The Shape of Quaker Ministry: Kody Hersh in Conversation on Intimacy, Privacy, and Love

Cover image by AccordionBruce.

When Kody and I made an appointment to talk this last time, our original plan was to discuss writing as a form of public ministry. In a previous entry in this series on living public ministers in our lives, we had reflected on performance artists and what it felt like to name names in that piece—how speaking particular names can itself be a kind of ministry. That experience lingered with us: naming names broke a Quaker convention of privacy, and it made us uneasy, but it also felt faithful and intimate, a way of loving our contemporaries as public ministers. It was important to reflect on what that felt like in our bodies.

This time, though we began again with writers in public ministry, our conversation opened into even broader questions of intimacy, privacy, and boundaries in ministry life.

What follows is a lightly edited second conversation in our series on living public ministers in our lives. I’ve trimmed the interview for flow and clarity, included hyperlinks to some of the work of Friends who are mentioned by name, and added little guideposts so you can follow the thread and queries, so you can join the conversation from wherever you are.

Here’s what I’m taking with me: naming can be an act of love; boundaries let intimacy breathe; and ministry—whether spoken, written, or lived—is truest when it’s accountable to community and rooted in love strong enough to tell the hard truth. If you’re feeling that tug toward ministry, consider this your nudge: you’re not imagining it. Tell someone. Ask for help. And when you build on another’s faithfulness, say their name.

On naming, citing, and being seen

Windy: In Quaker contexts I’m often reluctant to name people—whether to praise or critique. Minutes from business meetings, we see, will say “a Friend said…,” for instance, as opposed to naming who spoke. I get why; it protects privacy when things are contentious. But sometimes it keeps us from the fullness of relationship. In public talks and essays I also see Friends skip citations—even when I know who they’re quoting or drawing ideas from. To me, a citation is love and respect: “I’m building on your work.” And this behavior of skipping the citation bothers me. And then my husband teases me that it is my academic training rearing its ugly head. But there really is this expectation that we Quakers don't name each other, and that it should feel good and appropriate to let names die. And I see the reason why we do that, and also… it robs us, in some way, of like, the fullest expression of our relationship with each other, to not be able to name each other… It's not about, like, intellectual property or anything.

Kody: Same. Sometimes, at least in the good times, that's all I need from my community, is to be seen, you know. And sometimes I break my ankle [like now], and I need people to, like, come visit and help me… but like, my baseline [is] to be seen, and I also need to, like, recognize other people as an act of love.

Windy: Yes. I don’t want to be “just anybody” to people who aren’t “just anybody” to me.

Kody: And I didn’t recognize myself as a minister until someone else named it.

Windy: Me too. Though self-naming can be real; I don’t want false humility to keep us silent. I think it's perfectly valid to know you have a call and to name it, particularly if we create a culture in which the expectation is that we are really all ministers in each other's lives. So we all have calls, and those calls change with time… [and] public ministers need different support and accountability structures than someone whose ministry is making coffee. Like making coffee is a wonderful ministry… But… that person doesn't need the same kind of support and accountability structures that someone that's going out in the world… doing ministry full time needs.

Kody: After someone named me, I had to tell others, “I’m holding this and need help.” That part felt bold and necessary. I had to be like, “I am holding this thing and I need help with it”… I needed somebody else to name it initially, and then there was a process… of telling people that that had been named and that it resonated, and that I wanted to follow the path and see where it went. Query: When have I longed for my name, my work, or my presence to be acknowledged as an act of love? When have I hesitated to name another out of habit or fear?

Books that midwifed a call (and the people behind them)

Kody: Early on I looked for Quakers writing about ministry. I read Lloyd Lee Wilson and Brian Drayton; Brian Drayton’s Living with a Concern for Gospel Ministry  was a kind of handbook. In the old Quaker blogosphere I wrote my way into clarity. Then Peggy Senger Morrison reached out like, “Books are great, kid—but also go be with people living it.”

