I really see mental diversity as a gift to a community, and that the folks that I serve and that I’ve worked with are very resilient. If they tell you their stories about how they’ve gotten through their traumatic situations and what’s helped them to keep going, faith is a huge part of that. And we have a lot to learn from their strength and resilience.

My family has had very avoidable and out-of-nowhere conflicts at two religious spaces—one a Friends meeting and the other a Presbyterian church—over easy accomodations for my son Francis. It seems like many of the dynamics that we’ve seen are not dissimilar to those that keep others out of meeting communities. Who are we willing to adapt for? Is comfort and familiarity our main goal?

Melody also wrote for Friends Journal a few years ago, Imagining a Trauma-informed Quaker Community.