s on the other. Another issue concerned our emphasis on positive
interaction, and the discouragement, though not avoidance, of overt
expression of negative feelings between members of the group. We also
discussed what causes marriages to get "stuck" so that they cease to
grow. This led us naturally to consider the limitations of lay leaders
without training in marriage counseling, and how to make effective
referrals to professionals when this seems to be indicated. We also
talked about the use of silence, so natural to Friends, and how far
non-Quakers could accept this.

In all our discussions we were looking forward. There was a confident
assurance that we had found something of great importance that must be
communicated to others--to the Society of Friends generally, but to the
wider world as well.

THE SECOND ROUND

Another training program was organized and a second group of couples
were invited to Pendle Hill. On a Friday evening in November 1971,
therefore, another wide circle of married couples assembled in the
familiar living room at Pendle Hill; later went forth to conduct
retreats arranged by their Yearly Meetings; and returned triumphantly in
April 1972 to report to one another what had happened.

Six of these couples were new. With them we invited two experienced
couples from the first group of trainees. Our idea was that they might
help in the training of the other six, and be ready then to graduate as
trainers in later regional programs.

We have used this method in training couples before, encouraging a
couple conducting a retreat for the first time to team up with another
trained couple, each supporting and helping the other in shared
leadership. This is a good learning process; and now we were applying it
at the level of training potential leaders, in the expectation of making
ourselves dispensable. A movement of this kind should not be allowed to
focus on personalities. It will prosper best by involving many couples
in a broad sharing of leadership responsibility.

We might have asked ourselves whether what had happened in 1969-70 could
happen again in 1971-72. Would the high caliber of the earlier group of
couples be sustained? Would they again learn quickly enough through the
experience of one retreat to function as successful leaders? Would they
come back with the same enthusiasm and delight? The answers to these
questions would do a great deal to validate the plan we had adopted.

When ou