Peggy was writing from her experience as an evangelical friend. She and her partner Alivia co-founded Freedom Friends Church, an explicitly Christ-affirming and queer-affirming congregation (the first Quaker one I knew of). Peggy’s a storyteller; her blog posts were practical field notes on ministry. One gem I still quote 20 years later: keep your baseline activity at 80% capacity so there’s room for the spontaneous tasks God gives you. She and Alivia have mentored me ever since—I even got a ride to a doctor’s appointment from Peggy last week. In a small community your readers also read the text of your life. The words and the life need to match.

Guidepost: Books can be anchors; people are often the harbor. Mentors like Peggy and Alivia are where theory goes to live.

Kody and I keep circling back to this pairing of text and flesh: that discernment starts in words but matures in companioned practice. Quakers write about clearness committees, anchor committees, and accompaniment because theory needs a kitchen table, a road trip, a hospital waiting room. When a call is first named, a book can steady your theology; a mentor steadies your gait. The harbor work—checking in, asking honest queries, making sure there’s childcare and a ride—turns “call” into “faithfulness.”

Query: What writings have steadied me in my own discernment? Who has been the “harbor” that helped me live what I learned on the page?

Tall poppies, inoculations, and meeting your heroes

Windy: I finally met Marty Grundy, a hero of mine, this summer, in person. Her Pendle Hill pamphlet Tall Poppies names how we mow down those who stand out—including public ministers and prophetic voices, much like tall poppies in a field of grass. An elder gave me that pamphlet when they first named my call—basically saying, “Act on this call—and know you’ll be cut down sometimes.”

It inoculated me; I didn’t always mistake systemic pushback for a personal failing, though sometimes I still did and do. Marty’s metaphor of the tall poppies is why Friends Incubator leans on the image of Luke’s wildflowers and ravens—trusting we can grow free in divine love and ministry. I think Marty’s work made me… a much stronger Poppy.  I got Marty’s email from Friends Journal, wrote her, and she replied right away. When I gushed “Oh my God, YOU are Marty Grundy!” on our subsequent Zoom session, like she was Mick Jagger or something, she said,

“No, we’re not doing that [hero worship]—otherwise I’ll leave.”

Perfect boundary. She wanted to be a real person to me.

She’s now in the bounds of New England Yearly Meeting (she’s from Lake Erie Yearly Meeting, who I visited this summer; they were so excited to know that I had been in touch with her). I drove extra time from NEYM’s annual session, which I had also visited this summer, just to have lunch with her and got a secondhand book of hers signed—now bearing two beloved signatures, one from the departed Friend who owned the book originally and one from Marty. Our elders are our leaders and compatriots; we play so many roles in each other’s lives.

Kody: And intimacy cures some ministry ills. (Celebrity culture—James Dobson—all that.) It’s not foolproof, but it helps. Sometimes… I feel like, in ministry, I'm in leadership, and sometimes… I am a child who needs care and guardrails… like… being raised in a village… we're all so enmeshed and embedded in one another's lives.

Guidepost: Fame flattens; intimacy particularizes. Boundaries keep intimacy safe enough to be honest. Public ministry isn’t stardom; it’s specificity. The “tall poppy” inoculation reminds us to expect resistance, and the “no hero worship” boundary keeps both minister and community human-sized. In practice that looks like naming an elder for a trip, debriefing after events, and teaching communities how to say, “We love your gift, and we need you to rest now.” Intimacy locates ministry in real lives—where correction and care are both possible. Query: How do I respond when someone in my community “stands out”? Do I tend toward envy, dismissal, or support? What helps me right-size others’ gifts without cutting them down?

Intimacy, privacy, and boundaries (the friendly, practical kind)

Windy: Maybe our not-naming norm is about offering each other privacy in a small community—like how New Yorkers give “psychic privacy” on a crowded subway by not gawking at each other? You just pretend that you don't see… because there's no wall to give that person privacy… what do we do with our deep, deep need to be seen and heard… There's this tension between intimacy and privacy in the way that Quakers have constructed our communities.

