Dear White Friends:

This letter was written in reaction to a Meeting for Worship With Attention to Business  at Upper Dublin Monthly Meeting as they considered a "sabbatical" in Business Meetings to avoid considering difficult relationships in the Meeting and conflict with  Quaker Friend of color, Avis McClinton

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Dear White Friends,

Grace to you and peace from they great Spirit which unites us all in Love, connecting our hearts and weaving us together in one fabric as a human family.

I write to you with a great of tenderness of heart, having prayed with you and for you during your last Meeting for Worship with attention to business, last First Day - 20th day, 9th Month 2015. You labored with a minute for a sabbatical, suspending your business meetings until January 2017.

The reason for your fourteen month break is a conflict with your only African American member, Avis Wanda McClinton. You have expressed exhaustion in struggling with Friend Avis arising from your differences which you describe as "irreconcilable."

In your "Minute to Request a Sabbatical" you say the following:

"We the undersigned members of the Upper Dublin Monthly Meeting of Friends after more than three years of listening, struggling, and praying for the conflict with Avis Wanda McClinton and her support group to be resolved, request that Upper Dublin Friends Meeting undertake a sabbatical from Monthly Meeting for Business for a fourteen month period. This sabbatical would begin November 2015 and Monthly Meeting for Business would resume again in January 2017."

 "We believe, despite long term pastoral oversight from Jada Jackson, Presiding Clerk of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting and Amelia Diamond, Clerk of Abington Quarterly Meeting, that our differences with Avis remain irreconcilable."

We have met in retreat, we have labored for many extended hours in Meeting for business and we have made many changes to our practices as requested by Avis and members of her support committee. None of these efforts have brought peace or reconciliation to use faith community. Instead we find ourselves going over the same ground and same issues over and over again."

"Our Business Meetings have become a forum for demand for action, dictation of the meaning and accuracy of minutes, request for funds, direct accusations, and venting hostility. This contempt for us and hostility toward us has taken a huge toll on our members. We are a very small Meeting. We have suffered though aggressive outbursts, name calling, lying, hijacking of our a meeting for Worship for Business. A faith community is supposed to be a place for spiritual growth and nurture. We feel that we are on the precipice of losing that. Several members have grown so weary and frustrated  that they have stopped attending or are contemplating such."

"We see this sabbatical as a time away from business of the Meeting. We envision it to be a time of healing, reflection, study, spiritual growth and nurture. We are heart sick and weary from the prolonged conflict with Avis Wanda McClinton and her support group. "

"We know in our hearts that there is structural racism with the Religious Society of Friends. It is, after all, a predominantly white religious organization. But we also know deep in our hearts that "racial hatred" is not present among us. We are and want to continue to be an open and caring religious community. We feel the need this time to think, reflect, pray, love, and support one another."

"We also want to be able to get the spiritual support and guidance we need, as individuals, to continue to participate in the important work in our communities, and with each other."

During consideration of this minute there were several comments which expressed exhaustion with dealing with the conflict with Friend Avis.

Friend Avis has experienced this conflict in terms of racial exclusion. (http://www.friendsjournal.org/experience-african-american-quaker/ ) When asked what she thought of this minute, Friend Avis replied "it is a gag order."

One older gentleman who came to the Meeting late interjected during the consideration that the Meeting could just vote her out of membership. Other members interceded and said that was not the issue before us. As the Meeting for Business entered the third hour, this same gentlemen joked with another White Male about needing to end the Meeting so they could make it to watch the Eagles football game.

Members said they were tired of "wasting time" on these issues raised by Friend Avis, and we're bogged down in "minutiae of details" over and over.

One member said that if we were in the "business world," Friend Avis could just "walk away." This friend asked "why do you keep coming?" Shouldn't you go somewhere you "feel more comfortable?" Basically suggesting Friend Avis should vote with her feet and leave.

I watched Friend Avis tremble as members expressed their open hostility personally to her face, as they spoke from the Silence. It was a chilling Meeting for worship with Attention to Business.

There was some consideration of the possibility of a reconciliation committee to continue this work during the sabbatical, but it was expressed as a possibility that no one seemed interested in undertaking.

As I sat among you, my heart became very tender for all of you - these suffering White Friends and this solitary, fearful and defiant Friend of Color.

The first Bible Verse that came to me was "Jesus Wept." (John 11:35)  It was so sad. Jesus wept with a group of mourners. Then Jesus raised the dead Lazarus. This verse reminds me that the Divine is with us as we suffer, and just before we can expect a miracle.

Then I thought of the letter to the Ephesians dealing with the division within their community between Jewish and Gentile Christians. "I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called,with all humility and gentleness, with patience bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling." (Ephesians 4:1-5)

This minute you accepted, and the lengthy comments of many frustrated, angry white members in your business meeting fell short of this guidance on how we should bear with one another in love. They perspective of the minute and the language of white members of the Meeting does not include Friend Avis as a part of your "body." The all white members who drafted and signed this Minute did not make any effort to include Friend Avis and her perspective. in fact, members did not give Friend Avis a copy of the minute until it was time to consider it. You spring this minute of Friend Avis at the last possible minute. Is that acting as one body with love, in the Spirit of Unity, in peace?

Friend Isaac Pennington echoed the sentiment of Ephesians 4 in a letter to Amersham Friends in1 667: 

"Our life is love, and peace, and tenderness; and bearing one with another, and forgiving one another, and not laying accusations one against another; but praying one for another, and helping one another up with a tender hand, if there has been any slip or fall; and waiting till the Lord gives sense and repentance, if sense and repentance in any be wanting. Oh! wait to feel this spirit, and to be guided to walk in this spirit, that ye may enjoy the Lord in sweetness, and walk sweetly, meekly, tenderly, peaceably, and lovingly one with another. "

I witnessed no effort at love, no expressions of kindness or care or concern during this 3 hour meeting.

