{"id":8928,"date":"2026-10-03T10:28:48","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T14:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/?p=8928"},"modified":"2026-10-03T10:36:57","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T14:36:57","slug":"whats-an-angry-old-quaker-to-do-by-parker-palmer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/?p=8928","title":{"rendered":"“What’s An Angry Old Quaker To Do?,” by Parker Palmer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Reposted from the Substack Living the Questions<\/a>. Here’s a little more on Parker Palmer<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This post first appeared in Jan., 2026. I\u2019m reposting an edited version today because Oct. 2\u2014the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi\u2014has been named International Day of Nonviolence<\/a> by the U.N. For ten long years, my anger at MAGA-inspired violence has been in tension with my aspiration as a Quaker to live a nonviolent life. Here I reflect on how I\u2019ve held that tension, for better or for worse.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

I. I\u2019m a Quaker, a member of the Religious Society of Friends<\/a>.<\/strong> Most people don\u2019t know much about us\u2014except for the oatmeal we don\u2019t make\u2014so here\u2019s a primer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Quakerism began<\/strong> in the 1650s<\/strong> in protest against what its founders saw as the Church of England\u2019s distortion of the Gospel. The branch of Quakerism I belong to has no clergy and no creed that one needs to sign on the dotted line. Nor do we believe that the Spirit stopped speaking when Holy Writ was locked down. We believe in \u201ccontinuing revelation\u201d\u2014i.e., the human capacity to hear and act on the imperatives of the Spirit\u2014and in the importance of living in ways that \u201ctake away the causes of war and all forms of violence.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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In place of a creed,<\/strong> Quakers aspire to live by Testimonies<\/a> that reflect what we\u2019ve learned about the values we\u2019re called to embody: equality, peace, social justice, integrity, simplicity, community, and care for the earth. We often fall short of our aspirations, but our Testimonies have found expression in various real-world ways\u2014evidence that nonviolence is not passivity but what Buddhists call \u201cright action.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Quakers were the first<\/strong> American religious community to oppose slavery<\/a>, making ownership of enslaved people grounds for expulsion<\/a> ninety years before the Civil War. Some have expressed their opposition to war by becoming conscientious objectors and war tax resisters<\/a>\u2014though COs have often served in unarmed military roles (e.g., battlefield medics<\/a>), and war tax resisters normally give to charities what they withhold from the IRS. Though small in number (around 85,000 in the U.S. today), Quakers have had a disproportionate presence in nonviolent struggles against war and for racial justice, as well as relief, reconciliation and rebuilding efforts in war-torn lands. Quakers have also had a strong presence in education<\/a> in the U.S. and around the world.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

II. I discovered Quakerism <\/strong>when I was in my mid-thirties, and found it to be the spiritual home I\u2019d been looking for. It made sense to me that every human being has direct access to the Spirit\u2014that the first place to go when I\u2019m in need of guidance is not to a book or an expert, but to what Quakers call \u201cthe inner teacher,\u201d an indwelling voice of love, truth and justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But given what I know<\/strong> about my own capacity for self-deception, it also made sense that I need a community in which to test my leadings, to help me discern whether the voice I\u2019m hearing is that of my inner light or my inner darkness.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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The community I need<\/strong> is not one that gives me answers, but one that knows how to help me listen more deeply to the truth we all carry within. I need a community that helps me discern true from false, right from wrong, knowing that the only answers with staying power are those that come from within, not those imposed from without. That\u2019s the kind of community Quakerism offered me.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

III. Here\u2019s the rub: <\/strong>in spite of fifty years of Quaker-style listening, discernment and formation in the theory and practice of nonviolence<\/a>, I come close to blowing sky-high whenever I learn about the latest Project 2025\/MAGA offense against everyday decency, human dignity, the rule of law, and the common good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Fortunately, I don\u2019t suffer<\/strong> from scattergun anger, the way POTUS does. My failure to be declared \u201cwinner\u201d in each and every thing I\u2019ve tried has not led me to kick my dog or burn down a house, let alone threaten war against a sovereign people, or imprison and deport tens of thousands of non-criminals without due process. My anger is laser-like, aimed at people like POTUS and his minions who use their power and wealth only to get more of same, hurting folks who are vulnerable<\/a>, who deserve a helping hand from those of us who have more than we need.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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My \u201canger issues\u201d run deep enough<\/strong> that a few years ago, a conservative friend with whom I was having a series of \u201cspirited\u201d political discussions gave me a T-shirt that reads, \u201cOne Mean Quaker.\u201d I wear those scarlet letters with un-Quakerly pride. At age 87, there may be snow on the roof, but there\u2019s a fire in the furnace.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

