How a Quaker Meeting Welcomes Military Families

A conversation with Michelle Downey, author of Michelle Downey is author of “Welcome and Grace: How One Meeting Ministers to Military Personnel.“

In this episode, Michelle Downey discusses the unique dynamics of a Quaker meeting in a military town, emphasizing inclusivity, personal discernment, and the importance of understanding diverse experiences related to military service and peace testimony.

Bio

Michelle Downey is a member of Fayetteville (N.C.) Friends and is clerk of North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative). She enjoys reading, gardening, music, and deep conversations. Contact: [email protected].

Transcript

Martin Kelley (00:01.566)
If there’s one thing Quakers are known for in the wider world, it’s our commitment to peace and our anti-war activism. But we’re also, I hope, should be known by visitors coming in as people who are compassionate and understanding and welcoming. But what happens when these two ideas kind of conflict? And I’m here now with a Quaker Talk interview with Michelle Downey. So welcome Michelle here to the Quaker Talk Podcast and

Tell me, you’re in Fayetteville, North Carolina. What kind of a town is Fayetteville, North Carolina?

Michelle Downey (00:37.143)
Well, Fayetteville, North Carolina is home to Fort Bragg, the largest military base by population, US military base. So the military culture permeates pretty much every aspect of life here.

Martin Kelley (00:52.632)
Yeah. Yeah, I’ve driven through it and it is it is kind of amazing. Like you really like down every street you you know you’re on a a military town. but tell me like how does so you do have a meeting there though, a friends meeting, and it’s a very unique one. So tell us a little bit about your meeting and its relationship to Quaker House and how we got friends in this in the middle of a military town, an unexpected place.

Michelle Downey (01:20.235)
Yeah, that’s right. So we are a very small meeting. We usually have about ten people in attendance. and we don’t have our own meeting house. We meet in Quaker House, in the family room there. And the director, Wayne Finnegar, worships with us and is sojourning with our little meeting. both Quaker House and

The meeting have been there for decades. The meeting itself has been there 30 plus years and Quaker House for over 50 years. So it’s it’s a an interesting symbiotic relationship to have.

Quaker House relationship, you know, that influences us and also honestly brings people to us. They sometimes come to the meeting through Quaker House website.

Martin Kelley (02:14.808)
Great. And Quaker House is a ministry of sorts to to the Fort Bragg community. tell us a little bit about its its mission. I know you’re not Quaker House, you’re the meeting, but just why why is Quaker House there in the middle of Fort Bragg or the area of Fort Bragg?

Michelle Downey (02:33.854)
Yeah, so there are many different ministries that Quaker House offers. Probably the best known, most well known is the GI Rights Hotline. so they are one of two organizations that keep that running and answer questions of service members who might be thinking about whether or not they want to get out of the military or answering questions about conscientious objection.

Unconscientious objection, there are workshops that Quaker House does to educate people about that. And then also there is counseling done on site at Quaker House. At times there have been PTSD support groups, there is domestic violence for family members of military, and that is offered for free. So there are a variety of different ministries that Quaker House participates in.

Martin Kelley (03:32.396)
That’s great. It seem seems like something that’s very needed. but also kind of tough because it’s not the sort of Quaker bubble that a lot of Quaker meetings are where everyone kind of agrees with the same thing and I guess is would you say most of the Peting people who c show up at your meeting are military related in one way or another? Well

Michelle Downey (03:54.039)
I think about half we have right now are either veterans or family members of military and then the rest of the folks have no military affiliation whatsoever.

Martin Kelley (04:08.066)
Yeah, so your article is about how to be show grace, show welcome to people who are in the military, who show up in meetings. So tell us a little bit about about how that experience is and how it is like to be a meeting that does have a lot of folks who are in the military and how do you juggle and balance sort of the Quaker anti war commitment, which is very true and you’re like on the ground there, with just being welcoming.