Kody: Your story about Marty saying “I’ll leave” is a great boundary. We can’t control others, but we can state what we will do.

Windy: And after one of my lectures you said, “Windy and [and my co-lecturer] Melinda [Wenner Bradley] will be happy to talk after.” I said, maybe Melinda—I’ll be in my room looking at a wall.

Melinda Wenner Bradley

Kody: I felt a little silly saying it without checking, but I’m glad a hundred people saw that different ministers need different aftercare: Melinda chats; Windy rests. Helpful lesson for everyone.

Windy: If I don't let myself be weird in these ways, then I break.

Kody: Every time I hear that story, I'm like, “Ah, that is the thing that I would like to have done differently,” and yet it…provided this moment that I'm happy happened.

Windy: Someone tried to talk to me before that event, and I told them I was going to vomit on them, and they left.

Kody: Again, boundaries are not about telling other people what they can do. It's about telling them what you'll do!

Guidepost: Post-ministry care is part of ministry. Snacks for some, solitude for others. Name it out loud.

What even is the “after” plan? Water, food, a quiet room, a walk with an elder, or explicitly scheduling next-day conversations so the minister can decompress? Care committees can normalize scripts like, “Windy will greet for 10 minutes, then head to rest,” or, “Please bring questions to tomorrow’s session.” When communities treat aftercare as an “of course”—not a luxury—we protect the gift and the giver.

Query: What are the boundaries and aftercare practices that sustain me in ministry? How do I honor the different needs of others?

Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship (and why motive matters)

Kody: We have to name Vanessa Julye and Donna McDaniel. Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship reshaped Friends’ self-understanding. I worked at FGC—I knew the decades of anti-racism ministry Vanessa carried before co-authoring it. I can't think of any piece of writing that has had more impact on contemporary Quakerism than Fit for Freedom, Not for Friendship.

Listen to this much quoted lecture from Vanessa in 2021.

I hear people either cite that book directly, or talk about things that… I learned… in that book all the time… [Vanessa] was my supervisor when I worked at FGC… there's pretty much no one who I trust more… The combination of… that meticulously researched book and also learn[ing] from Vanessa's presence… is so powerful.

The book challenges us to move past the one-note “Quakers ended slavery” story toward nuance and corporate accountability.

Windy: And it surfaces motives. A lot of emancipation energy among white Friends was about our white souls, not the well-being of enslaved people. Tom Hamm talks about John Woolman’s “near sympathy” in an earlier blog post—we mostly didn’t have it. That’s hard truth.

Kody: Which connects to that quote: “If you’ve come to help me, you’re wasting your time; if your liberation is bound up with mine, let’s work together.” Anti-racism isn’t charity; it’s my soul’s health.

Windy: “Right side of history” talk, so common these days, also often centers our egos, not love for particular people we’re in community with. I want solidarity, not self-congratulation. I really don't care if I'm on the right side of whatever. Like, I want people to love me. I want to be able to love and I want to be loved.

Guidepost: Motive matters. Love for the neighbor—not love for our image—keeps ministry honest.

This conversation presses on the difference between saviorism and solidarity. Queries we return to: Who is this for? Who is asking? Who is accountable for repair? We commend corporate practices—minute-making, naming harms, returning resources—so that anti-racism is measured by changed relationships and structures, not applause lines. Love aims at mutual liberation, not a cleaner conscience. Query: What is my motive in the ministries I undertake? Am I seeking my own image of goodness, or am I moved by love for particular people in community?

Truth, love, and tone

Kody: Across all these writings we’ve mentioned the thread is telling the truth when it’s weird and hard.

Windy: Truth because of love. “With love” can be mistaken as politeness; cunning insistence on politeness can become a weapon, as much as blunt force, bald rudeness can, though, as we know.

