A Friendly Letter, The Blog.

I’ve been reading the book, “118 Days,” published by Christian Peace Teams, about the kidnapping of four CPTers in Baghdad in November 2005. One of the four, Quaker (and my friend) Tom Fox, was murdered in early March of 2006; the other three were rescued on March 23, 2006 by British commandos.
There is important material here for reflection, for all of us, and especially by Young Adult Friends who are weighing how to uphold and carry on the tradition they are inheriting. What was highlighted by the extremity of the situation described here, has its echoes in more mundane situations where silence and invisibility are are demanded, but without similar justification.

It’s always hard to read about Tom Fox’s death, and let me never forget him and his sacrifice. That said, I want to focus here on someone else. In this reading, two chapters in the book leaped out. They were about the Canadian captive, Jim Loney, who’s gay, and what his being gay meant in this life and death saga.

What’s clear now is that if Tom Fox had not been killed, Loney’s plight and its ramifications would have been the big story of this case. And Like Tom’s, Jim’s story transcends the specifics of his kidnapping.

The two chapters which deal with this story are by Dan Hunt, who had been Jim’s partner for more than ten years in 2005; and by William Payne, one of their gay friends. Payne is part of a community of LGBTs and their supporters, centered in Toronto, among whom Jim and Dan lived. The couple, like the community generally, had been publicly out for years.

Dan Hunt, Jim Loney’s
partner & spouse

The impact of these chapters grows out of the gruesomely undeniable fact that by 2005 in Iraq, gays were being hunted down and murdered, brutally and with impunity. (They still are.) Many reports have documented this ongoing reign of terror, which is one of many tragic outcomes of the US invasion and overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

A gay Iraqi exile, Ali Hili, who launched the website Iraqi LGBT said of this:

“Homosexuality was generally tolerated under Saddam. There certainly was no danger of gay people being assassinated in the street by police. Since his overthrow, the violent persecution of gays and lesbians is commonplace. Life in Iraq now is hell for all LGBT people; no one can be openly gay and alive.”

Corpses of alleged homosexuals in Baghdad;
many more similar photos are on the web

That’s what was happening in November 2005, three years into the US occupation. So a few days after the kidnapping, when a Toronto TV reporter came knocking at the door where Jim and Dan lived, saying, “I’m looking for Jim Loney’s partner,” a housemate did not mince words:

“’If you mention in your story that Jim might be gay, whether he is or not, you’ll get him killed.’ It was time to be blunt,” Payne writes, “and it worked.”

The reporter protested, no doubt truthfully, that neither she nor her employers were homophobic. And it was no secret in Toronto that Jim and Dan were a same sex couple. But that wasn’t the point; and the reporter soon backed off. That was only a beginning. To make the silence about Jim and Dan stick, Payne notes, “our collective return to the closet began.”

At first, Dan Hunt writes,

“my public disappearance seemed like an inconsequential strategic decision, one that would be easy to bear. I was responding to homophobia that was far away, in Iraq. It wasn’t real. How quickly that changed.”

An essentially false identity had to be constructed and then maintained:

“Publicly, Jim became known as an upstanding Christian boy and community-worker from a typical, small-town all-Canadian nuclear family. It was the only picture of him that was safe to portray. I, and everyone connected to me, including the community Jim and I began with William [Payne] in 1990, had to be erased if Jim was to have any chance of surviving.”

The erasing was done in very concrete ways. Needing a photo of Jim for CPT to give the media, they settled on one taken the night before Jim left for Baghdad. “It was my favorite photo from that night,” a friend recalled, Jim with his arm around Dan’s shoulder, both smiling, with Jim’s head tilted toward Dan’s head.”

But Dan had to go. He was literally cut from the photo. A CPT staffer who was there said,

“The defining moment for me as a queer woman during the crisis was when Dan’s image was cut out of that loving photo . . . . I watched the process of photo editing from my desk, and cried quietly. In the days that followed I worked ferociously to protect Dan, and Jim’s relationship, from an already knowledgeable media. At the same time, my active role in making Dan invisible broke my heart.”