Michelle Downey (04:38.1)
Yeah, so I think a big focus of what the article touches on is our meeting’s commitment to trusting in personal discernment about the peace testimony. we don’t believe

That it’s our role to impose any strictures. We’re not reading people out of meeting for not being, you know, how we expect them to be. And there are a variety of beliefs, you know, that have come to us in regards to the peace testimony and military service. So a big part of how our meeting is welcoming is stating plainly that we are, you know.

just assuming that people will understand that. So someone might wonder if they’re welcome at a piece

Martin Kelley (05:26.68)
Mm-hmm.

Michelle Downey (05:35.511)
promoting organization, so we have to say it out loud and say that military are welcome to worship with us. And that’s that’s an important part of it is not letting things go unsaid. But I think the biggest focus is is just focusing on personal discernment and and where each individual has come to terms with the peace testimony and their own walk.

Martin Kelley (06:04.59)
Yeah, and it’s not, you know, really, I think unusual. It seemed to be a cliche, when I got into Friends many years ago, that the the head of the Peace and Justice Committee of every meeting seemed to be a World War Two vet who had gone through it all and, you know, come to Quakers afterwards. that generation has, you know, mostly left us these days, a few around. But and if you look at Quaker history too

World War two, a lot of Quakers did enlist and all the different wars Quakers have enlisted. So we’re not quite as strict about it or haven’t been as history might suggest.

So, how is it though? I mean, how do people do you find people who are coming are interested in the peace testimony or not? Like what’s drawing them to you to this very well known peace church?

Michelle Downey (07:01.664)
Well, I think like most Quaker meetings we have visitors that come and try something out and then perhaps we never hear from them again. We also factor into that that some of our attenders are active duty and we just suspect that they have gone on deployment, you know, if they’ve been attending regularly, you know, so so that happens.

Martin Kelley (07:23.255)
Sure.

Michelle Downey (07:28.116)
Two of our current members are veterans, and Nate relayed his experience in the article that when he came in, you know, he was really seeking a a peaceful place after his service, you know, that his time in service had disturbed him and

some emotional scars that he was actively trying to heal. So when he first came to us, you know, that was kind of his ex exploration of whether this was going to be the bomb to his wounds that he needed.

Martin Kelley (08:10.666)
And so what happens though when these friends come to meetings that don’t have quite the focus and discernment that that yours have had? you you tell some heartbreaking stories. You’d like to share some?

Michelle Downey (08:21.034)
Yeah, I was really surprised by that, honestly, since the vast majority of my Quaker walk has been here at Fayette Friends, so I I didn’t know any differently. but one of our attenders relayed some stories about being blatantly, you know, not welcomed in other meetings, and that

Decades ago, and she is still carrying so much pain that she burst into tears when we were talking about it. So that wound, that damage is still there. so we were talking about that at meeting this past week about the care we need to give to the words that we choose, not knowing how it might.

damage someone long term, you know, even if it’s just a a casual in our estimation statement that to speak carelessly can really hurt people long term.

Martin Kelley (09:12.686)
Sure.

Martin Kelley (09:25.004)
Yeah, what what kind of advice do you would you have for meetings, like I guess most meetings that aren’t adjacent to a military base? so we’re not getting the steady flow. I you know, I don’t know if this has ever been something we’ve discussed in my meeting, for example, although there are military contractors all around. There’s a military base probably twenty minutes away. it’s not unlikely that we might have someone come in. what kind of advice would you have for other meetings in in non military towns?

Michelle Downey (09:55.499)
Well, I think just being aware, you know, that as we get to know people and find out about who they are as as total and complete people, that there are many people who have served in the military that live all over the country, all over the world. so there might be veterans in your midst that, you know, just because you’re not a military town doesn’t mean you won’t have that same encounter. And so without, you know, making them feel

Interrogated or on the spot. I think one way is to just have a general discussion about things such as moral injury, which you know is a broader topic about facing circumstances that you know just are not sitting right with your soul, and how that

you know it can be applied to the military life but other also to other people so we can kind of generalize that type of discussion in our meetings during like our education hours.

