Pages tagged "conflict"

Dear Friends: Liberal unprogrammed Quaker meetings are organized or disorganized by committees. Without an identified pastor or priest, we count on the wisdom of committees.

Dear Friends: Conflict in our meetings is often not resolved in a manner satisfactory to all involved. Frequently, some individuals or groups are left on their own to swallow changes they are not ready for. This happens even though much willingness to being open to a way forward has been experienced within the meeting. It happens whether the conflict is instigated by the behavior and/or beliefs of one individual or by Friends who are promoting new perspectives.

Dear Editor: It was good to see your piece on James Nayler in “Pages for All Ages.” Friends today do not always recognize that in the first years of the Quaker movement, Nayler was as important a preacher and as central to the movement as George Fox himself, certainly in the eyes of many London Friends.

Dear Editor: I wanted to thank you for undertaking a group discussion by videoconference. I listened to the entire hour. One type of “bullying” that did not come up is the personal use of the silence as a bully pulpit (I call it “Quaker open Mic”). I have participated in a number of meetings in different parts of the West. A weighty Friend in one meeting produced a sermonette each First Day. An individual in another meeting usurped extensive periods of the silence with his personal opinions and attitudes on current topics. People new to meeting groups tend to follow the example of older members or attenders. I think this is one of the more troublesome features of unstructured silence.

In January this year, I submitted an article to Western Friend about Friends and the “Beloved Community,” and I received the best rejection letter ever. The editor told me she tends to publish good news about Friends on the website, but wants the magazine to contain articles that “dig deeper into the quandaries, conflicts, values, etc., that underlie all the good work.” This seems like an editorial policy that will keep the magazine interesting and relevant.

I began exploring my spiritual path through Buddhist meditation in my early twenties. Since that time, I have attended five weeklong, silent, Buddhist retreats. These were pivotal to my spiritual growth and developing self-awareness. My last one was in December, and I realized two things. First, to be in silence is a practice that gives me the space and grounding I need to seek authentic wholeness and to strive to align my life with a higher purpose. Second, I realized that because I knew no one at these silent retreats, I was essentially surrounded by strangers, and I left with unsettling feelings of emptiness. In the last decade, I have grown to love the continuous community of Quakers. Recently, I have been feeling more guided to keep my spirituality contained within Quakerism, as it is my home.

The ability to see and write clearly, the justice of an open mind, the opportunity to observe people and events during a complex period in a conflicted country: all these qualities Henriette Groot brings to her recently published journal, which recounts her experiences in South Africa in 1986 – Zebras for Table Mountain. Groot is a member of Central Coast Meeting in San Louis Obispo, CA (PYM). She and her husband took a round-the-world sailing voyage at a critical time in history. This journal reflects Groot’s curiosity as the couple approached South Africa in September 1985, her interest in people of all classes and races, her knowledge of the Apartheid struggle, and her desire “to be with South African Quakers.”