A Conversation With Gil George | Part 2
In the first part of my interview with Gil, he spoke tenderly about people he grew up with who have a fragile sense of belonging. They were refugees from civil wars and genocide, and Gil's parents gave them a place to begin their lives in the US. They did not often speak of their experiences. Deeply traumatized, they spoke in codes or undertones. Their humanity had been rejected in their homelands, and so were alert to the undertones of what others were saying.
Gil is operations manager for Friends World Committee for Consultation. He's a member of West Hills Friends.
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Gil George
Every culture and I mean, every culture, be it white middle class, be it street culture, be it whatever. Every culture on earth is a conglomeration of two things: The image and likeness of God in a group of people and the ways we as groups of people suck at listening to that voice and loving that image.
Judy Maurer
I'm gonna get that embroidered.
Gil George
How beautiful would it be if Sierra-Cascades was open about "this is what parts of our culture flow from the divine image"
There's a temptation to go to that all or nothing place where we either accept everything or reject everything. But wouldn't it be beautiful if we looked at the mosaic of who we are, and said, "these are the places and ways the Light of God is shining brightly through us."
And these are the areas we really need to work on so that that light can shine brighter. Let's not throw babies out with bathwater. Because we as humans can be really good at doing that, especially when we've experienced trauma. We go into black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking, and that sort of thinking is destructive. And I know it personally. After my head injury and bike accident,
Judy Maurer
Oh, that's right. When was that?
Gil George
That happened a little less than a year after Northwest Yearly Meeting announced their rejection of West Hills. I was not around for the year after the split happened. At that point, I could not be in a room with more than 10 people. If I was, my brain would go into tunnel vision. I would stop processing sensorally because of the head trauma.
Judy Maurer
Too much going on?
Gil George
Yep. It took me about four years to recover fully, because it also brought depression.
Judy Maurer
That makes sense.
Gil George
My processing was not able to do more than black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking during that time of trauma. This is a known side effect of traumatization. So, it's really important to recognize, when we are moving into this all-or-nothing thinking about these issues, that it's really an evidence of our trauma. And we need to hold that very gently. And we need to be very careful to say, "this is a result of what we've experienced."
We need to love ourselves through this. But we also need to not let that kind of thinking be a basis for our decision making, because it's not a reflection of reality. It doesn't take into account the ways God might be at work. Even in the spaces and places that we can't imagine that possibly occurring.
I'm not saying we need to suddenly jump in and invite every conservative person we know to be part of everything. But I do think we need to be careful to not deny that these are co-bearers of the image of God, even though they've done severe damage to a lot of people and we may need to keep apart for our own protection, absolutely.
But we also need to take some time to recognize that as damaged as they may be, or as damage-causing as they may be, there is still that of God in them. And we need to treat each other and everyone around us as if that was the case.
And, you know, I am not saying we have to be in complete, full relationship with people who hurt us. That is not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that we can't write anybody off as irredeemable.
Judy Maurer
I see. That's really good. There are people in Northwest Yearly Meeting that I really miss.
Gil George
Yep. And I think there's a lot of us who, like me, invested a lot of emotional, physical and organizational energy into trying to keep things together. I don't think we have necessarily even scratched the surface of the pain and loss that all of us who did that are feeling. I don't think we even recognize entirely all of the sacrifices we've made in our efforts to hold things together.
Judy Maurer
I can think of sacrifices - I think that's a really good word, a good concept. What do you think some of the sacrifices were?
Gil George
Well, I think - how do I put this? We could have walked away from Northwest Yearly Meeting with a whole lot more than we did. We could very easily have lawyered up and we would have walked away with a lot more and left them with a lot more damage financially. I mean, that is a reality. Yeah, I do think we could have done a lot more things than we did. And we could have behaved in the ways we saw others behaving. You know, we also could have plotted and schemed. And I think a lot of us are kicking ourselves now for not calling people out on the plotting and scheming.
But in some ways, I wonder if on a certain level, we realized that it wouldn't have accomplished what we really wanted to accomplish. I still have those nights where I'm not sleeping, where I think about, "I could have said this, in this way, in this situation, and maybe it might have had a different impact.
Judy Maurer
Really? I didn't realize that, Gil.
Gil George
And I think there's more than just me, who has some of those thoughts, especially as I think about some of the folks who really invested a lot of time and energy in trying to build relationships across the divisions.
Judy Maurer
Yes, some people did.
Gil George
And, you know, I think we don't realize how much those folks lost when everything went down the way it did.
