Friends and Conflict
by Jan Greene, New York Yearly Meeting

I have been considering Friends and the difficulties we often have facing conflict. Recently I was given a copy of the October 1989 Friends Bulletin, which focused on this. In it was the text of an address by Jan Hoffman (New England Yearly Meeting) to North Pacific Yearly Meeting, "On Marriage: No Safe Dallying with Truth." There are three statements in that address that seem to be of particular importance for Friends as we consider some of the concerns over which we have conflict.

". . . I found myself being present with the pain there is on all sides of this question. Notice, I say all sides; to say 'both sides' seems to be inaccurate. There aren't two parallel sides opposing each other. It's really like a circle. If we could just see ourselves on the circumference of a circle we might be better off, even if it's not a perfectly shaped circle. This contrasts with the 'war model' thinking where there are two opposing sides, one of which has to 'win.' If we're thinking in that configuration, right away, we're in the wrong frame of mind to see a whole. So I say all sides, since there are many sides to this question." (p. 26)

"There is a phrase that has bothered me over the years; it makes me want to cry or scream. That's the phrase, 'This is a divisive issue.' If we define something as divisive, it is divisive. I think we are all one. The Spirit that holds us is One. It is a powerful Spirit. And we say we are divided because we are afraid of the power of God transforming us. If we say, 'It's divisive,' maybe we can think that people on 'the other side' will change and we will be comfortable again. But how many of us want to think that everybody, including us, will change. There is a Spirit that can transform everybody!" (p. 32)

We can't go away from encounters with the Divine unchanged. "While stating a false unity in a meeting is dishonest, I think that stating a false division is also dishonest. It is too easy to say, 'We're divided' instead of stating the points of unity we do have on which further unity could be built. To state only our division also can remove us further from the Spirit, the source of our transformation." (p. 32)

In the same publication, there was a report on a workshop, "Digging Deeper Spiritually through Conflict in our Meetings." Friends were reminded that, in conflict, we must be more open to the Spirit which will allow us to be "more directly and intensely open, imaginative, vulnerable, and flexible." One of the outcomes of the workshop were two sets of queries.

Personal Queries

• Am I dealing with reality in my view of this conflict?

• Am I willing to walk a mile in the other person's shoes?

• Am I answering that of God in the person with whom I'm in conflict?

• Am I tender toward the persons with whom I'm in conflict?

• What is it about my personality which contributes to this conflict?

• What is it about my behavior in this conflict which contributes to it?

• Am I acting with enough or too much constraint?

• Am I acting in retaliation?

• Am I acting with profound respect for the other person?

• Am I seeking the relationship which might emerge beyond the conflict?

• Is there anything in my past to make it difficult for me to be flexible in this conflict?

• Does the conflict bring into the open some area of ambivalence on which I need to seek personal clarity?

• Am I being too judgmental?

• Do I trust the Spirit to work in this conflict?

• Am I willing to admit I am wrong?

• Am I using the transformational tools including process we have as Friends?

• Are there issues I am avoiding?

• Am I communicating honestly with other people?

• Do I use process to avoid conflict?

• Am I willing to undergo the discipline of process?

Queries for our Meeting

• Are we using the transformational tools available in Friends' tradition?

• Are we working to build trust for one another?

• Are we approaching this conflict in expectant waiting for the promptings of the Divine Spirit? Is there a living silence in which we are drawn together by the power of God as we understand it?

• What is our essential spiritual unity?

In Friends Journal, January 1990, p. 22, Chel Avery writes that "all conflicts are uncomfortable, sometimes painful. Yet they all carry the promise of greater growth in the depth of our community and in the answers we discover when we share our searching in the Spirit. Mennonite mediator Ron Krabill speaks of conflict as a 'gift from God,' since it is through our struggles and seekings at times of controversy that new guidance comes to us."

All Yearly Meetings and Friends' organizations have areas of conflict. Are we going to accept this as a gift for growth and transformation, or are we going to use it as a barricade? The choice is ours to make.

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