I have been reflecting recently on the Quaker practice of using queries as a guide for self-examination and as a framework for periodically examining, clarifying, and considering the direction of one’s life and the life of one’s meeting community.
Moving Beyond Traditional Rules
Most organizations, including most corporate entities, establish rules and procedures at upper levels of management.
These rules and procedures often stem from a strategic plan, a centerpiece of many modern-day nonprofits.
But are these rules examined regularly and as a series of queries?
Quaker Queries & Community Care
For example, here are some of the queries that Quaker meetings ask themselves from time to time:
- How does Friends Home encourage continued engagement in meeting affairs for members who have mobility, hearing, or vision issues, or lack transportation to the meeting?
- How does Friends Home help members access information to address short- and long-term adjustments to their living conditions as their circumstances change?
- How does Friends Home assist its members and their families in making arrangements should their physical or mental capacities become limited?
- How does Friends Home help its members and their families address the challenge of balancing the quality of their lives with prolonged existence?
Putting These Principles Into Practice
These queries might find their way into the life of any senior living community, for these are the questions we ask ourselves every day as we consider the best care we can give our residents, and the best advice we can provide their families and their caregivers.
Finding Direction Through Introspection
Friends Home is blessed to have a majority of Quakers on our Board, and the Quaker process often finds its way into their deliberations.
This is a refreshing approach for individuals as well as organizations of any kind and size.
Answering the queries with introspection and a good conscience can often open up new pathways, reveal new depths of belief, and perhaps lead to new directions.
And new commitments.
We have been on a special path for over 125 years.
We serve as a safe, comfortable place for those among us who need a supportive community that is small enough to be flexible, well-managed, and well supported by an active Board; affordable; and with programming that centers around the belief that at any age, we can lead meaningful lives and engage in meaningful activities.