Letters - 23 June 2023
From language and diversity to governance
Language and diversity
I find letters about language, theology and diversity both fascinating and irritating. Fascinating because they show we really are seekers, irritating because an assumption is sometimes made that we are simply exchanging intellectual divisions.
At an interest group at one Yearly Meeting, I was told never to mention the word ‘God’. Not only I but Quakers at large. The woman who said this was in tears and, in her comments, although I did not know her, I recognised a pain from years before.
Some of the most non- (or even anti-) theists I have met are people who have been oppressed by years of religious intolerance. Religious language re-stimulates their anguish. Similarly I have met many from atheistic, or at least non-religious, backgrounds, who have embraced with enthusiasm in later life a whole wealth of poetic metaphors about the divine. These metaphors are often doors to a new life for them. To have this way of speaking criticised may be a source of pain to them.
Conversations are not just exchanges of ideas; they may be psychological acts. Our brains are not divorced from our hearts. Reason does not exist in a vacuum.
Can we reflect on why we express ourselves the way we do? Can we recognise that other people may be using language in a different way from ourselves? Can we see, can we hear, beyond our own conditioning, the life experiences of others? Can we trust each other? Can we respect each other?
Harvey Gillman
Peer mediators
Having trained many peer mediators myself, I have seen what difference they can make to the discipline and happiness of a school.
I agree strongly with Ellis Brooks (9 June) that this is needed in all schools. Surely we should start by making it an essential part of the curriculum in all teacher training institutions, so that teachers are able to train and guide their pupils?
Diana Lampen
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