Quitting and Starting

Robert came to our preparative meeting for the first time on the first Sunday in January, and he gave vocal ministry about the importance of simple living. Some were leery at his immediate comfort in our midst, while others were excited by the energy he brought. And his energy was a little contradictory. He was clearly excited about the value of simplifying his life but very flat in his actual style of speaking. Only later did we find out why.

Robert was an economics prof at the university and lived a few doors down from the union hall where we meet. In our worship-sharing time, Robert had talked about the ways he was being intentional in his journey of simplicity. But it wasn’t until he put on one of our monthly education sessions that we understood the extent and full nature of his efforts.

Robert was journaling about his commitment to “quit something new every day.” Some of his quits came across as silly and harmless. Others were a challenge to imagine and humbling to consider.

Our second-hour program is usually once a month, but when Robert finished, he was immediately asked to follow with more the next week, and he happily obliged. By one measure it seemed that he had not prepared at all and would just flip through his journal and either smirk or lean in to read more carefully and then flip the pages some more. But when he did read, he seemed to be reading verbatim and seemed to apply his academic talents to the process, as the queries that followed his reading were rich and varied. It was like a popped cork or a lanced boil. Everyone always had a response, and I remember Sheila saying, “I have never considered simplicity at such an elemental level before.” I’m still not exactly sure what she meant, but her words stuck with me as a challenge to dive more deeply into Robert’s ideas: to take him more seriously.

One of his quits was the word “but,” and just a week later, he had to add quitting using any word that could be reasonably substituted for “but.” I remember him telling a joke about the prime minister putting out an advertisement for a one-armed economist. When asked why, the PM said, “I am tired of my economic advisors always saying, ‘This is what you should do, but on the other hand, you could do something entirely different.’” Robert explained that the joke described economists perfectly in that they always want to account for all circumstances. So, an economist who did not use the word “but” was kind of a mythical creature. I remember he closed that session saying, “For all you non-economists, this will be easy.” I tried. It was not easy, but I could have tried harder.

One of the quits I remember the best is when he quit “walking by purple flowers without smelling them,” alluding to the line from the book The Color Purple that reads, “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” He explained how early on he saw that starting was more important than quitting and that quitting without starting was a waste of time. He asked us if we could see quitting and starting as mirror images of the same thing.

When Robert announced he would be leaving for four months to be the Eureka Springs Scholar in Residence at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, my first thought was that I was going to miss him. And I had a hard time picturing what that position would entail. I am in the “baseball is slow and boring” camp unless the Blue Jays are in the World Series.

After some time, Robert’s wife, Ginny, started attending sometimes with him. She was the opposite of Robert. She had few words to share, but she was very expressive with her dress, body language, and mannerisms. Unlike most of our group who wore plain or even dull clothing—gray and taupe abounds with us—Ginny often wore fire-engine red and always accessorized. She drew attention but showed little vulnerability. She was unlike Robert, who appeared as if he was trying to blend into his surroundings like a piece of furniture. But once he started talking, he always had a lot to say, and it was consistently worth listening to.

Three weeks after Robert left for Cooperstown, Ginny came to worship on her own. I know I was—and imagine others were—surprised to see her attend. A few minutes after the start of worship, she provided the backstory to Robert’s quitting journal.

Crying before she spoke, Ginny began, “Robert is an addict,” and then paused and said, “He is addicted to Subtunol, a pain killer he was prescribed for his headaches.”  She got into details with a tenor of total defeat. “Before he even started this journaling project, he quit writing his book about the economics of Olympic medals. He quit correcting the grammar in his students’ essays. He quit eating chocolate. But he never once even talked about quitting his pills.” After a long pause, she went on, “I’d ask him—I mean this wasn’t a secret—and whenever I said to him that there was one thing and one thing only that he needed to quit, Bobby would slow his speech to a crawl and say, ‘That’s where I am headed.’”

After yet another pause, Ginny continued, “Andre and Rebecca really miss him, and I don’t.” This is where she stopped speaking and hung her head. That was the only ministry of the day. Our worship clerk encouraged us to hold Ginny and Robert and their children in the Light. Ginny left as soon as our clerk arose to shake hands and did not return in the weeks that followed. I assumed that someone from Ministry and Counsel reached out, but these things were not shared, so I don’t know. I assume she was embarrassed by letting so much out, but it did not feel in gospel order for me to initiate contact on my own.