Another gay man who was present when the photo was taken said he

“found something in the photo to hold onto. ‘I noticed . . .a little red triangle in the bottom right corner, Dan’s shirt. I thought, ‘There’s Dan. You’re silent, you’re invisible, but there’s the visibility.’ It was the weirdest thing. I don’t know why but it comforted me to know that even though Dan was cut out of the picture – at least to the few who knew—that little bit of red shirt was actually Dan. That was beautiful to me.”

The photo at left was released to the media and published around the world.

To be effective, this “re-closeting” and becoming invisible extended well beyond Jim and Dan.

“For the sake of Jim’s safety, those who love him took great pains to reconstruct the closet walls he had so painstakingly torn down a decade ago . . .” Payne wrote. “Reversing years of closet dismantling is hard to do, but we were amazingly successful.

“Gay, lesbian and bisexual people used the gifts of their lives to do whatever could be done in a situation where there was very little to do. We are used to surviving despite the closet. Though it’s not a place we want to go, we know how to craftily navigate the waters of deception when we need to protect life and limb, and we did it again for four months.”

While necessary, this invisibility was a destructive burden.

“The media is very powerful,” Dan wrote. “It shapes the way we view the world and the way we experience ourselves in it. Though I knew a myth was being created, it was difficult not to let the myth have the power of truth. Media coverage of the kidnapping was so intense that not being included in it began to annihilate me — especially because my behind-the-scenes experiences often paralleled my public disappearance. . . .
When I went downtown for the vigil following Tom [Fox’s] death, I watched from a distance of a hundred yards until the vigil was well under way. The media were there and so were my friends. I did not want them to pay undue attention to me in front of the media. The myth became my reality over and over. I could not exist, therefore I did not exist.”

But then it seemed to be over.

“In the end,” Dan Hunt wrote, “Jim came home to all of us who love him.”

Dan was there to greet him at the Toronto airport, and walked with him, finally, to face the press openly and together.

But there was a bittersweet tinge to the moment:

“I sometimes wonder,” Dan wrote, “if the diminishment and debasement I endured would have been washed away in a single moment, had Jim and I held hands, walking towards the thousand cameras, when he arrived home at the airport, or if we’d embraced in front of everyone. But we didn’t. It would have been unnatural for us. Our own coming out hadn’t brought us that far. The terrible violence of being silenced was more dominant than the freedom we had thus far acquired.

‘Silence equals death.’ It was the rallying cry of the queer community as it faced the AIDS crisis. It’s a statement of truth. Non-recognition, disappearance, invisibility, are violence that can eradicate one’s very being.”

For William Payne, his chapter of “118 Days”

“is about queerness and about how the sexual orientation of one of the four CPTers kidnapped in Iraq must be seen as an intrinsic, even central part of the story.” Indeed, “. . .the narrative of the hostage-taking is incomplete without an account of how homophobia played a leading role in this drama.”

And in some concrete ways, the ordeal was not over. Both Payne and Dan Hunt report that along with the jubilation following Jim’s return home, there was a homophobic backlash.

This negative report is underlined by the note, “Why We Are Self-Publishing,” at the front of the book: First one, and then a second church-related publishing house agreed to print this book for CPT, but both later demanded that sections about Jim and Dan be deleted. More silence, more invisibility. When CPT refused, the publishers dropped the project.

“Sadly,” the CPT editors conclude, “what neither publisher seems to recognize is that their editing requirements are part of the same system of homophobia that threatened Jim’s life while he was in captivity, and subsequently condemned Dan to invisibility.”

My hat is off to CPT for standing up to this renewed call to re-closeting and silencing. It is an example that applies to issues beyond gender, and I hope others will remember and live up to it, especially Friends who are headed to Wichita this weekend.

Yesterday the question was: Is this, at long last, the end of the long-running torture infomercial “24″??

Today we know the answer: It is not just NO, but Hell NO!

