Reflections on my time as a Palm Beach (Lake Worth) Quaker

  What went on at the Lake Worth Quaker Center for me was not as bad a Stockholm Syndrome. Let us be clear that neither John or Ellie are abusers and the Lake Worth Quaker Center is not (quite) a cult: sure they stroke each other's ego and let things slide. But there is no evil or destructive intent behind their unskillful actions. They just dont have an accountability buddy since my ousting. But let's get back to the topic of this post. I became emotionally connected to Ellie during the Women's World Cup 2023. She was grateful that I showed her a way to watch a 5-minute highlight reel instead of 90 minutes of the whole game. And we had some good discussions about the games as she would walk into meeting. So when I pointed out the attempt to let programmed worship creep into our unprogrammed meeting without group consent. IT HURT. And it hurt in realtime. She was right there in the room when I started outing her behavior. It did not feel good. But I did it anyway. I would s...

I’ve had many revelations since this apparent “bad” event took place. The goal of this writing is not those revelations but to accurately report what occurred on that day. The Palm Beach Quaker meeting meets at 823 N A St, Lake Worth, FL USA. After morning worship and lunch, there was a decision to hold the business meeting even though some key people were absent. The first item of business was to ratify the minutes from the previous month. The Clerk (John Palozzi) said “do all agree to this summary report of last month’s minutes”?  It was at this point that I said:  “I am not in agreement with the statement that COVID rates are rising in Florida. Before I could agree with such a statement, I would need to confirm at least the following: the existence of the Corona Virus The infectiousness of the Corona Virus Evidence that there is a working test for the Corona Virus It was at this point that Atlanta Chuck said “Oh jesus” Then the Clerk said: “This is not the time or place to ...

 I live halfway between Palm Beach Quakers and Ft. Lauderdale Quakers. I wasnt sure which to attend, but just ended up at Lake Worth first.  I mentioned to John and Ellie that I was halfway between them and thought about alternating Sundays, which of course brought up the question of what to do on a 5th Sunday. John said: you can come here on the 1st and 3rd Sunday and go there on the 2nd and 4th Sunday and on the 5th Sunday, you can go hunt alligators and crocodiles. John was making a joke out of something we had discussed earlier. This was our first but not last foray into the world of humor.