wife fran Posts

A few weeks ago a newsletter brought written reports about the latest round of conflict at a local meeting that's been fighting for the past 180 years or so. As my wife and I read through it we were a bit underwhelmed by the accounts of the newest conflict resolution attempts. The mediators seemed more worried about alienating a few long-term disruptive characters than about preserving the spiritual vitality of the meeting. It's a phenomena I've seen in a lot of Quaker meetings.

Call it the FDR Principle after Franklin D Roosevelt, who supposedly defended his support of one of Nicaragua's most brutal dictators by saying "Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch." Even casual historians of Latin American history will know this only led to fifty years of wars with reverberations across the world with the Iran/Contra scandal. The FDR Principle didn't make for good U.S. foreign policy and, if I may, I'd suggest it doesn't make for good Quaker policy either. Any discussion board moderator or popular blogger knows that to keep an online discussion's integrity you need to know when to cut a disruptive trouble-maker off--politely and succintly, but also firmly. If you don't, the people there to actually discuss your issues--the people you want--will leave.

I didn't know how to talk about this until a post called Conflict in Meeting came through Livejournal this past First Day. The poster, jandrewm, wrote in part:

Yet my recognition of all that doesn't negate the painful feelings that arise when hostility enters the meeting room, when long-held grudges boil over and harsh words are spoken.  After a few months of regular attendance at my meeting, I came close to abandoning this "experiment" with Quakerism because some Friends were so consistently rancorous, divisive, disruptive.  I had to ask myself: "Do I need this negativity in my life right now?"

I commented about the need to take the testimonies seriously:

I've been in that situation. A lot of Friends aren't very good at putting their foot down on flagrantly disruptive behavior. I wish I could buy the "it eventually sorts out" argument but it often doesn't. I've seen meetings where all the sane people are driven out, leaving the disruptive folks and armchair therapists. It's a symbiotic relationship, perhaps, but doesn't make for a healthy spiritual community.

The unpopular solution is for us to take our testimonies seriously. And I mean those more specific testimonies buried deep in copies in Faith & Practice that act as a kind of collective wisdom for Quaker community life. Testimonies against detraction and for rightly ordered decision making, etc. If someone's actions tear apart the meeting they should be counseled; if they continue to disrupt then their decision-making input should be disregarded. This is the real effect of the old much-maligned Quaker process of disowning (which allowed continued attendance at worship and life in the community but stopped business participation). Limiting input like this makes sense to me.

The trouble that if your meeting is in this kind of spiral there might not be much you can do by yourself. People take some sort of weird comfort in these predictable fights and if you start talking testimonies you might become very unpopular very quickly. Participating in the bickering isn't helpful (of course) and just eats away your own self. Distancing yourself for a time might be helpful. Getting involved in other Quaker venues. It's a shame. Monthly meeting is supposed to be the center of our Quaker spiritual life. But sometimes it can't be. I try to draw lessons from these circumstances. I certainly understand the value and need for the Quaker testimonies better simply because I've seen the problems meetings face when they haven't. But that doesn't make it any easier for you.

But all of this begs an awkward question: are we really building Christ's kingdom by dropping out? It's an age-old tension between purity and participation at all costs. Timothy asked a similar question of me in a comment to my last post. Before we answer, we should recognize that there are indeed many people who have "abandoned" their "Quaker experiment" because we're not living up to our own ideals.

Maybe I'm more aware of this drop-out class than others. It sometimes seems like an email correspondence with the "Quaker Ranter" has become the last step on the way out the door. But I also get messages from seekers newly convinced of Quaker principles but unable to connect locally because of the divergent practices or juvenile behavior of their local Friends meeting or church. A typical email last week asked me why the plain Quakers weren't evangelical and why evangelical Quakers weren't conservative and asked "Is there a place in the quakers for a Plain Dressing, Bible Thumping, Gospel Preaching, Evangelical, Conservative, Spirit Led, Charismatic family?" (Anyone want to suggest their local meeting?)

We should be more worried about the people of integrity we're losing than about the grumpy trouble-makers embedded in some of our meetings. If someone is consistently disruptive, is clearly breaking specific Quaker testimonies we've lumped under community and intergrity, and stubbornly immune to any council then read them out of business meeting. If the people you want in your meeting are leaving because of the people you really don't want, then it's time to do something. Our Quaker toolbox provides us tool for that action--ways to define, name and address the issues. Our tradition gives us access to hundreds of years of experience, both mistakes and successes, and can be a more useful guide than contemporary pop psychology or plain old head-burying.

Not all meetings have these problems. But enough do that we're losing people. And the dynamics get more acute when there's a visionary project on the table and/or someone younger is at the center of them. While our meetings sort out their issues, the internet is providing one type of support lifeline.