As one TV critic aptly put it:

…”In the days leading up to the series finale, there was great speculation that Jack Bauer would die in the end.
The producers and writers obviously knew better than to let that happen. Besides a 24 movie in the works, there are the residual elements that benefit from a breathing Jack Bauer as opposed to killing him off.
For example, when the inevitable eight-season DVD package hits the market, people are more likely to invest those hard earned dollars in something that keeps their favorite character alive in their imaginations and in any other configuration likely to follow.
Will there be 24 novels, cartoons, comic books, video games, and action figures? Of course there will be, and they will be more marketable with fans thinking Jack is out there somewhere in the world.”
You can read more here.

Have you noticed the “Great Quaker Turnover” yet? It’s well underway.

The Great Quaker Turnover (GQT for short) is a change in top management at a number of the major Quaker organizations. Among them are AFSC, FCNL, FGC, and even Quaker House here on the doorstep of the Military machine. I hear there are others, including FUM, coming up. (Readers are invited to add to the list.)

Across the pond, the turnover just washed over that venerable publication, The Friend of London. Editor Judy Kirby, the first real journalist to hold that post, retired at the end of April, and has been succeeded by Ian Kirk-Smith. Welcome, Ian; we should talk soon.

Ian Kirk-Smith (New Editor) and Judy Kirby, moving The Friend forward

While these changes are all coming in the normal order of things: incumbents reaching retirement age, there are still two features that are worth tracking:

One: there’s a generational change coming; us Baby Boomers are on the way out. One or two Boomers may still be in place when the dust clears, but more and more these desks will be occupied by people like our new U.S. President: folks who never had to deal with the military draft, know about the Vietnam War only secondhand, for whom abortion has always been legal.

I’ve often wondered where the new Quaker organizational executives are being prepared. If we were talking about the Supreme Court–then we could look to the Ivy League law schools, and simply prospect among their alumni.

But who is preparing the Quaker poohbahs? I don’t say “leaders” here, because for the most part, they’re not. They’re managers, people who keep organizations running.

But it’s not the same as “leadership.” Despite the periodic handwringing workshops and consultations on the topic, there’s no “Quaker Leaders Academy,” at least as far as I’ve been able to discover, and I’m not sure there could be one. Quaker “leaders” are the people who move the Society of Friends where it needs to go.

And who decides that? The answer is in John 3:8: “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Which means that as often as not, the real Quaker “leadership” comes from the margins, not from the center. Or a leader will emerge, get the job done, then fade back into the benches.

But such leadership is a topic for another day. (But you can read more about it; click.)
We’re talking managers here; and that’s a much more measurable set of skills, that people get degrees for every year, then spend years learning the ropes in existing organizations. We need that organizational management done, and done well.

But again, who’s doing it? The Quaker schools? They mainly prepare people either for expensive colleges – or for work in Quaker schools. Quaker colleges? With an occasional exception, they barely teach Quakerism.

Looking at the record of the “big three” groups, one answer could be the AFSC: the retiring executives at both FCNL and FGC worked for AFSC first.

But this brings us to the second big X factor: the impact of the economic crash. It’s hit AFSC especially hard, reducing it by something like half, which means many fewer slots to fill with promising Friends. And even though AFSC has seemed to be more Quaker-friendly in its hiring over the past few years, the percentage of Quakers on its staff still seems quite low. So my sense is its ability to play the “managers school” role is much diminished.

In which case, the most likely pool of candidates will be insiders at the various groups; they will have had the best chances for picking up the needed practical learning.

In our view, this will be promising in one case, not so much in another.

Almost three months ago, we made our prediction about the selection of AFSC’s next General Secretary.

I’ve seen no reason to change that prediction since.

The two other large groups coming up are more wide open. But in one case, FCNL, we’re ready to make a call; and in the other, a cautionary recommendation.

FCNL: the Quaker lobby. The organization’s wheels are turning slowly and deliberately in this process; but for me, naming Joe Volk’s successor is a slam-dunk: it’s Bridget Moix.

Bridget Moix, in her FCNL office

Bridget is whip-smart, widely-traveled, gobbles up international affairs policy issues like candy, and already has more than a decade of high-level policy experience. She’s also personable and diplomatic. (Read her staff bio here. )

There are several “Associate Secretaries” at FCNL who outrank her in seniority; but they are mostly of the Boomer cohort, and while neither they nor their work can be disparaged, the hard truth requires to be spoken plainly: I think their time is passing.