Judy Maurer
That's a good point. Some people did spend hours doing that.
Gil George
Yeah. So I think, you know, this paints a really big and complex picture of who we are right now as a yearly meeting. And to me, it underscores how much we need to be gentle with each other. Because there's a lot of us that are still grieving. And there's a lot of us who are like, "Okay, can we move on now?"
Judy Maurer
Yeah, I was gonna say...
Gil George
Yes. And there are some folks who may never be able to fully leave the grief behind. And we need to acknowledge that. You know, we need to acknowledge that some of the wounds that some of the folks among us have incurred are not going to heal in this lifetime.
And there are some folks who never even engaged on a yearly meeting level, and just don't even have any kind of grasp on why the wounds would be that bad. And we're all under the same roof. We're all sitting next to each other. So how do we hold these well? It keeps bringing me back to that verse we kind of started off with with “Rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn.” And I would say there are three things we need to be doing as monthly meetings and as a yearly meeting. One is we need to practice some radical self acceptance. We need to stop beating ourselves up for having the emotions that we have.
Judy Maurer
Yes, I really like this. Yes.
Gil George
Okay. And I'm preaching to myself here!
Judy Maurer
Is this a liberal tendency, do you think?
Gil George
No, I think it's a human tendency, especially in a culture like ours that treats emotions with suspicion.
Judy Maurer
We do. It's the good ol’ Anglo-Saxon way! You must have learned that in your refugee house, too.
Gil George
Oh, yes! And so we need to say, “hey, these emotions are who I am. These are a piece of me. And I need to accept that.” There are certain people who, I will be honest, that I would love to pray some of those prayers, like David did in the Psalms, "Okay, God, I don't want you to just whack him. I want you to whack anybody who ever knew him! AND his dog and his donkey!
Judy Maurer
I want him smoted!
Gil George
Exactly. We need to acknowledge that's part of what's going on, and not treat it as an evil thing. But we need to look underneath it. And we need to say, "Hey, I'm hurt. I can face into the hurt; I have a community of people around me, who can hold me through the hurt."
And we need to be that community for each other. Step one is radical SELF acceptance.
Step two is radical OTHER acceptance. We need to say, “Okay, I'm pissed off, that person is not angry, I need to accept that they're not. Or I feel fine, and that person's really pissed.” Maybe what we need to do is to accept that different of us are going to be at very different emotional places at any given time. And the best we can do for each other, is to hold each other through those.
And the third thing is we need to make it normal to talk about this stuff. Honestly, I would love it if we started off every item of business with " Hi, I'm Gil. I'm from West Hill Friends. And I'm coming into this meeting with this kind of weight that I'm carrying, or this kind of joy that I'm carrying." And to really be upfront about it by saying “this is how I currently am emotionally present." And for some of us, it's gonna take a while for us to figure out how am I emotionally present?
Judy Maurer
Yes. I've been criticized for just making a decision out of my emotions. I wanted to say, "but that's what we're all doing." Some of us are just more open than others
Gil George
Exactly. One of the things I've learned, and this is in my geeky realm is that there's no such thing as objectivity.
Objectivity doesn't actually exist. Even at the very quantum level of existence, you have what is called the observer effect, where the mere act of observation changes what's going on. Every experience is subjective. Objectivity is a myth. What I find more helpful is to say, “Here are the lenses I see this through.” Or “these are the pieces that are impacting my perception of this.” Emotional state is one of the pieces.
Recognizing that I'm a white, cisgendered male with more privilege than most: white, middle-aged - tick off all the boxes. I've got a couple of tick marks against me, in terms of being a heavyset guy, and not necessarily fitting all the gender norms.
But my voice gets heard first if I'm in a room full of marginalized people. And that's just reality. It's ugly, it's horrible, but it's the way things are. When I was younger, I thought I could step away from that if I just rejected all privilege, pushed it all away, didn't engage it, and step back from everything. I learned that stepping back is itself a privileged position, because I can afford to step away.
Judy Maurer
That's true! You have those choices.
Gil George
So now where I'm at is realizing that I have a platform and a voice that gets heard. So I have to use that platform and a voice in an amplifying way, for voices that don't get heard.
Rejection of intense emotion is usually a rejection of the viewpoint of the oppressed. Because the oppressor is not going to be pissed. The person who's getting stomped down is. And you know, If you've ever experienced somebody pushing you down, there's an emotional rejection of it built into humanity. This emotional rejection of being pushed down is righteous anger.
