Introduction & How to Use the Common Testimony

Common Testimony:

The first thing I noticed in hearing the query...I was surprised that I felt terrified. I wondered, “Am I going to do this right? Do I have the right answers?” I saw in this query a piece of Quaker culture that is problematic. We have ways of doing things; here, when you don't do things in a Quakerly way, there are hurtful consequences.

It's so many layers to it. We can't be the perpetrators? We're the ones on the margins? My wish is for truth to be a practice. Can we share the truth about our experiences? Can we leave the spaces of abuse?

Two black Friends stood up at Meeting for Business and shared experiences of violence at the hands of Friends. It was really uncomfortable. The stories were sharing pain, and because the source of that pain was our shared Quaker space, and because people didn't want to hear it…I thought, can this be true?

Then older people in the room began to stand up. I had never seen this before. It was an eldering practice. Then they began to yell “Friend sit down, Friend! This isn't true. Friend! How dare you!” The clerk called us into silence again. My memory is fuzzy but I think someone said “We need to deal with this but not now. We have to get through the agenda.”

When I look back on this, I think this was violence, spiritual violence. In worship to not open your heart is spiritual violence. I'm ashamed and I carry that with me now differently. If that happened now I would interrupt. I would be compelled by Spirit to do this.

Here is something: in Quakerism people don't hesitate to elder me, or Benjamin Lay, or those confronting the status quo. But there is a deep hesitation to hold those abusively holding up the status quo accountable. Those stories of my childhood and these stories are connected. They're about learning not to speak, not being heard. How white supremacy culture works…it’s like when you are abused as a child you can't speak up about it. There is something about not speaking in Quaker circles; the not speaking perpetuates its promulgation. I was carefully taught to not speak a truth.

I was the fourth of four children and I felt like the forgotten child. My abuser had daughters. Their mother told me “When my daughters were young, at the sound of [my abuser's] voice, they would start screaming."

...We children were the horrified witnesses. I remember sitting on the stairs weeping and my mom asked me what was wrong. And I told her and the next thing I remember she was laughing with the mom of the boy who did this. I asked her why she didn't do anything as an adult. She said “I thought you could take care of yourself.” That is what she learned from her mom. For so long I felt ashamed, like it was my fault. And the message about “taking care of myself”...I felt like I let it happen. The phenomenon of that type of neglect, when women were building their careers, is not to excuse my mom, but to understand the context in which I was living. I feel ashamed and why do I feel ashamed?

At some point I felt safe enough with a weighty Friend in my Meeting to share my stories about abuse at my Quaker workplace. They told me “I'm really sorry to hear that. But [your abusers] raise a lot of money for [our community].” The money was more important than me or the abuse! I knew there wouldn't be any support then. I knew I was experiencing abuse on a somatic level. But my intellect told me I was an idiot.

Friends may individually care about abuse, but our institutions do not. It is easier to protect the abuser than the victim. The abuser can say they are the victim. And we go with that.

I know I can be abusive at home. I feel justified at the time. But I know I will lose my spouse if I continue.

When I think of abuse, I think it is the worst sin, especially in the hypocrisy of a church that says it is about peace. We won't be impactful on war if we can't even address interpersonal violence in our Monthly Meetings.

My Meeting said that it would make everyone uncomfortable if I stayed in the same space with my abuser. It was better for me to leave.

I heard people talking about my lawsuit, but they didn’t know I was behind it. They said they thought people shouldn’t sue the Meeting, no matter what. They said it never happened. But how would they know? They didn’t even know it was me.

I met my husband and I almost sabotaged that relationship, but I didn't. I made him wait many years to get married. We had our son and I looked at him at 18 months old in his cute overalls and I felt angry at his maleness. I didn't want him to have a childhood full of his mother's anger. So this was the beginning of my recovery and sobriety.

I wonder why I stayed a Quaker. It is because when I engage with faith and practice, I regularly experience communion with the divine.