The FCNL top slot is one to be filled for a generation. Bridget will bring to it a combination of youth, high achievement, policy experience and breadth of vision that will be very hard to match, and can go the distance. And I bet the FCNL search committee did not read such a recommendation here first.

Now, as to Friends General Conference (FGC). This is a horse of a very different color.

From one angle, FGC is in fine shape: solvent, only marginally impacted thus far by the financial crunch, and looks to make a soft landing.

If it does, that will be the result of careful financial management and skilled fundraising for a long time, almost 30 years. But I’m old enough to remember the early 1980s when FGC almost went bust, and still know that such cushions are not eternal.

As with FCNL, there’s several senior staffers who could make a plausible candidate to succeed the retiring FGC general Secretary.

But our recommendation to the search committee is that they do not follow this line of least resistance, and look OUTSIDE the organization for the next top manager.

Why? Because while it is considered very indelicate to say so, FGC is a haunted organization As one very astute younger Friend said to me not long ago, there’s a dead elephant in its living room.

That dead elephant is the Quaker Sweat Lodge, which the FGC poohbahs thought they had killed off six years ago, in 2004, and then, after a brief lapse into fairness in 2006 had buried forever in 2008.

But it’s not staying buried. The memories of betrayal and injustice still simmer, particularly among younger Friends who had a beloved and very spiritual experience arbitrarily snatched away from them and stomped into the dirt. And the record of unprofessional and ignoble behavior by those responsible has undermined FGC’s moral and spiritual credibility for many.

(More about this sordid history here.)

It’s telling that the new “Spirit Rising” book, a collection of writing and art by younger Friends, includes a piece about the Sweat Lodge and its dismal fate. It’s a good news-bad news essay, which both laments the crushing of the sweat lodge, but ends by parroting the official line that the injustice done to its creators and participants was not the “real issue” – no, the important thing was how FGC could mollify its young without it. (A young Friend close to the editorial process said this doublespeak denouement was required for the piece to be published at all.)

That institutionally self-serving conclusion is gravely mistaken. Justice matters here. Truth matters. The whole affair stank in 2004. It still stinks, from under the rug where it’s been shoved. And part of the fallout from the affair is egregiously unprofessional behavior it evoked from FGC’s executives, and complicity from the rest.

No, this affair is not done with. And all the inside aspirants to FGC’s top spot are tainted by it. So the Search Committee would best serve FGC and its constituency by finding someone not thus compromised to be its next General Secretary.

There are other close observers, who don’t think the sweat lodge travesty as weighty as I do, who still have scented this air of well-masked decay in FGC. It is an undercurrent that as yet is spoken of mainly sotto voce, or in safe spaces. But it is there, and reinforces the sensed need for new, outside executive talent.

We don’t have a candidate to recommend. Clearly the job demands fundraising skill; all the GQT positions do, along with managerial skills. In this case, a well-functioning crap detector will also be a key management tool. Good hunting.

Watch for GQT updates as these searches continue.

My son Asa, his “one seriously pregnant” wife Jessica, and “one seriously growing” baby Eli, due to “seriously pop out” next month.
Seriously.

Julian Brelsford is a Philadelphia YAF who is planning to attend the Wichita YAF conference. He’s been cited here before, in a roundup post with several pieces of feedback to earlier posts here about the conference, its dress code, other rules, and general framework.

A few days ago he followed up with the following email. Below the text, I’ll interpolate some comments:

Subject: Re: yaf gathering is addicted to sin?

Chuck,

I want to request that if you leave my e-mail to you up on your blog, you add something to it:

Chuck, when i started to write to you, I was pretty angry. People who matter to me felt very much that they were being judged by you, in what you had to say about them.

To some degree, this matter has reinforced a reputation you already had: people see you as one seriously angry dude. A lot of people.

The “other” branches of Quakers have no monopoly on judgment, hate, anger. They’re not exactly like us, but they’re searching for the same spirit we’re searching for, and they are no more nor less sinful than we are.