Judy Maurer
Yes, Also if you’ve witnessed someone else being stomped down…
Gil George
yeah, exactly. And rejecting emotion is usually a motion of the status quo to maintain the status quo. And so by naming emotion and the way we feel and making it normalized, to name emotion and how we feel stepping into something, that actually undercuts that whole culture of emotional suppression.
Judy Maurer
That's interesting.
Gil George
And the folks who benefit from that are definitely not going to be comfortable with it. And that's a good thing. We need to not be comfortable with it. You know, because, in some ways, I actually think that comfort can be a harsher tool of oppression than evil. The desire to maintain a status quo can lead people into actions that even some of the most evil would step back and be like, that's gone a little far. And I've seen it happen many times where, especially for folks who are like, a few generations into privilege, where they're not the ones who did all of the actions that created the present state. And so they feel like we don't have any responsibility for this. And our wealth and position has nothing to do with that, because WE didn't do that.
"And why are you so angry at me? I didn't do any of that stuff to you." And we don't recognize that we benefit from it every day,
Judy Maurer
Every day, but we don't always see it, because…
Gil George
because it's normal.
Judy Maurer
It's "life"
Gil George
and then we engage in systematic behaviors that none of us would ever be comfortable with doing individually.
Judy Maurer
One of the things that really gets to me, and this isn't FCNL's fault. Every year FCNL comes out with a priority list that's based on the discernment of hundreds of meetings. We Quakers are a very well educated group and yet improving public education is never on the FCNL priority list. And I always wonder, are we wanting to keep ourselves that way? We’re a highly elite, highly educated group, and we don't want other people to get educated, and so we don't make it a priority?
Gil George
I think that is part of it, but I also think it is positional blindness.
Judy Maurer
Oh, that's a good point.
Gil George
What you see depends on where you stand.
If I had had a normal, white, suburban upbringing, I wouldn't have anywhere near the understanding I have of what immigrants go through when they first come to this country. You know, I wouldn't have any idea of what the trauma after-effects of genocide are. What we see depends on where we are, and who we're around.
And that's one of the reasons why I remember at a very early meeting before we were even Sierra-Cascades, I think it was at Hillsboro Friends. One of the things that really struck me, and I got up and said it, I said "if we are going to be Christ-centered, our center needs to be in the margins. Our center needs to be in the margins of our society. Our presence, where we are, where we engage, what we do, where we focus our efforts, needs to be the margins and the marginalized. And, you know, that's, you know, LGBTQ, that persons of color, that's the folks who are imprisoned, the folks who are dealing with addiction to meth.
So where are we standing as a community? Are we standing off to the side in a safe enclave? Or are we at the margins of our society? Where, to put it like really, really bluntly, where Jesus hangs out?
Judy Maurer
Yes, that is a very good point.
Gil George
And, you know, we claim to follow one who intentionally left the comfortable places alone, and went to the uncomfortable margins and the marginalized. So what would it look like for us as a denomination to say, "Okay, our priority structure is built around and centered in the margins of American society."?
Judy Maurer
That's very interesting point. To be Christ-centered means to be with Christ, out in the margins.
Gil George
That means we're going to be uncomfortable. Because, you know, the homeless encampment down the block is not a comfortable place. The folks who are on the edge of poverty that are near our more rural meetings are not comfortable places. It might not be a bad idea for us to spend some time at Hillsboro Friends to just to get some ideas about "What might it look like to think differently about following Jesus into the margins?" And I think Hillsboro made their decisions based on who they are and where they are. And we're going to have to do the same thing with our meetings. Camas is a very different place. Klamath Falls is an extremely different place. Silverton, that's a different place and culture. We each need to do that work.
But I also think we can be coming together to say, "Here's how we're engaging with the margins of our area. This is what we're finding is effective. What are you doing at the margins of your area? And how is that working? And doing some learning from each other. What if yearly meeting was less about committee reports, and more about “here's how our local meeting is surviving in this marginal space.” And this is how our meetings are engaging this marginal space and learning from each other and saying, “oh, okay, this is where the light is breaking through in our meeting.” Having our yearly meeting be kind of like the conglomeration of "this is where things are going great. This is where we're kind of struggling. What are your ideas?"
