Allen’s Neck Friends Meeting 739 Horseneck Road Dartmouth, MA Meeting House Phone: 508/636-8910 Pastor: Peter Crysdale Parsonage: 643 Horseneck Rd. Dartmouth, MA 02748 Parsonage Phone: 508/636-2756 Clerk of the Meeting: Stan Stopka

November 2005

When Katie A was here on her ministerial internship this past summer, she visited many folks from our meeting. At one such visit a person spoke quite critically of my work. She responded, not by defending me, but by saying, "I think Peter responds better to honey than he does to vinegar". True for most of us I think. Yet we are steeped in a culture that in an almost knee-jerk way "helps" others by making critical comments and harsh judgments. This approach hardly ever works, in fact it is sure that feelings will be hurt and defenses will be put up.

Emerging from the 1800’s when Quakerism turned on itself and the elders got out of hand ( 100,000 Friends were disowned for things like marrying outside the faith), the tradition of the wise elder almost got lost. Here is what Rufus Jones had to say about this:

"They (the elders) have perhaps in the past exercised more influence in the way of restraint than as a constructive force. They were quick to discern where ministry failed or missed the mark. They were not quite so gifted with insight to see the budding powers in young speakers, to guide the fresh adventurer with wise counsel and to draw out latent possibilities by words of encouragement. In short they were better at the brakes than they were for the application of the spurs!"

The Quaker’s Faith and Practice, Rufus Jones, p62