I’ll be straight up with you. Part of my interest in attending the YAF conference is to evangelize. To evangelize a message of respect for every human being. To evangelize a message about overcoming anger with love. How can I not, then hope that “our” Quakers will love a tradition in the Quaker faith that loves evangelism?

You can’t kill the devil with a gun or a sword. You can’t kill hate with hate, and you can’t kill anger with anger.

Be the change you wish to see in the world (of Quakers). Overcome anger with love.

Now the text with comments:

<< I want to request that if you leave my e-mail to you up on your blog, you add something to it:

Chuck, when i started to write to you, I was pretty angry. >>

Props to you, Julian, for saying so.

<< People who matter to me felt very much that they were being judged by you, in what you had to say about them. >>

Not sure who you’re talking about, Julian, or what; it appears they haven’t been prepared to speak for themselves. And if you’re speaking for them, it’s too vague for a response. Except this: if it relates to the Wichita YAF conference, my judgments were about things rather than people: especially the infantilizing and repressive dress code and exclusionary framework.

Yep, I judged those things, for sure. The people who wrote them, I’d say not so much. And without any specifics to deal with, there’s little more to add to that.

Julian continues,

<< To some degree, this matter has reinforced a reputation you already had: people see you as one seriously angry dude. A lot of people. >>

Hmmm. “A lot of people” who are unidentified, I note again.

All too familiar. Such ad hominem discounting is frequent in the passive-aggressive Quaker culture, particularly in its self-styled “elite” circles (some of which are close by there in Philadelphia). The exchange goes like this:

Lucretia Mott: Sir, slavery is wrong.

Slaveowner: You’re just angry, madam.

Lucretia: Sir, I was talking about slavery: it’s wrong.

Slaveowner: Madam, you are one seriously angry woman.

Etc.


That’s about the size of it, Julian. Lame and evades the point. But some general thoughts about anger are in order, in a moment.

Julian continues:

<< The "other" branches of Quakers have no monopoly on judgment, hate, anger. >>

I agree with this. Were you implying that I think otherwise? If so, where did such a notion come from? Not from me. I’ve written extensively about various follies of “my” branch of Quakers. Have you ever read any of that?

<< They're not exactly like us, but they're searching for the same spirit we're searching for, and they are no more nor less sinful than we are. >>

I agree in part, but this is too general for my liking. No doubt many of these “others” are seeking the same spirit; yet I’ve run into some who, as best I can tell, are searching for something quite different. (Is it better or worse? I go case by case.) Also, while I agree that all of us Quakers are sinners (being quite “orthodox” in that respect), the actual “sinfulness” level among Friends varies; group characterizations are too close to stereotypes (cf. Titus 1:11-13).

Julian goes on:

<< I'll be straight up with you. Part of my interest in attending the YAF conference is to evangelize. >>

Okay. In this connection, let me quote from a post on your FB page, in which you wrote:

<<< “'I'm going to say a bad word. A word that could get me in trouble with all kinds of people.

Some of them want to judge me for it.

So I'm going to [Wichita]. . . And, child of the liberal Quaker tradition that I am... part of my interest in attending the YAF conference is to EVANGELIZE. '” >>>

[Julian’s emphasis.]

Who is it you think you’ll be “in trouble” with for using this term? Or says it’s a “bad word”? Or will “judge” you for it (adversely I presume; I doubt you’d mind favorable judgments)?

Whoever, it’s not me. I’m all for liberal Quaker evangelism, with a track record to back it up. Check out my page, “The Quaker GOP”. It’s pretty primitive, but then it was uploaded in the last century – heck, the last millennium. That’s how long I’ve been urging liberal Quakes to get off the evangelistic dime. So we should be on the same page here.

Julian continues:

<< In your earlier note, you [Chuck] speak of [wanting] To evangelize a message of respect for every human being. To evangelize a message about overcoming anger with love. How can I not, then hope that "our" Quakers will love a tradition in the Quaker faith that loves evangelism? >>

Hey, go for it. And as a longtime pro-evangelist, I’m expecting you to come back from Wichita with a pocketful of “Decisions For Mott,” hallelujah! (Lucretia was probably the last great public evangelist for liberal Quakerism; and she was a doozy. Check her out here.)

