Plain in the city

A plain Quaker folk singer with a Juris Doctorate in his back pocket, salt in his blood, and a set of currach oars in the closet, Ulleann Pipes under his arm, guitar on his back, Anglo Irish baggage, wandering through New York City ... in constant amaze. Statement of Faithfulness. As a member of the Quaker Bloggers Ad Hoc Committee I affirm that I will be faithful to the Book of Discipline of my Meeting 15th Street Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Liberal v Orhodox and Quaker Process in Conflict...

Quacarol's comment to the post on Emotional Terrorsim, on the conflict in our meeting being a flaw in Liberal Friends meetings has me thinking deeply ( thank you Carol... good for me at this time... )

There are built in flaws in all human philosophies and underlying truth, transcendent truth in many. A dear and very very missed Friend once pointed out that the problem with nilism is that it is total in it's application and no one is really fully anything. So, though I am certainly a Hicksite... that is not a complete description of who I am, nor is any Wilberite or Gurneyite fully that ... and that is always the seeds of the potential for conflict among Orthodox Friends... splits happen in those areas of faith where each human is a little different.

So yes, Quaker process MAY be a lacking in Liberal meetings... per se, though I am not sure. More though, it seems to be an issue of loving trust. I have seen members who are Orthodox fall out on issues of fear to trust each other enough to come to loving resolutions of conflict as well, where anger becomes a part of the conversation and trust ends and Friends leave our society either hurt or angry.

posted by Lorcan @ 8:14 AM

1 Comments:

At 5:42 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

I went back and read your post on emotional terrorism -- and QuaCarol's attribution to liberalism and its lack of a common faith centre.

I livhin a liberal Quakerism -- Canadian Yearly Meeting lays claim to being a United Meeting but in reality the Conservative and Orthodox fragments are isolated within mostly liberal meetings.

I have seen the emotional terrorism. And I do see our fragmentedness as a part of the issue. Not so much a lack of common faith as a lack of grounding in each person's faith -- the inability to stand up to the angry or disturbed or strong-willed and say a simple 'no thank-you'.

The latest issue of the Pastoral Care newsletter from Philadelphia YM deals with this if your meeting subscribes.

Another possibility occurs. Maybe we are so steeped in traditions of nonviolence and peace that we see even minor conflicts as amjor disasters.

 

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