Martin Kelley (10:52.888)
Yeah, I I was grabbing a pen, I wanna write that down because that would be a good education hour after worship for us, for my meeting, to have something on moral injury. and I guess I would also sort of tie in with the PTSD aspect. I mean there’s a lot of people who do come to Quaker meetings who are wounded in one realm or another.

Martin Kelley (11:39.15)
One of the stories you tell is about someone named Cece, who’s there. I think she was the the JAG officer in the JAG department. Tell us a little bit about that and about how you were able to celebrate her career journey.

Michelle Downey (12:07.402)
Yeah, that was probably a very interesting and unique experience, at least from my perspective, to have a Quaker meeting actually invited on base to participate in her promotion ceremony. so Cece is is a long as a lifelong Quaker serving in JAG, the military lawyer.

So and that’s part of what she, you know, talks about how her journey was deciding that she could do a lot of good in the world by participating in that way.

Martin Kelley (12:43.298)
Yeah.

Michelle Downey (12:43.594)
But there were some interesting little details from that promotion ceremony. So when I had to fill out my introduction card, it demanded that I be Mr., Mrs. Ms. etc. And CC said, I know you don’t want an honorific, but it’s a military and they they don’t understand not having one. So Yeah, so I just went ahead and and filled it out.

Martin Kelley (12:59.362)
Yeah, too.

Martin Kelley (13:06.114)
Don’t understand that kind of non compliance, yeah.

Michelle Downey (13:12.072)
And then, you know, n normally be a more

church-centric chaplain or something, you know, or pastor that would be offering a prayer. So Cece and I were excited to bring some silence into this promotion ceremony. And it was well received. And I I find that when I I do this in other scenarios as well, that people become very curious about Quakerism and lots of conversations after the event, you know, explore

exploring, you know, what it means to to be people who worship primarily in silence. so it was interesting. It was also a little honestly personally challenging for me. I am a former military spouse and I have

About that. So going back on post was mildly unpleasant for me. But once we got into the ceremony, I did feel at ease and was just so happy that our meeting could embrace Cece in every aspect of her life and not just pick and choose aspects of her that we wanted to honor. But we’re, you know, there for her her whole being.

Martin Kelley (14:14.23)
Sure, I can imagine. Yeah.

Martin Kelley (14:35.714)
Yeah, one of the similarities I’m finding on this so this is a whole issue, the September issue of Friend Journal is about the Quaker Peace testimony today. And I I there’s some stories that are just familiar with one another. The idea of going into this place that we normally wouldn’t think to go and finding real people there, who we can interact with not in a judgmental way, but learn from them and maybe have them learn for us. It’s

It’s just so valuable, I think, to to do that and not just be you know, among other anti war protesters. I mean, it’s great to be visible like that, but just getting out of our comfort zone and people who we wouldn’t think we would be have things in common with, realizing that they’re humans and they have their questions and needs and doubts and everything just like the rest of us.

Michelle Downey (15:30.548)
Yeah, I think that’s a a big part of our meeting and a a big focus in my writing i is finding our similarities and not viewing other people as the other, you know, and and finding that difference but instead seeking our similarities and and coming from a sense of a good place of compassion for everyone that we come in contact with.

Martin Kelley (15:31.081)
Mm-hmm.

Martin Kelley (15:54.616)
Mm-hmm. Well, that’s great. Thank you so much for that. I mean it’s a ministry just having the worship every week. so thank you for that. And it’s great to meet you here on the interwebs video here. And Michelle Downey has written for us a number of times over the last couple of years and has already more articles in the pipeline. So really glad to have you as a French journal regular and looking forward to reading much more from you.

Michelle Downey (16:23.67)
Appreciate that. It’s been very fun.

Martin Kelley (16:24.526)
Good. Well take care, Michelle, and thanks for coming on the Quaker Talk podcast here.

Michelle Downey (16:30.986)
Thanks for having me.