Comment by Isabel Penraeth on 12th mo. 19, 2011 at 11:06am

Kevin--

I am sorry thee has not felt supported by thy faith community in dealing with a difficult situation. Thee is entirely correct that in some meetings the pendulum has swung entirely to the opposite, from a Society where outward behavior was very important to a Society where it seems impossible to even address it.

It seems to come up fairly frequently, so I am going to go ahead and address it, though it makes me feel a bit of a scold myself to do so. There is a widespread misunderstanding of the traditional "offices" found within Quakerism. Thee is talking, in the traditional sense, about "overseers" not "elders" when thee speaks of Friends who were tasked with dealing with troubling outward behavior. These are the "scolds" that did exist in the RSoF. Elders were concerned primarily with assisting with the encouragement of vocal ministry and to assist vocal ministers in rightly assessing and progressing in their gift. Ohio Yearly Meeting maintains these traditional forms, though I will not claim they have a perfection in applying them.

from Ohio Yearly Meeting's Book of Discipline

Duties of Overseers

    Overseers take responsibility for the Meeting's care over the welfare of Friends. They must, when needful, attempt to adjust complaints, or any estrangements from harmony, which might impair the happy participation of individuals in the worship or the business of their meetings.

...

    Overseers should endeavor early to become personally known to all who attend the meetings, visiting in their homes and showing an affectionate interest in them.

Elders and Eldership

Function and Qualifications

    In every meeting for worship there is a vital and a continuing need for a nucleus of Friends who feel exceptional concern for the deeper spiritual life of the meeting. They will also feel a concern for the encouragement and guidance of the vocal ministry.

These, however, are but the primary qualifications to be looked for in Elders. Ideally, they need, in addition, a considerable insight into character, an alert spiritual discernment, exceptionally good judgment, and a fund of ready tact and open friendliness. All these qualifications should be humbly dedicated to a deeply felt zeal for the spiritual growth of the Society, and upheld and purified by the power of constant watchful prayer.

   Elders should feel a particular duty to give encouragement and oversight to those who appear in the vocal ministry or public prayer.

Comment by Kevin Camp on 12th mo. 19, 2011 at 12:40pm

Thank you, Friend, for establishing the distinction.  And I appreciate your advice.

The term "overseer" makes me a little uncomfortable because of its association with slavery.  I wish there was something synonymous I might use in its place.

Comment by Mackenzie on 12th mo. 19, 2011 at 6:37pm

Kevin:

That squick about "overseer" is why Takoma Park Friends Meeting renamed their "Ministry & Oversight" committee. I forget the new name, but it has been jokingly referred to as "Miscellaneous & Other" since as a preparative meeting it has few committees (with an additional possible-joke about keeping the same letters so the stationery still worked). The word "overseer" is a Renaissance-era term though, not one cooked up for the institution of slavery.

Comment by Dorene Cornwell on 12th mo. 19, 2011 at 9:37pm

Friend Kevin,

 

Friends in my Meeting are unevenly steeped in traditional Quaker terminology about elders and overseers so please forgive any linguistic illucidity.

 

I am sorry you feel alone in your concern and that others are not able to intervene in a matter that sounds very hurtful to you. That said, one or two weighty Friends in my Meeting insist that one cannot elder someone unless they truly love the person being eldered. Frankly, I am of less certain stock and sometimes have simply to hold the possibility that in the future I may come to love them. That possibility, oddly, sometimes makes it easier to deal with matters like serious mental illness.

 

You do not specify and I do not wish to know what you think the cause of this Friend's behavior. Is there someone in your Meeting with counseling or recovery experience with whom you might season your observations?  Is the problem intermittent or variable in any kind of a pattern? The Buddhists in my Meeting are wont to ask "what is this teaching me (about myself? about others? about trauma? about recovery?) More pharmaceutically minded Friends ask "is there any kind of medication that might help?

 

I am not in any position to opine as to what might help in this case, but even very disturbed individuals can choose whether or not to stay on paths that help. Sometimes a circle of caring Friends can intervene or be aware over time of different matters that might be an issue. Can you begin by asking others to sit with you about the problem?

Comment by Kevin Camp on 12th mo. 20, 2011 at 7:14am

Thank you for your response, Friend.

I know that some Friends who are members and attenders are psychotherapists.  A few have long histories of counseling at my Meeting.  That being said, most people take a general "hand's off" approach to these sorts of problems.  The pattern I've observed in him is that of a slowly escalating desire to be directly confrontational.  My fear is that it will only grow in intensity unless someone deliberately intervenes.

The issue here is finding people who are willing to actively confront the problem.  Most people would just as soon stall or pretend it didn't happen.  This person has a long history of similar outbursts.  I think he is acting out because of a lack of basic attention.  Said Friend's significant other is dealing with a sibling who is dying and is preparing for the end.  The significant other simply doesn't have the ability to be a moderating influence as he usually can.  

That is just my theory, but other Friends think I am accurate in my surmising.  

In any case, I'd have to make an overly big deal of this and Meeting culture is usually anti-confrontational.  My hope is that the problem stops, but sometimes things have to get worse before they get any better.

