Uploaded June 2023 | Updated September 2026, 4 days ago
Life and Power: lifeandpowerquakerdiscernmentonabuse.com
Domestic Violence Hotline: thehotline.org
QuakerSpeak is a weekly video series. New video every other THURSDAY!
SUBSCRIBE for a new video every other week! http://fdsj.nl/QS-Subscribe
WATCH all our videos: http://fdsj.nl/qs-all-videos
___
Support QuakerSpeak and Friends Journal as a sustaining member:
friendsjournal.org/subscribe
Filming and Editing by Christopher Cuthrell
___
Excerpt:
Windy Cooler is a survivor of domestic violence within her Quaker community. "It never occurred to me to be angry about my experience because I thought I was just alone," she told us. "And it became clear that I wasn’t alone as I was doing child care as I was doing child care and religious education in my yearly meeting.…As I heard the stories of people that I knew and loved, stories that I never anticipated would be true, I found a tremendous amount of anger inside myself about what was happening in our community."
Eventually, that anger came together with the enduring love she had for her community, and she became a public minister.
___
Transcript:
My work to recognize and heal from abuse as a community is entirely informed by Quaker discernment practices and by the theology of the God within. That the God inside of me needs to speak to the God inside of you, and that together we are making the space through corporate discernment for that to happen, through waiting worship for that to happen.
Healing From Abuse in Quaker Communities.
My name is Windy Cooler. I use she/her pronouns. I attend Sandy Spring Friends meeting in Sandy Spring, Maryland, and I live in Greenbelt, Maryland.
As a survivor of domestic violence in a Quaker context, it never occurred to me to be angry about my experience because I thought I was just alone. And it became clear that I wasn't alone. As I was doing childcare and my yearly meeting and doing religious education at my yearly meeting, other women, other children, were having experiences of interpersonal violence. As I heard the stories of people that I knew and loved, stories that I never anticipated would be true, I found a tremendous amount of anger inside myself about what was happening in our community. I thought at first it was just me, and then I thought it was just my monthly meeting, and then I thought it was just my yearly meeting, and then as I kept trying to find a community to find wisdom from I realized it was all of the Religious Society of Friends. And eventually that anger turned into something else.That anger was combined with the love I felt for us, and I became a public minister.
Life and Power is born out of many Mother's. Life and power is the culminating project, I think, of this ministry that I have carried for a decade in response to abuse. It is also the result of a fellowship with Odyssey Impact that I received in 2022, and it was brought into life by these listeners and a discernment process that I created with Margaret Webb. It is a project with so many authors and so much effort and wisdom has gone into it.
A safer space for Quaker survivors is a safer space for everyone. And I think that Quakers want to create safer spaces for each other because we do genuinely care for one another. Our religious community is one of intense personal connection, so it makes a lot of sense for us to create safer spaces for the real lived experiences of those among us.
I think fundamentally a safer space for survivors and for everyone would be a space in which there is no anxiety about telling the truth about your experience of the world, whatever it is. There would be spaces that are clearly made for telling the truth in. And I think that to some extent we already have that in our structures. But a real emphasis on accompaniment in our pastoral care is absolutely necessary for building these safer spaces for all of us. I think that simultaneous to accompaniment work, to finding our wisdom as friends to tell each other the truth about our lives, we are also going to need to find solutions to the problem of having no time. It's absolutely essential in any relationship, including our relationships at meeting, to have the time to be tender.
I am completely committed to Quakerism and to Quaker community and to individual Quakers. Despite all the conflict, despite all the ways in which I have been hurt and damaged inside of this community, I've also been healed and lifted up and taught things that I would never learn anywhere else. I stay here because I love us and because I believe that I am loved.
___
The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Journal or its collaborators.
Life and Power: lifeandpowerquakerdiscernmentonabuse.com
Domestic Violence Hotline: thehotline.org
QuakerSpeak is a weekly video series. New video every other THURSDAY!
SUBSCRIBE for a new video every other week! http://fdsj.nl/QS-Subscribe
WATCH all our videos: http://fdsj.nl/qs-all-videos
___
Support QuakerSpeak and Friends Journal as a sustaining member:
friendsjournal.org/subscribe
Filming and Editing by Christopher Cuthrell
___
Excerpt:
Windy Cooler is a survivor of domestic violence within her Quaker community. "It never occurred to me to be angry about my experience because I thought I was just alone," she told us. "And it became clear that I wasn’t alone as I was doing child care as I was doing child care and religious education in my yearly meeting.…As I heard the stories of people that I knew and loved, stories that I never anticipated would be true, I found a tremendous amount of anger inside myself about what was happening in our community."
Eventually, that anger came together with the enduring love she had for her community, and she became a public minister.
___
Transcript:
My work to recognize and heal from abuse as a community is entirely informed by Quaker discernment practices and by the theology of the God within. That the God inside of me needs to speak to the God inside of you, and that together we are making the space through corporate discernment for that to happen, through waiting worship for that to happen.
Healing From Abuse in Quaker Communities.
My name is Windy Cooler. I use she/her pronouns. I attend Sandy Spring Friends meeting in Sandy Spring, Maryland, and I live in Greenbelt, Maryland.
As a survivor of domestic violence in a Quaker context, it never occurred to me to be angry about my experience because I thought I was just alone. And it became clear that I wasn't alone. As I was doing childcare and my yearly meeting and doing religious education at my yearly meeting, other women, other children, were having experiences of interpersonal violence. As I heard the stories of people that I knew and loved, stories that I never anticipated would be true, I found a tremendous amount of anger inside myself about what was happening in our community. I thought at first it was just me, and then I thought it was just my monthly meeting, and then I thought it was just my yearly meeting, and then as I kept trying to find a community to find wisdom from I realized it was all of the Religious Society of Friends. And eventually that anger turned into something else.That anger was combined with the love I felt for us, and I became a public minister.
Life and Power is born out of many Mother's. Life and power is the culminating project, I think, of this ministry that I have carried for a decade in response to abuse. It is also the result of a fellowship with Odyssey Impact that I received in 2022, and it was brought into life by these listeners and a discernment process that I created with Margaret Webb. It is a project with so many authors and so much effort and wisdom has gone into it.
A safer space for Quaker survivors is a safer space for everyone. And I think that Quakers want to create safer spaces for each other because we do genuinely care for one another. Our religious community is one of intense personal connection, so it makes a lot of sense for us to create safer spaces for the real lived experiences of those among us.
I think fundamentally a safer space for survivors and for everyone would be a space in which there is no anxiety about telling the truth about your experience of the world, whatever it is. There would be spaces that are clearly made for telling the truth in. And I think that to some extent we already have that in our structures. But a real emphasis on accompaniment in our pastoral care is absolutely necessary for building these safer spaces for all of us. I think that simultaneous to accompaniment work, to finding our wisdom as friends to tell each other the truth about our lives, we are also going to need to find solutions to the problem of having no time. It's absolutely essential in any relationship, including our relationships at meeting, to have the time to be tender.
I am completely committed to Quakerism and to Quaker community and to individual Quakers. Despite all the conflict, despite all the ways in which I have been hurt and damaged inside of this community, I've also been healed and lifted up and taught things that I would never learn anywhere else. I stay here because I love us and because I believe that I am loved.
___
The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Journal or its collaborators.
