproduction are not incompatible. Quakers and others can better honor both by shifting to a model in which the decision to parent is spiritually discerned without predetermined outcome.

I choose to believe, as an act of faith, that there are enough resources on this planet to support every person, if we make reproduction an entirely uncoerced option. It can be one of many choices, including fostering, adopting, village-dwelling, or not being involved in the raising of kids at all. I’m a village-dweller myself: I love kids, and find joy and fulfillment in supporting parents and other family members in raising them. I don’t want to have any of my own, but I do want to be there for the kids in my life when they have stuff that is too hard or weird to talk about with their parents. I want to babysit so parents who don’t get enough time together can go on dates. I want to show up for the important things in the lives of the kids I love and help them know they are loved by a big circle of folks.

For reproductive parenting to be freely chosen from a variety of options, we need to take some concrete steps. Freely chosen parenting means freely available birth control in a wide variety of forms. It means universal, truly comprehensive, and holistic sexuality education that addresses not just the physical act of sex but communication, relationships, reproductive decision making, and sexual health throughout life. It means taking a serious look at the causes of socially pressured, personally coerced, or unintended pregnancies around the world, and supporting people in developing thoughtful, culturally sensitive solutions for their own cultures and communities.

It means transforming attitudes about what constitutes a normal life cycle, a fulfilling life, a family, and a legacy. Quakers can set an example for this shift by discussing reproductive decision making when we address topics of morality, discernment, and leadings with both children and adults. People approaching their faith communities for support and clearness around family planning could be a normal practice among us.

The wild idealism of Quaker marriage

The Quaker understanding of marriage is consistent with both the wild idealism and grounded pragmatism of Quaker faith. It’s the simple, radical idea that marriage relationships are created by God, not by other people. Neither a church nor an officiant, a judge, or a legislator—no human being or organization—can perform a marriage; we can only witness that God has married people, and agree (or not) to help care for their marriage.

The first wedding I remember attending took place when I was about five years old. I remember the sun in the courtyard of my meetinghouse and the brides smiling. It was the first time my meeting had married two people of the same gender. As was happening in many Friends meetings around the country and world at the time, this wedding was preceded in our community by years of painful debate. But we learned, somehow. We grew in our understanding of what “marriage” meant.

I’ve identified as polyamorous for years, and know a lot of other non-monogamous people in lovely, loving relationships. I’ve believed theoretically that deep, spiritual relationships of mutual care and long-term commitment could exist among more than just two people. Until recently, however, I didn’t personally know anyone who was married to more than one person.

About a year and a half ago, I met a family with three married partners at a Quaker conference. Since then, I have become a devoted long-distance, social-media fan of their relationship. I love their “kids going back to school” posts, their “can’t wait for family movie night tonight!” posts, their posts about silly things, and their posts about incredibly hard things. I have seldom seen relationships with such tenderness, affection, and openness, especially in the context of tremendous discrimination. It is inconceivable to me that anyone could know them and not believe them to be married, or fail to find their marriage to be worthy of care and celebration.

The profound hopefulness of the Quaker commitment to continuing revelation is that we are not stuck with what we know right now, or what we know alone. Our work is to be present and attentive in a gloriously complex world. Things will surprise us. We will be required to change our minds, to grow continuously into new understandings of how love manifests in the world.

Seeking wholeness

By affirming the goodness of human sexuality, in all its rich diversity, I am fighting for my wholeness: for all of my identities, desires, and connections to be present in the room, all at once, in dignity and safety. I am fighting for your wholeness. I am fighting for our ability to connect authentically. I am reaching for a place where we know more because we have heard each other’s stories, where we begin to grasp the full truth by sharing the parts of it we can each see from where we are.

Having sex like a Quaker—pursuing a grounded, loving, progressive, and life-affirming approach to human sexuality—is an act not just of seeking wholeness but of staking out ground and fighting for our wholeness actively and passionately. We need to do this if we are going to resist the machinery of shame, the hierarchy of human worth. These will try to erode and erase our wholeness. But they will not win. We can’t let them.

Micah encourages us to let go of our effort and anxiety about the things that are extraneous in our relationship with God and focus on the essentials: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God?” We do justice, with regard to sexuality, when we work to dismantle the systems of oppression that lead to sexual violence, seek every opportunity to prevent that violence, and commit ourselves to prevention, justice, and healing.

We are lovers of mercy when we conduct our own relationships with compassion and concern for the well-being of others. We can walk humbly by acknowledging the things we don’t know, committing ourselves to a lifelong learning process about sexuality, and most of all, refraining from judgment of other people’s consensual relationships.

Finally, Micah tells us: God will be with us. Guidance and help are here, and they will keep coming. We are grounded. We are loved. And we are not alone.

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Kody Gabriel Hersh

Kody Gabriel Hersh is a queer, trans, polyamorous Quaker youth worker who loves Jesus and is passionate about justice, peacebuilding, and joy. Kody grew up and maintains membership in Southeastern Yearly Meeting and is active with Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns (FLGBTQC) and Christian Peacemaker Teams. This article was adapted from a talk given during Haverford College’s Religion and Spiritual Life Week in September 2015.

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June-July 2022