Blogger jandrewm was able to seek advice and consolation on Livejournal. Some of the folks I spoke about in the 2003 "Lost Quaker Generation" series of posts are now lurking away on my Facebook friends list. Maybe we can stop the full departure of some of these Friends. They can drop back but still be involved, still engaging their local meeting. They can be reading and discussing testimonies ("detraction" is a wonderful place to start) so they can spot and explain behavior. We can use the web to coordinate workshops, online discussions, local meet-ups, new workship groups, etc., but even email from a Friend thousands of miles away can help give us clarity and strength.

I think (I hope) we're helping to forge a group of Friends with a clear understanding of the work to be done and the techniques of Quaker discernment. It's no wonder that Quaker bodies sometimes fail to live up to their ideals: the journals of  olde tyme Quaker ministers are full of disappointing stories and Christian tradition is rich with tales of the roadblocks the Tempter puts up in our path. How can we learn to  center in the Lord when our meetings become too political or disfunctional (I think I should start looking harder at Anabaptist non-resistance theory). This is the work, Friends, and it's always been the work. Through whatever comes we need to trust that any testing and heartbreak has a purpose, that the Lord is using us through all, and that any suffering will be productive to His purpose if we can keep low and listening for follow-up instructions.

Theo and I on the old bike this summer. More photos

Last Thursday my Francis-inspired paternity leave ended--two weeks paid for by my employer, two weeks or so of vacation time. It was good to have off though I must admit I spent more time corralling two-year old Theo than I did gazing into newborn Francis's eyes. I heartily recommend taking Septembers off. One of my more enjoyable tasks was the almost-daily bicycle rides with Theo. Sometimes we went across town to the lake and it's playground, Theo going up and down the slides over and over again until nighttime threatened and I had to insist on coming home. Other times we took long rides to local attractions such as last post's Blue Hole. The bike so symbolized our special time together that it seems almost proper that it was stolen from the train station on that first day of commuting, apparently the latest victim of my South Jersey town's bike theft ring. When I walked in the door that evening, Theo came running yelling "diya-di-cal!" but there was nothing I could do. Summer's over kid.

A humble giant among modern Friends passed away this weekend: Bill Taber. All of us doing the work of mapping out a "conservative liberal Quakerism" owe a huge debt to Bill. Although others are more qualified to share his biography, I know he taught for many years at Ohio Yearly Meeting (Conservative)'s Olney Friends School and then for many more years at the Pendle Hill Center outside Philadelphia. He and his wife Fran were instumental in the 1998 founding of the Friends Center retreat and conference center on the campus of Olney.

I had the honor of meeting Bill and Fran once, when they came to lead a meeting retreat. But like so many Friends, Bill's strongest influence has been his writings. Four Doors to Meeting for Worship was his introduction to worship. I'll quote from the "About the Author," since it explains the root of much of his work:

This pamphlet's metaphor of the four doors grew out of his awarness of a need for a more contemporary explanation of "what happens" in a Quaker meeting. He feels this lack of insturction in method has become an increasing problem as modern Friends move farther and farther away from the more pervasive Quaker culture which in earlier generations played such a powerful teaching role, allowing both birthright and convinced Friends to learn the nuances and spiritual methodology of Quakerism largely through osmosis. In sharing this essay Bill hopes to help nurture a traveling, teaching, and prophetic ministry which could reach out and touch people into spiritual growth just when they are ready to receive the teaching.

One of the spiritual methodolgy's Bill shared with his students at Pendle Hill was a collection by a old Quaker minister named Samuel Bownas--regular readers of this site know how important Bownas's Descriptions of the Qualifications has been to me. But other books of his have been invalable too: his history of Ohio Yearly Meeting shared the old culture of the yearly meeting with great stories and gentle insight.

Bill Taber might have passed from his earthly body Friday morning but the work he did in the world will continue. May we all have the grace to be as faithful to the Teacher as he was.

My wife has now finished the first trimester of her pregnancy so we can let people know that our little Theo's going to be a big brother this fall. That means it's time to think of baby names.

