In Quaker theology the divine is within each of us. It is through what we call “waiting worship” that we wait upon the divine to speak to our corporate whole — the divine within each of us, together made whole — in the waiting space. Our waiting worship is a space of corporate discernment, religious creativity, and right relationship.
We are exploring how Quaker practice can help us effectively grapple with the realities of abuse in our own families and communities.
Windy Cooler gathered Quakers from diverse backgrounds committed to spirit-led discernment on what our communities are called to do about abuse among us.
Why offer “discernment” around the presence of abuse instead of relying on policy solutions?
Indeed there are policy solutions that exist in some meetings and in the world around us. The question we are asking is: have these solutions met our needs? Are we really aware of what our needs are? Are we living in that life and power?
After confidently listening in waiting worship to the lived testimony of Friends, we together created a tool for Quaker meetings everywhere:
Coming Together for Continuing Revelation:
Common Testimony on Abuse.
We want to speak out of the silence, with gratitude, the contributions to the corporate whole of a few Friends in particular: Judy Brutz, Windy Cooler, Sarah Allen, Margaret Webb, and J.T. Dorr-Bremme.
Windy created the Listening Project. After carrying this concern for many years, she remains an elder supporting this effort, while she moves forward with a leading on how Quakers support public ministry.
Margaret is the former pastor at New Garden Friends in North Carolina. Margaret is the co-author, with Windy Cooler, of the discernment model that grounded the Listening Project and that Windy has used with Quaker communities in crisis for three years.
Sarah contributed the query that was the grounding for the listening project, based on the words of George Fox in 1651 that have become known as the Quaker Peace Testimony. She now maintains this website, and with the accompaniment of several Friends, curates resources that may be helpful to Friends, who share these concerns.JT collaborated in public ministry with Windy from 2020 to 2022. During this time, he met and began accompanying Sarah as an elder for her ministry which eventually merged into Life and Power as Windy concluded her active ministry on this project.
Judy contributed to research on the topic of intimate violence in Quaker community, having two peer reviewed articles appear in the Journal of Marriage and Family in the mid-80s. Her research concluded that Quakers have the same rates of violence in the home as any other community.