My oldest, Amy, is co clerking Faith and Practice. It's been a lot of fun hearing what she's doing and what her ideas are on like, how do we organize something like this? Because she gets to run into the same things we've been talking about that all of these concurrent traumas are coming together in all of our committees, not just in our local meetings, you know, all of these things are coming together. And the ways we're making decisions are being influenced by that image of God we bear, but also by the ways we suck at paying good attention to it. I mean, that's human. That's normal. That's the way things are. But it's really interesting to hear that navigation through somebody who's coming into it with a completely different age perspective.
Judy Maurer
And she's like, 15 now?
Gil George
She's turning 15 in May. But it's interesting to hear her younger perspective, like as a 14 year old, engaging these things. And being really excited about doing that.
Judy Maurer
She's no ordinary 14 year old.
Gil George
Yeah. She's awesome. I think it's really important for us to be paying attention to those different voices and those different perspectives, like Amy's who are coming at things with a very fresh set of eyes and will be seeing things that we don't - especially seeing things about the ways we interact. I mean, I'm Gen X, also known as the cynical generation.
Judy Maurer
That's right, you're Gen X!
Gil George
In July, I hit 50. I'm like, “I don't know how that happened.” But I'll be the first to admit it - I am definitely cynical about a lot of things. And cynicism can be paralyzing.
So I think it's very important for those of us who are a tiny bit more steeped in cynicism, to be cultivating relationships with folks of Amy's generation and allowing their enthusiasm to buoy us and to follow their leadership.
Because I have a funny feeling that they might actually be able to carry us farther than we could dream.
Judy Maurer
Yes, yes. I see lots of hope in those earlier generations, if us geezers will give them room and respect and space.
Gil George
Yeah. I think we need to remember the words that "a little child shall lead them."
Judy Maurer
Oh, good point. That means we're one of the lions in the back there [behind the child] .
Gil George
This to me is the beauty of Quakerism. Because we recognize that there is what we call that of God, the divine image. Every human being has access to that. And that means that we can learn deep spiritual truth from a five year old, and that we can learn deep spiritual truth from a 90 year old, that they both have equal access to the voice of God. And often, the younger of us haven't developed the filters that we put between us and God. And it might actually benefit us to submit to some younger leadership.
Judy Maurer
Yes, I definitely think so. I've been thinking about that. Both individually, and in terms of the wisdom of their generation.
This is excellent. I 'm also amazed at another of your skills - very calmly helping people with their computer problems.
Gil George
I have a LOT of experience doing that. My first job I was was in 1996. I worked in a stock brokerage firm in their tech support, as they were transferring from dummy terminals to Windows 95
Judy Maurer
Oh, my!
Gil George
Yep. So I've been around that block before,
Judy Maurer
These are people under lots of pressure. Millions at stake.
Gil George
Exactly.
Judy Maurer
Fascinating. That was New York City?
Gil George
That was that was actually in Philadelphia.
Judy Maurer
What other work did you do?
Gil George
Oh, let's see. I've done a lot of interesting jobs. Like my first job as a teenager was I worked in a social club as a pin setter. Oh, really? Old Style Manual pin set bowling alley. So you step on a paddle on these little metal pins come up on the floor, and then you set the pins on them and then you step off of the pedal and move over and they throw the ball you pick the ball up, put it on the rail slide effect down to - old school bowling alley. So that was my first job in a little social club. When I dropped out of college, I worked as a telephone sanitizer. This was in the early 90s. So cleaning public payphones
Judy Maurer
Gross!
Gil George
Indeed.
Judy Maurer
Where did you go to college?
Gil George
I went to the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. I was a theater major. I dropped out after a little over a year because I couldn't afford to keep going.
Gil George
And then I worked at an engineering firm as what was called an expediter. And that was the guys who took the plans to the building department, and got them filed and that kind of stuff.
And then I moved back to Philly, and got the job in tech support. And from there, went into some consulting -definitely on the network end of things. And then had a complete life shift when my dad got cancer and died.I got married, moved across the country. And then realized, like, I wasn't in a good mental state. I needed to retreat. So I went and worked as the head cook of a kid's camp for a couple of seasons.
Then we moved to Tacoma, Washington after that and we were part of the L'arche community there.
Judy Maurer
I didn't know that. And L’Arche is the people with disabilities who are being taken care of, but they're part of the community. Right?.
Gil George
Correct. My wife wanted to go there because she wanted a model of social work that saw people as having inherent value, not just as people who needed to be served.
Judy Maurer
Yes. This is where the writer lived - the famous writer whose name I can't quite bring to mind?