Fallen Baby Names List Name Rank: 1900 Rank: 2003 Drop Name Rank: 1900 Rank: 2003 Drop 1 Herbert 32 962 930 1 Edna 17 986 969 2 Herman 45 974 929 2 Louise 24 977 953 3 Floyd 50 964 914 3 Beatrice 44 982 938 4 J 35 920 885 4 Bertha 26 963 937 5 Fred 19 876 857 5 Gladys 15 945 930 6 Earl 27 882 855 6 Lucille 49 954 905 7 Clarence 18 717 699 7 Dorothy 7 846 839 8 Howard 30 721 691 8 Hazel 20 681 661 9 Alfred 33 683 650 9 Edith 25 683 658 10 Ralph 23 660 637 10 Frances 16 580 564 11 Elmer 36 654 618 11 Irene 21 581 560 12 Harold 15 595 580 12 Marie 8 496 488 13 Ernest 26 599 573 13 Martha 31 487 456 14 Eugene 49 578 529 14 Alice 10 426 416 15 Leonard 48 571 523 15 Helen 2 389 387 16 Harry 13 517 504 16 Ruth 5 350 345 17 Francis 37 509 472 17 Rose 14 358 344 18 Willie 28 454 426 18 Annie 28 339 311 19 Roy 24 433 409 19 Clara 23 295 272 20 Walter 11 356 345 20 Esther 30 297 267 21 Arthur 14 353 339 21 Josephine 33 260 227 22 Carl 20 357 337 22 Eva 39 215 176 23 Lawrence 34 344 310 23 Ruby 42 197 155 24 Albert 16 311 295 24 Margaret 3 130 127 25 Joe 38 321 283 25 Catherine 19 106 87 26 Theodore 42 313 271 26 Laura 50 122 72 27 Louis 21 278 257 27 Mary 1 61 60 28 Leo 44 288 244 28 Evelyn 34 89 55 29 Frank 8 228 220 29 Anna 4 21 17 30 Raymond 22 188 166 30 Elizabeth 6 9 3 31 George 4 137 133 31 Mildred 9 n/a 0 32 Edward 9 128 119 32 Florence 11 n/a 0 33 Paul 17 124 107 33 Ethel 12 n/a 0 34 Henry 10 116 106 34 Lillian 13 n/a 0 35 Peter 46 148 102 35 Gertrude 22 n/a 0 36 Kenneth 47 109 62 36 Mabel 27 n/a 0 37 Richard 25 86 61 37 Bessie 32 n/a 0 38 Charles 6 59 53 38 Elsie 35 n/a 0 39 Robert 7 35 28 39 Pearl 36 n/a 0 40 Thomas 12 36 24 40 Agnes 37 n/a 0 41 John 1 17 16 41 Thelma 38 n/a 0 42 James 3 18 15 42 Myrtle 40 n/a 0 43 William 2 11 9 43 Ida 41 n/a 0 44 Jack 41 46 5 44 Minnie 43 n/a 0 45 Joseph 5 6 1 45 Viola 47 n/a 0 46 Samuel 31 23 -8 46 Nellie 48 n/a 0 47 David 29 14 -15 47 Grace 18 13 -5 48 Anthony 43 10 -33 48 Julia 45 33 -12 49 Andrew 40 5 -35 49 Emma 29 2 -27 50 Michael 39 2 -37 50 Sarah 46 12 -34

Most new parents want to give their child unique names and want to steer clear of the most over-used names. Yet if you tell your friends you're naming your boy Jacob or Joshua, they'll all cheer you on. If your little girl goes by Emily, Emma or Madison, they'll think that's darling. Yet those are the top three boy and girl names for 2003.

They are tens of thousands of kids getting these top names every year. All of the kids with these names are going to be getting nicknames to differentiate them from one another: just hope your little angel isn't the one that gets tagged "The Ugly Emily" or "The Stupid Joshua" by their third grade classmates!

There are definite trends in names. Certain names tend to sound fresh and daring even when they're overused and trite. The only way to train your ear away from such trends is to methodically study the data (the New York Times had a fasincating article on all this when we were pondering Theo's name, Where Have All the Lisas Gone?).

Fortunately the U.S. Social Security Administration provides a list of the most popular baby names by year, going back to the turn of the twentieth century. Using this, my wife and I were able to choose "Theodore" for our first child's name; born in 2003, he name is the 313th most popular boy's name and dropping. Yet it's a known name and there have been great twentieth century folks who have answered to it (e.g., Dr. Suess, Theodore Geisel).

How is a parent to choose? One recent afternoon I cut and pasted the top fifty boy and girl names of the first decade of the Twentieth Century. I looked up their current status (the 2003 data) to see what movement has occured in their placement. The old names are still known but some have fallen far out of use. Herbert, for example, was the 32nd most popular boy's name in the first decade of the Twentieth Century, but now ranks a dismal 930! If you want a name everyone knows but no one is giving their kid, Herbert's your choice for boy's and Edna's your choice for girls.

Now these fallen names probably sound awkward. But that's the point: they run counter to the trends. I'll admit that some deserve their reduced status; I cannot imagine saddling a little girl with "Edna." But in the list are some gems which have been unduly demoted by the trend-setters.

We've been very happy with "Theodore," the 26th most fallen name of the Twentieth Century. He's officially named after his great-great uncle. The social security datebase assured us that the name was safe from trendiness.

So what will the new baby be named? Check in soon!! The due date is the end of August.

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Update: drumroll please.... Our new son's name is Francis.