Comment by Bill Samuel on 12th mo. 20, 2011 at 8:51am

There may be a complex of issues here.  There is indeed often an undue reluctance to face difficult situations in a meeting. Often contemporary Friends are reluctant to recognize and nurture spiritual gifts within the meeting out of a false sense of egalitarianism.  When such gifts are acknowledged and nurtured, God can use those gifts in those Friends in working through situations that arise.

I would caution about looking at the matter primarily through the lens of discipline. Look at it as a matter of love, care and community.  There should be some in the Meeting with the needed gifts who can lovingly deal with all those involved, and prayerfully seek the right way forward. Reconciliation is always the goal. Discipline may sometimes be needed, but that should come out of a careful, loving process.

There may be a way the Meeting can respond which will result in the Friend not exhibiting the troubling behavior, or at least exhibiting it to a much lesser degree.  OTOH, it might not. Then what is the appropriate response. With the mentally ill, I've been in meetings where mentally ill persons often act in a way that is normally inappropriate, but the meeting surrounds them in love in a way that it is not really disruptive, but a demonstration of bearing one another's burdens which deepens the sense of community. They seem to be living out the love of Christ.

Comment by Steven Davison on 12th mo. 20, 2011 at 10:14am

Discipline is a four-letter word among Friends, alas.

Shrewsbury Meeting in New Jersey (New York Yearly Meeting) went through a similar challenge some years ago and eventually expelled the man from meeting. I learned three things from that experience.

The first was that once the meeting had reached the tipping point and decided to act, they discovered that virtually everyone in the meeting had the same complaints but a culture of silence had kept them from knowing this.

The second was that the meeting felt very strongly that they should have acted much sooner than they did. This is the conclusion that every troubled meeting came to that I visited on behalf of the yearly meeting's ministry and counsel committee (albeit not very many).

The third was a 'metric' if you will for corporate disciplinary action: when the first Friend stops attending meeting because of someone's chronic disruptive behavior, you might as well have lost the disruptive member instead. In other words, at least when people start leaving meeting, the meeting has a responsibility to DO SOMETHING to protect the worship and the fellowship.

The traditional framework for "bringing gospel order" to such a situation, now often lost in the steady erosion of our tradition, is the meaning of gospel order Friends found in Matthew 18:15-20. It's a simple three-warning system. First, "go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone." Then, "if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established." "And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man (sinner) and a publican." It's worth noting that "sinners" and tax collectors were the special focus of Jesus' ministry, so, though this represents expulsion, it does not necessarily end the relationship.

Then this passage ends with these extraordinary words:

Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall losse on earth shall be loosed in heaven. . . For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

This is the very root source of our understanding of a gathered meeting, of the presence in the midst, of corporate discernment under the leadership of the holy spirit in meeting for business as worship.

Comment by Forrest Curo on 12th mo. 20, 2011 at 10:36am

There was a woman in my Meeting... Two or three minutes into a friendly conversation: "You're wrong! [followed by angry tirade]." If you had sense enough to avoid conversation, she would just run around pre-Meeting, emitting inspiring cheerful stories about all the wonderful things various people were doing in the world... in a tone that had me cringing-- and usually come up with at "Message" of that sort during actual worship.

When I found out that a more timid member "was afraid to come to Meeting" "because of her," I passed that on to Ministry & Oversight. We had a small meeting with her, and she stopped coming.

The frightened woman continues to be an infrequent attender, usually overwhelmed with other troubles (Often these are the troubles of her neighbors, whom she's been very helpful to.)

I don't believe I ever wanted the Offending Person to leave Meeting. She often did have relevant and useful knowledge on matters Quakerish... and could have potentially gained a great deal from staying with worship.

Now & then I see her at a demonstration for Something Good, looking happy. I wave. We don't talk much.

Comment by Martin Kelley on 12th mo. 20, 2011 at 12:54pm

Great thread. I left the closest meeting to my house in large part because of a disruptive member who everyone agreed was disruptive (the incidents were also a tipping points for my wife's departure from Friends, so it's the loss of our whole family). The problem wasn't him so much as the meeting culture that would rather see us get beat up every week and eventually leave than address his issue. We had a similar incident at the next meeting I regularly attended. I don't think it's coincidence that others there have left, worship is in the single digits and it's considering laying itself down.

The fellow at the first meeting was in his eighties and almost certainly suffering from an form of age-related dementia. He was projecting a lot on us that wasn't us. My mother has mid-stage Alzheimers and I've seen her act out in bizarrely inappropriate ways. I suspect that a lot of our graying meetings are suffering from age-related problems as beloved members become more erratic and sometimes combative.

Let me take off my QuakerQuaker hat to put on the Friends Journal one to say that May 2013's issue will be on "Conflict and Eldering." Suffice it to say these topics were heavy on my mind as I was considering the topics. The submission due date is a year from now but if good articles come in before that, I'm sure we could find spots in earlier issues! Guidelines and details at http://www.friendsjournal.org/submissions/writers.

Comment by Kevin Camp on 12th mo. 20, 2011 at 1:41pm

Lots of good advice.

I have to say that I don't want the Friend to leave.  But I do want him to reform his behavior.  There are two other Friends who are frequently problematic, but any efforts to read out anyone have not succeeded.  I just wish that it didn't take persistent, escalating problems before the Meeting ever steps in to intercede.  

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