Gil George
Yes. Henry Nouwen. While we were there, that's when I found Quakerism. When I moved out here, one of the guys in my dad's church was a guy named Ron Sider, who was a Mennonite. And when I was moving out here, Ron said, "I need you to look up my buddy Tom Sine, and he'll be able to help you get connected to some folks out there.” So I called Tom up and said, “Hey, Tom, my name is Gil. Ron Sider said, I should look you up when I move out here. And we'd love to get together and chat and kind of get an idea of what's going on.” And he introduced me to Stan Thornburg.
Judy Maurer
Oh, really? Ron Sider. What did he write?
Gil George
Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger
Judy Maurer
And Tom Sine wrote something too, right?
Gil George
Mustard Seed Conspiracy
Judy Maurer
Excellent. Wow. You got to hang out with them?
Gil George
Yeah!
Judy Maurer
Was Stan at Reedwood then?
Gil George
No, Stan was at Olympic View Friends. So that was my introduction to the Friends. I was working at an Internet service provider in Tacoma, doing network security, consulting. Pretty intense, deep tech stuff. And then went to Fox and got a master's degree in ministry leadership.
Gil George
Yep. And then I was at Clackamas Park [Friends Church]. And I mean, they were hurting when I got out there. That was a little less than a year after Kevin Gilbert died.
Judy Maurer
Yeah. That was a real loss - Kevin dying suddenly.
[Note: Kevin Gilbert was pastor at Clackamas Park Friends Church when he died on Dec. 27, 2011. He was 55 years old. He was a kind and brilliant man.]
Gil George
Oh yes, It was. It ended up doing some damage. There were some patterns there that were not healthy. And, you know, not just me, but also my family got caught in them pretty hard.
Judy Maurer
Yes. I'm a minister's kid. I know those things.
Gil George
Yeah. And now I'm at West Hills.
Judy Maurer
Where's the light shining there at West Hills?
Gil George
I think the light is shining in some pretty amazing places. In some ways, I kind of see West Hills as the place where a lot of people who are very much engaged in various forms of activism outside of the meeting, are really finding the meeting a place to find their center. So, you know, it's more like West Hills is that space of decompression, where people can be who they really are and express the realities that they face.
Judy Maurer
Oh, that is excellent. So they go there and be real.
Gil George
Exactly. And know that this is a place where who I am and what I am is being held. Right now I'm leading a group of folks. We're talking about the ways we can be supporting our spiritual lives outside of Sunday morning. The Christianese term would be discipleship. Like, how do we form ourselves and each other, so that we are carrying the light into these places that we're called to go? We want the light we are carrying to call out to the light already in these places.
Judy Maurer
That's right. Plenty of darkness in some of those places.
Gil George
Yeah. So how do we tend to that light? That's a big conversation we're having right now at West Hills is - not only how do we do that, but how do we hold each other so that we're doing it well? So I initiated that mainly because I wanted the named leaders to be able to participate, without having it depend on them.
Judy Maurer
Yes, exactly. That's really good.
Gil George
Yes, lessons I've learned from experience.
Judy Maurer
That's true. Yes. I remember Mike Huber talking about the emotional labor of a pastor and how in the dominant culture, many people don’t understand emotional labor -- how difficult and exhausting emotional labor is. But you would know that.
I really appreciate this, Gill. It was not what I expected you to talk about. But it was clearly what the Spirit wanted you to talk about. And do you have any pictures of your parents, or when you were a little kid?
Gil George
I would have to find some of those. I think those are all back in Philly in Mom's house.
Judy Maurer
Oh! Your mom is still alive?
Gil George
Yes, Mom is still alive. She actually turned 75 today.
Judy Maurer
Wow! Excellent. They sound like fascinating people, your parents.
Gil George
Yeah, Dad was definitely a character. He had a big personality. And everything about it was big. His good points were big and his flaws were, too. Dad had a bit of a struggle with alcohol.
Judy Maurer
Oh, really? So did my dad. So did I.
Gil George
Yeah, that definitely engendered in me a healthy respect for it. I do not partake often.
Judy Maurer
We either become alcoholics ourselves or say, "Nope."
Gil George
it's not so much “Nope.” It's more like I only have on it on holidays. I have a glass.
Oh, I should probably go tuck children into bed. So have a wonderful night. This has been great.
Judy Maurer
It's been wonderful. Thank you. I'm immensely grateful. This is exactly the kind of interview I wanted to have Real issues come up. It gets people thinking. It's kind of a slow motion listening session. It's what I've been wanting. So thank you.