I didn’t find out until months later that there were factions that had formed in our meeting. I do my best to ignore such goings-on. All I know is from a single conversation where I felt cornered and had to listen. My informant told me that one Friend said there were two women who thought that Ginny had made it all up. There were no addiction issues, and she was just trying to be the center of attention. Apparently, the two (it was obvious who they were even though names were not mentioned) speculated that she had an affair with someone and made up the story of the drug abuse to cover herself if that ever came out.

Another group, a larger one, about a third of the meeting, felt betrayed. They felt it had been dishonest of Robert to talk so much about quitting without coming clean on the real issue. Apparently one in that group even phoned the meeting in Cooperstown to warn them about an untrustworthy addict who might try to infiltrate their meeting. I don’t know who it was, but I was told that he or she was told that Robert had not shown up at worship, but if he did attend, they would be seeking to respond to that of God in him, rather than forming an opinion based on an unsolicited phone call. Again, by the time this was relayed to me, it could have been third- or fourth-hand. The rest of us were not so much a faction as we were the majority. Again, I am constructing this looking back, but we felt that this was simply a part of the life of our meeting and did not require such discussions. Yes, Robert had an impactful few months with us, and the ministry of Ginny was uncommon, to use an understatement, but it was out of our hands, and if there were issues, it was expected that Ministry and Counsel could handle them in a discreet and caring manner.

The fourth partition in the meeting was Cyril, the weightiest and most seasoned of us all. Cyril doesn’t speak much in meeting, and when he has, he’s remained seated. He had not stood to speak in years. So as he struggled to stand, we all had time to turn our full attention to him. Cyril began, “It is not the Quaker way to lobby,” then added, “and I don’t like to be lobbied.” This was September, and Robert had not been at meeting since leaving for Cooperstown in April. Cyril spoke with great gravity. I remember he used the term “faultfinding” as if it were a refrain. If Ministry and Counsel is dealing with Ginny, then that is their business, not ours. I remember the impact more than any actual words. He praised faultfinding when one Friend goes humbly to another to offer correction in the manner of Friends. And I do recall his final words—I think we all do, all of us who were there: “But this is nothing other than idle gossip, and we will not have that here. It ceases as of today.” We had never heard Cyril speak that way. And we all did as we had been admonished to do.

A couple months later—I believe it was early in November—Ginny walked into our meeting. A few minutes late, presumably to spare herself conversation, but noticeable enough that probably everyone watched her until she took her seat. She provided no vocal ministry. But when it came to announcements, she began with an uncharacteristically somber tone saying, “I want to give you an update.”

She told us that Robert, she had always called him “Bobby,” had left Cooperstown and was living in a rooming house in Washington, D.C., working full-time on his journal. She explained he had asked for a leave of absence from the university due to his addiction, and it had been granted. She told us that their children were missing their dad but understood that “finishing his study of quitting” was very important. She said she did not know what was next other than what he told her, that he was “on a path to wellness.” Ginny thanked us for listening, asked if her whole family could be held in the Light, told us that she would not be returning, and asked us to respect her need and her children’s need for privacy. 

With Cyril’s words having settled within me, I knew I did not want to talk about Robert; I didn’t want to even think about whether he was descending into madness or was on a journey that most would be too fearful to take. Hero or antihero? It was better to hold him in the Light than it was to evaluate him.

It was more than two years later before Robert gained our attention again. Rick, who we call our Religious Education Committee, stood at the close of meeting to make an announcement. He held up a book and read its cover, Quitting by Robert L. Seaton, annotated by Virginia Howard. He said that Robert was clean and sober, and that he had continued to live in Washington for another year and compiled his writings into the book we were all looking at. Rick said he had read the book in one sitting and wanted to lead a group study of it. I, and I imagine everyone else, looked over toward Cyril. His head was down, and his eyes were closed. And he nodded the slightest of nods.

This is how Robert’s book ends:

It is about choice, really. Sensing your own power to choose. It is about knowing who you are and what your choices are. It is not about quitting. It is about inherent authority.