On (NOT) Living into the Peace Testimony; Personal Reflections

Anonymous

I was the oldest child in a Quaker family. My sister was born when I was not yet one and a half, and I remember being very excited to have someone to play with. Alas, as a baby she slept a lot—22 hours a day if my parents remember correctly. Every day I woke her up, looking forward to having a playmate. Every day my mother hit me. Usually she hit me with a hairbrush. I was pretty clear that I wasn’t a bad person, but she assured me that I was. By the time I stopped waking up my sister, I could do nothing right, and the hitting continued for seven years. My Quaker father ignored the situation. His Quaker mother tried to reason with my mother, and her visits were reduced to once a year. My dad still claims not to remember my mother hitting me, and not to have ever been able to figure out why my grandmother only visited at Christmas.  

Where was my Friends Meeting during all this? Oblivious? Scared to ask what was going on?  

My parents were seriously into the Peace Testimony, in a big and public way. My mom organized demonstrations against bomb testing. Our whole family went. During the war in Vietnam, we organized a weekly peace vigil and were subjected to rotten tomatoes and eggs. Our whole family went every Sunday. Every Saturday my mother yelled at all of us. And yelled. And yelled. My dad got so mad at our meeting for not supporting his anti-war work that he stopped attending. Years later, he got so mad at my sister for voting for a Democrat instead of a green party candidate that he stopped speaking to her for several years.  

I’m aware that I am often not at all peaceful inside. It took an enormous effort on my part not to pass down the physical violence to my children. I get angry and yell, and shockingly sound a lot like both of my parents.  
My failures in living into the Peace Testimony are mixed with personal pain. I’ve noticed that there are conversations with other Friends about war and peace that I would prefer to avoid. In spite of my beliefs, I have paid my war taxes my entire adult life. I wish I could become someone who feels and acts in peaceful ways.