Now Julian’s conclusion:

<< You can't kill the devil with a gun or a sword. You can't kill hate with hate, and you can't kill anger with anger.

Be the change you wish to see in the world (of Quakers). Overcome anger with love. >>

This is a litany of cliches, plus what sound like passive aggressive slurs and name-calling, associating my posts with “killing, guns, swords, and hate.” But it brings us back to anger.

Aristotle was not a Christian, but he nailed it anyway, in his “Nicomachean Ethics:

“The man who is angry at the right things and with the right people, and, further, as he ought, when he ought, and as long as he ought, is praised. This will be the good-tempered man, then, since good temper is praised. For the good-tempered man tends to be unperturbed and not to be led by passion, but to be angry in the manner, at the things, and for the length of time, that the rule dictates . . . .”

Almost as good is this contemporary reflection, “Have You Hugged Your Anger Today?”

That’s the change I’d like to see in Quakerism.

Celebrating a good rain after a dry month when the grass and many weeds were turning brown. This is right outside the back door. I think this is a variety of redbud tree.

But at upper left is a tendril of some kind of aggressive crawling vine which will take over and strangle the entire planet unless the Snipperdroids get here from the planet Whackaweed in the nick of time.

Below is the same tree, different angle and different light. The rain is the important part. We’re hoping it comes back before another month passes.

Just in the Nick of Time . . . . Amid shouts and Hosannas, the World-Famous Fayetteville Strawberry Mandala
made its annual appearance.

This is the all-too-brief strawberry season in the Carolina Sandhills region, and the yearly return of this miraculous manifestation was eagerly awaited.
As usual there were unconfirmed reports that its coming raised the dead and stopped the various wars.

More credible were the accounts that its consumption had a definite curative effect on dyspepsia and ill-humour, at least temporarily.

However, our Friends correspondent reported continuing controversy in those ranks. Liberal Hicksites were reliably said to be dosing their arrangements with touches of honey.

Whereupon the Wilberry-ites stormed out of the meetinghouse, insisting that Fragaria × ananassa (the proper traditional name) was only properly eaten PLAIN.

Fortunately, this time UN peacekeepers did not need to be called for. . . .

There’s been more discussion of the Wichita YAF Conference and its framework/dress code issues than you might think, if you looked to the self-styled “convergent Quaker” website, from which critical messages have been banned. That reaction is a telling one; and in the age of the internet, a largely futile one as well.

While some points below are made rather pungently, the overall message is simple enough: lighten up, planners. Let go of this fiction of “welcoming” everyone inside a sectarian and discriminatory frame. Get over this immature business of banning anyone who questions you.

But let these Friends speak for themselves: Here are several comments that have come to me, with a few brief responses.

CAUTION! There are images and language below that would not be permitted at the YAF Conference. I also suspect that at least one of these folks was wearing a Speedo when they wrote.

Friends are advised.

Hi Chuck,

I recently met you for the first time at the QUIP conference in Richmond, IN. I’ve been reading up on your postings about the Wichita YAF conference and you really speak my mind, Friend. Thank you for publicly writing about the expectations put forward by the conference planners, I don’t see anyone else doing it.

I am going to the conference, along with other “liberal” YAFs from my Quaker college. We aren’t going to be dissenters but to help to develop a mix of voices and perspectives at the table and to take part in the conversation.

I think Emma Goldman said it best when she said, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be in your revolution.” To me this means if I can’t be my true self (be that a LGBTQ, Liberal, Non-Christian or Non-theist YAF etc.), I don’t want to be a part of your movement.

In Peace,
(name withheld on request)

Emma Goldman.
Her clothes might pass muster, but she’s still not invited.
The problem? No interest in volleyball; and she insists on dancing.

From Deb Fuller:

First of all, I am saddened that I am now too old to be considered a “YAF”.