When I read in the minute that the conflict was "irreconcilable" it made me think this was more of a legal document asking for a separation in marriage than a minute from a religious society committed to living in the present Kingdom of God in the present moment.  No conflict is "irreconcilable" when we are one in the Spirit. Conflicts become irreconcilable when we are living from a place of our own wounded egos. We are called to live by virtue of that life and power that makes every conflict an opportunity for loving forgiveness.  

When I hear your frustration with "going over the same ground and the same issues over and over again," I am led to think of the time Jesus asked how many times do we forgive?  "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven." (Matthew 18:22) When we are in religious community together there is no end to our willingness and effort to find forgiveness.

I sensed a strong sense of feeling persecuted among both Friend Avis and the White Friends. The minute expressed a feeling of being a victim of hostility and contempt, suffering from outbursts, lying, and hijacking. We know from our history of early Friends that the suffering you express in your minute pales in comparison with the loss of liberty and property early Friends experienced. It also in no way approaches the risks of your fore bearers who risked their safety and privilege by assisting escaping slaves seeking freedom. It is also noteworthy that your minute only describes the suffering of the White members, and neglects to include the suffering of Friend Avis.

Your suffering has made my heart feel so tender to you. I sense you are all a kind and loving group of Friends. You have been handed a difficult piece of spiritual work that is important to Friends within your Meeting and outside. You have become a focal point. You've been called to wrestle with trauma that goes back for centuries. I am inspired by your courage, your effort. And, I have no judgment about your exhaustion. I don't know how I would feel if I were in the shoes of white members, Friend Avis, or her support group. You are intertwined in a grand spiritual mess. I write to you just to remind you of our highest values and encourage you along that way.

I hope it encourages you that Jesus said, "blessed are you when you feel persecuted." (Matthew 5:11) The path of Christian love is marked by wounds and persecutions.

I wonder what you mean by "a faith community is supposed to be a place for spiritual growth and nurture." Are you trying to retreat from the world? Is the gathering of Friends for their own benefit? Certainly spiritual growth and nurture is what happens when we are Spirit led in community. But, what you are experiencing and teaching us is that growth and nurture is often difficult, painful, and messy when it is authenticated deals directly with the Truths of our failures. Jesus said he did not come to bring peace, but "division" (Luke 12:52) 

 

Spiritual Peace is not the artificial or enforced absence of conflict. Spirit draws us into conflicts that seem deep and impossible and shows us how to let the Spirit transform us. There is no Easter and reconciliation without crucifixion. An authentic faith community is not a vacation, its a place where we are working out our sad feeble selves in a Spirit of love transformed by grace.  It was a poor analogy to compare Meeting to  a "business" where people can vote with their feet. First because our community is "one body" in Christ, (Ephesians 4) and we amputation harms the whole body. Second, the Kingdom of God does not follow the rules of the competitive material world, ("My Kingdom is not of this world." John 18:36)

Your minute shares your understanding of structural racism, and says you do not have "racial hatred" in your hearts. I believe that you do not have racial hatred. I have been working on issues of race in the South all my life and I know racial hatred. I sensed no racial hatred. However, your minute shows that you do not understand structural racism, white supremacy, or white privilege.

Who is "We?"

One example, you refer to "we" more than fifteen times. And you make it clear that "we" does not include your only member of color, Friend Avis. One member spoke and said, "we are a white meeting." But you are not. You have Avis. When you describe how "we have suffered," you really mean the majority of our white members have suffered. You did not include Friend Avis, her suffering, or her perspective in your a minute. When you say you want a sabbatical from "business meeting" you mean the white members want a break from dealing with the issues raised by your only African-American member. The ubiquitous white "we" is a symptom of white supremacy- failing to make an effort to include the perspective of your only member of color.

"We" need a break

Second, one of the privileges of white supremacy is to only deal with the trauma of our racial history when white people want to deal with it. White people can be willfully blind to the continual and persistent trauma of racial disparities whenever they choose. The a white males joking about getting to the Eagles game are exercising this privilege. While they drive home to make popcorn, Friend Avis drives home alone and risks being stopped and searched because of the color of her skin. For a person of color, There is no sabbatical from being black in a society still suffering the racial disparities of our history. The impulse to run away and not deal with it is typical of structural racism. How many of you called, emailed or texted Friend Avis to make sure she was okay?

If "we" make you uncomfortable, just leave.

Third, the sentiment that Friend Avis should stop coming if she does not "feel comfortable" gives priority to the culture of the "all white meeting" and signals that the power of that white community refuses to try to change to accommodate this voice of color. The message sounds like "if you don't like our white meeting, and don't feel comfortable, it's not our job to change or become a  more inclusive community, and make you feel comfortable. You can just leave."  The unyielding primacy of the white majority, and the refusal to consider how the white culture must change to make people of color comfortable is a hallmark of structural white supremacy.

I don't know how the Spirit will work among you, and what you are planning in terms of study and reflection. I recommend some in depth racial equity training. I also recommend that each of you make some time to have coffee, share a meal, I r show some love to a Friend Avis. Having decided to set particular issues aside, do not set Friend Avis aside. Have coffee. Find out what she is struggling with in your life. Share your struggles, one on one. In short, bear with each other in love.

In Peace, With Love

Scott Holmes