As I age, choosing a gentler tone isn’t from fear of those insisting or cunning, however—it’s care for the beloved. Ministry is often an intervention against the power of empire in a beloved’s life; I don’t want to come armed against them. I want us to face empire together, hand in hand, not cut their hand off out of spite for empire. Some scenes from my ministry life, I am ashamed to admit, were not because I loved [the person] in front of me… I had allowed my rage and hurt to… be the driving force. It's easy to think our rage is justice in the empire; it is what we have been taught. And when politeness is also a weapon of empire, what are we to do?

Kody: bell hooks, All About Love, paraphrases love as caring for someone’s spiritual, physical, and emotional well-being. That’s ministry: partnering with the Divine for a person and a community.

Windy: Ministry transforms the giver, too. We’re not one-way conduits of the Divine justice; we’re learning as we offer. You're learning in the process. You're receiving this divinity too, in your life in ministry.

Kody: My first vocal ministry at 12 or 13 years old was: “The beautiful thing about holding someone in the Light is you get bathed in it too.” Even when the poppies get mowed and it’s discouraging—it’s still a privilege to minister.

Guidepost: Tell the truth because you love. Tone is a tool; love is the reason.

Kody and Windy are framing truth-telling as an act of courage tethered to care. We might practice queries like, “Is this mine to say?” and “Can I say this tenderly and plainly?” Love doesn’t blunt truth; it steadies it, so the person receiving it can stay at the table with you. Query: How do I discern when to speak hard truth? What does it look like for me to speak it tenderly and plainly, out of love?

Elders of the written word, and the tug toward eldering

Kody: Shout-out to the publishing elders: Lucy Duncan at FGC/Quaker Press, Chel Avery after her—she mentored me in editing and proofreading; and Angelina Conti, who edited Spirit Rising. Angelina clerked and eldered that young editorial team so a wide diversity of voices could make it onto the page.

That editing process… was really a like facilitation process… She really clerked and eldered the… editorial team… I've never read a book that had such diversity of Quaker voices between one set of covers.

Windy: I feel myself shifting toward eldering too actually—nurturing other people’s ministries, smoothing the path for the next generation of public ministers....

Kody: Some folks lean minister their whole lives; some toward eldering; many of us move between the two. The switching keeps me balanced.

Guidepost: Elder and minister aren’t ranks; they’re seasons and gifts. Communities need both—and need us to know which season we’re in.

Across this conversation, we return to elder/minister pairs, to seasons of release and taking up, to rest as part of the call. Elders “hold the rope,” helping ministers test leadings, prepare, and debrief. Ministers, in turn, witness to the elder’s quiet gift by naming it. Many of us will shift roles over time; being explicit about the season we’re in helps our communities right-size expectations and support. Query: Am I in a season of ministering, eldering, or both? What practices help me discern when it’s time to shift?

Windy: Thank you for doing this with me. This is a fantastic series, and it feels really different than… a lot of the available [writing] on public ministry right now… Naming living public ministers—”This is my friend so-and-so, a public minister”—feels really transgressive in a healthy way.

Kody: Yeah… there's only so much you can get from books. …You also need to see people living it in community with you.

Kody and I began by thinking about writing as public ministry—and we did keep circling back to it, through Fit for Freedom, through Tall Poppies, through the editors and storytellers who midwifed us. But what emerged most clearly was how writing is only ever part of the picture: words carry us to intimacy, and intimacy requires boundaries and love.

If a particular name here stirred something in you, follow the nudge—look up their work, send a note, ask a question. Love names names.

Kody's newest ministry project!

Kody (he/they) is a Friend currently living on the lands of Tiwa-speaking peoples in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Their (sometimes) released ministry among (primarily) unprogrammed Friends has included youth work, pastoral care, workshop facilitation, public speaking, and writing. Kody is passionate about the intersections of spirituality, justice, and joy.

He is under the weight of a leading to support transgender youth and their families in navigating the current, hostile political climate in the United States.

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