IV. Does anger have a place<\/strong> in the life of someone who aspires to nonviolence? My answer is a simple yes\u2014and I feel no need for therapy to \u201cfix my problem.\u201d Truth be told, if I didn\u2019t<\/em> feel anger toward POTUS and MAGA, I\u2019d get myself to a therapist ASAP. Becoming emotionally numb to evil leads to the death of the human heart, and I intend to keep mine alive as long as I draw breath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By their own admission<\/a>,<\/strong> one of MAGA\u2019s most potent weapons is \u201cflooding the zone with s _ _ t.\u201d By drowning us in a deluge of <\/a>merde<\/a><\/em>, they want to wear us down to a point where we stop resisting. Anger can serve as a source of energy for the work we need to do, a source of stamina to help carry us through. Everything depends on our capacity to harness our anger in the service of life-giving actions instead of harboring it in ways that bring us down.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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I love the old saw that<\/strong> \u201cnot forgiving is like drinking rat poison and waiting for the rat to die.\u201d <\/sup>But forgiveness, I\u2019ve discovered, is not always mine to give, especially in relation to people who have long histories of malicious acts they refuse to acknowledge, let alone atone for. Sometimes I have to pass the forgiveness baton to higher powers, as Iris DeMent does in her tragicomic song<\/a> about betrayal: \u201cGod may forgive you, but I won\u2019t. Jesus may love you, but I don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

V. For me, the spiritual life <\/strong>is not about escaping the world\u2019s trouble by flying up, up and away. It\u2019s about finding the right balance of grounding and passion to stay in the fray. Anger\u2014rightly understood, harnessed and deployed\u2014is an emotion that keeps me grounded in reality while giving me the energy to pursue possibilities, no matter how remote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Anger repressed <\/strong>can contribute to psychological breakdowns like depression, and chronic anger can contribute to bodily breakdowns like high blood pressure and heart disease. As one who has some experience with clinical depression, I have no desire to revisit that deadly state of mind.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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When I get angry<\/strong> about the way people with power and wealth treat folks who must scramble daily simply to stay alive, it feels as if I have tapped into a vital stream of life\u2014a stream that connects us to each other in the web of being, the ecosystem of all life. What hurts one of us hurts all of us, and feeling the hurt viscerally reassures me that I\u2019m still in the web, holding and being held. I was in that stream when I wrote Healing the<\/a><\/em> <\/a>Heart of Democracy<\/a><\/em> in 2011, whose title speaks for itself.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

VI. Day by day, <\/strong>as I try to use my anger to animate actions in service of love, truth and justice, I take time to strengthen my commitment to nonviolence by listening to voices that remind me of life\u2019s endless potentials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I listen to nature, <\/strong>to music, to the poets, to trusted teachers, to people whom I regard as exemplars in leading nonviolent lives. I also continue to listen in solitude and community for what is in and out of balance within me.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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I\u2019m not up for<\/strong> cheap versions of\u201cThe Peaceable Kingdom,\u201d not ready to lie down with predators still red in tooth and claw who continue to devour the vulnerable. Still, I want to live in a spirit that helps lay the ground on which we can take a step closer to Martin Luther King Jr.\u2019s \u201cBeloved Community<\/a>\u201d\u2014or, at the very least, the functional civil community we must create post-MAGA to keep our democracy alive.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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At the same time, <\/strong>I like to keep my options open, taking my cues from a joke Quakers tell on themselves: A Quaker farmer owned a mule that refused to do a lick of work. Having run out of patience, the farmer went to the barn one morning, lifted the mule\u2019s ear, and calmly delivered a message: \u201cFriend mule, Thee knows I am a Quaker. Thee knows I will not yell or curse at Thee. Thee knows I will not throw rocks at Thee, or kick Thee, or hit Thee with a stick. But what Thee does not<\/em> know is that I might sell Thee to the Baptist farmer down the road who will beat the living daylights out of Thee.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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The moral <\/strong>of this story is simple: \u201cWhere there\u2019s a will, there\u2019s a way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

P.S. We\u2019re one month away from the Nov. 3 midterm elections. It\u2019s vital that droves of us vote to make it harder for the MAGA regime to scream \u201crigged election,\u201d as they always do when they lose. So please VOTE EARLY, and encourage folks you know to do the same. HERE<\/a> is a list of states where you can check on the early voting options in your state.<\/h6>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reposted from the Substack Living the Questions. Here’s a little more on Parker Palmer. This post first appeared in Jan., 2026. I\u2019m reposting an edited version today because Oct. 2\u2014the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi\u2014has been named International Day of Nonviolence … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":213,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-message"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9rLvf-2k0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8928"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8928\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8932,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8928\/revisions\/8932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durhamfriendsmeeting.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}