Message from the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team (PaCET) for Sunday Meeting 9th February 2025

Dear Friends,

I spent much of last week on an NHS Quality Improvement course.  A key message was about the pitfalls and waste associated with leaping to solutions, without truly understanding the problems and their causes.  This is not a new concept to Quakers; we heard in a recent weekly message about Joseph Rowntree’s extensive philanthropy and passion for determining and tackling the causes of social issues, not just relieving the symptoms, “The soup kitchen in York never has difficulty in obtaining financial aid, but an enquiry into the extent and causes of poverty would enlist little support” QFP 23.18.

In health care, there is a move away from asking “what’s wrong with you” to “what’s happened to you?” as we increasingly see the causal impacts of trauma and social inequities on people’s health.  In our interpersonal relationships, an appreciation of the challenges each has faced in our backgrounds helps us to understand patterns of behaviour, which in turn eases acceptance and forgiveness.  These are key elements of mediation and conflict resolution, in which Quakers are known to excel.

Leaping in with solutions when talking with a friend/colleague/relative/child in distress, can undermine the speaker and hinder their ability to find their own right answers.  Solution-focussed therapy and coaching techniques are based on these principles and use simple ‘who, what, when how’ questions to enable the person to reveal their own expertise and find the right solution for themselves. It is a popular technique, because it works, but Quakers got there first!  Meetings for Clearness*, are used when the meeting or a friend within it seeks to reach clarity on how to respond to a concern or a dilemma. Friends meet firstly in silence, then ask simple questions, to enable the deep examination of their position, guided by faith.  It is a wonderful example of helping one another reveal “that of God in every one”.

The world appears to be catching on!  I wonder what more could happen if we were able to incorporate more spiritual silence in our work and home lives…..

In friendship
Theresa

on behalf of the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team (Patricia Cockrell, David Hitchin, Sharon Krummel, Tim Pitt-Payne, Caroline Pybus, Theresa Samms)

*If you feel a Meeting for Clearness may help you, please get in touch with the Pastoral Care and Eldership Team.