Rules like the ones posted for the YAF conference really burn my cookies. It reminds me of the young adult retreats my old fundie church used to try to get me to go to. I thought those rules were ridiculous back then too. Adults need to be treated like adults. It’s one thing if the site doesn’t allow alcohol or sex but it’s another to impose it on a group of adults, esp. Quakers.

Burnt cookies. Sorry, Deb. We all have to compromise somewhere.

These little tidbits really got to me, “We’ll need clear boundaries, self-discipline, and accountability to each other,” and “We do have to hold each other accountable.”

That is “fundy-speak” or “Christianese”. I’ve never heard Quakers use these words before in this type of context. Accountable to whom? For what? This is not an AA meeting.

Also, if I was going to this conference, it would make me wonder how much I was going to be preached at. If they are telling me that I can’t wear certain clothes, drink certain drinks, or carry out relations with a committed partner in the privacy of our own room, what else are they going to try and impose on me? It just sets a bad tone for the whole conference.

It’s not the person but the act of questioning. They’re in control. How dare anyone question their rules?

After poking around on the Friends U website, it is very much a “Christian” college and doesn’t sound anything like a Quaker college any more. Friends U just screams “WE’RE CHRISTIAN”. People who wear their Christianity on their sleeve tend to be very insecure underneath it all. Insecurity breeds control issues and stupid rules. Making those rules is essentially a powerplay. The organizers want to be in control. Being a Quaker gathering, it is hard to gain control given our lack of dogma so they make stupid rules to control behavior.

So anyone who is going to challenge those rules is in essence, challenging their control. Insecure people will never be rational in their response to being challenged. They’ll either just quote Bible verses out of context or if they can’t quote Bible verses, they’ll prove that they’re in control by cutting the offending person out in whichever way they can, i.e. deleting posts, asking people to leave or otherwise cutting them out entirely. Sadly, seen it happen way too many times.

Oh and after reading your post again and Chuck’s post, I can honestly say that I can dress someone like a total skank and totally stay within the YAF conference guidelines. Just sayin’.

“Not in that skanky getup, dude.
Talk to me after the YAF Conference.
Nothing personal, man — just holding you accountable.”

Ben Schultz:

I read your post on a friendly letter.
Shit Chuck —–
Will you marry me?
( In a literary sort of way)
Thank you from the bottom of my heart or any other organ you might think of, for bothering to stand up for me, for bothering to do it so gently. With such rigor and panache….
Is someone paying you for this?
It’s priceless work. We mustn’t cheat ourselves.
All right I’ll buy the dang books.

Love Ben Schultz
La Jolla Meeting

Okay, Ben – but only in a literary way . . . . And you gotta buy the books FIRST, because alas, nobody is paying me for this.

Subject: Re: yaf gathering is addicted to sin?

2010/5/10 From: Julian Brelsford

Chuck Fager,

My name’s Julian Brelsford. I’m a member of Central Philadelphia Quaker meeting, and a young adult planning to attend the Wichita, KS YAF gathering this year. 

I was hearing a few different people talk about your recent blog posts on this topic. I resonate with your admonition to liberal quakers to avoid being spineless. Too often we are vague and indecisive when it comes to addressing violence and injustice. 

It appears that the liberal Quakers planning this conference have been a little too spineless and indecisive about the topic of affirming gays and lesbians, and treating young adults like we are adults, doesn’t it?

There’s some phrases that a lot of people on the more conservative side of Quakerism like, [one is] about being addicted to sin. This is a real problem - treatment of gays, lesbians, and young people in many ways mirrors addiction. It’s bad, a lot of people know it’s bad, and the folks who are in the thick of it can’t think straight and can’t give up their addictions.

What they need is contact with folks who can help them get over their addiction. We wouldn’t approach an alcoholic about addiction by telling him how bad he is. 

Let’s approach these folks by talking to them about acknowledging the hurt they are causing, and how stuck they are in their ways, and THEN focusing not on the bad but on the good - how can we approach things differently? How can we love our enemies, and how can they love their enemies?

Never be spineless, but have peace like a river in your soul,

Julian Brelsford