A Semester with Barbara Brown Taylor

On RantWoman's mean to watch / listen to list, 3 lectures by Barbara Brown Taylor

http://www.candler.emory.edu/news/releases/2013/11/taylor-candler-semester.cfm

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Johan Maurer on Discipline, Meeting for Business

Blog as filing cabinet item about discussion in Russia of Quaker discipline, Meeting for Business. Conservative Friend, Jesus at center....

http://johanpdx.blogspot.com/2013/12/a-few-thoughts-on-quaker-discipline.html

RantWoman desires to be able to find this again whether or not she hurries to pen some reflections based on it.

Whole conversation with Johan Maurer posted on Youtube

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Hanukkah Day 4 Do you hear what I hear?

A popular Christmas Carol, interpreted....



RantWoman dedicates this post and the video clip to

--everyone anywhere overendowed with prodigious capacity to mishear and have brain misfire, particularly if the misfire involves the kneejerk gift of blurting out highly insistent utterances.

--everyone anywhere who, for any reason up to and including auditory hallucinations hears things that go winging past others. RantWoman recommends not overdoing the auditory hallucinations, but when things are going by anyway, the people being flown past cannot necessarily tell the difference anyway. We must try to be tender with such.

Tender? This is RantWoman!?!?!?


But RanWoman,what does this have to do with Hanukkah?

Uhhh,  I dunno but it's the first Sunday of advent.

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Workshop on Christian Hegemony and Privilege November 9

Join CARW & friends for this exciting workshop with Paul Kivel...

Living in the Shadow of the Cross
Understanding and Resisting the Power and Privilege of Christian Hegemony

A Workshop by Paul Kivel

When: Saturday, November 9th at 1-4pm

Where: Jackson Place Cohousing (800 Hiawatha Place S Seattle, WA 98144)

Please join the event on Facebook.

Workshop Description
Over the centuries, Christianity has accomplished much which is deserving of praise. Its institutions have fed the hungry, sheltered the homeless, and advocated for the poor. Christian faith has sustained people through crisis and inspired many to work for social justice. Yet, although the word “Christian” connotes the epitome of goodness, the actual story is much more complex. Over the last two millennia, ruling elites have used Christian institutions and values to control those less privileged throughout the world.

As our triple crises of war, financial meltdown, and environmental destruction intensify, this talk/workshop will dig beneath the surface of Christianity’s benign reputation to examine its contribution to our social problems. Living in the Shadow of the Cross reveals the ongoing, everyday impact of Christian power and privilege on our beliefs, behaviors, and public policy, and emphasizes the potential for people to come together to resist domination and build and sustain communities of justice and peace.

Paul Kivel is the award-winning author of several books including Uprooting Racism and Boys will be Men. He is a social justice activist and a nationally and internationally recognized educator who has focused on the issues of violence prevention, oppression, and social justice for over 45 years. Paul is the director of the Christian Hegemony Project and has conducted thousands of talks, trainings, and workshops on diversity, men’s issues, the challenges of youth, and the impact of class and power on daily life.


*****Location & Accessibility: In an effort to make the space accessible to guests with chemical sensitivities, please refrain from wearing scented products and fragrances like cologne when you attend.

The event will be at the Jackson Place Cohousing common house dining room, at 800 Hiawatha Place South, Seattle, 98144. It is by buses 7,14,48,8,4,36,60,ST550, and is wheelchair accessible & ADA-compliant. From the intersection of Dearborn & Hiawatha, head up the hill a half block then take a right in the alley, and a right onto the terrace. There is very limited parking off the alley, which should be saved for those who require an accessible space.

Sponsored by: Jewish Voices for Peace, Coaliton of Anti-Racist Whites, Tools for Change.

About CARW: http://carw.org 


RantWoman accessibility tirades:
*****Directions helpful for people with vision impairments and for people who find it easier to climb stairs than to deal with hills: Jackson Place co-housing is located on the SE corner of Dearborn and Hiawatha Pl. S, one block E of Rainier Ave. S. Both the northbound and the southbound buses on Rainier Ave S stop N of Dearborn; the stoplight at Rainier and Dearborn is helpful for crossing streets.

Once you arrive at the SE corner of Hiawatha Pl. S and Dearborn, if you continue S on Hiwatha, there will be the first of two stairways going up from the street to the terrace level. Take the first stairway and turn Left at the top of the stairs to find the Dining room.

*****The dining room at Jackson Place co-Housing is wheelchair accessible provided one arrives by car and is able to park in one of the available spaces. If one arrives by bus, do not underestimate the significance of "up the hill!" The hill is steep enough that people who use manual wheelchairs will almost certainly appreciate someone helping to push them up the hill. People who use power chairs or scooters are invited to use their judgment about center of gravity issues.

*****The dining room at Jackson Place co-housing is also fairly live accoustically and some people with hearing impairments find it difficult to hear there.

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A sermon: Who do you say I am, and a blog

RantWoman  recommends this wonderful sermon: Who do you say I am?
http://sojo.net/blogs/2013/08/26/thing-who-do-you-say-i-am?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sojourners%2Fgods-politics+%28Sojourners+God%27s+Politics+Blog%29

RantWoman further recommends the conjectural navelgazing blog
http://anglobaptist.org/
RantWoman thinks the blog is a little bit an argument for further maturation, but still finds it energizing.

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Let's not have a party.

RantWoman is still picking over moments from this year's NPYM Annual Session. RantWoman is in Tells too much of the Truth mode regarding certain customs at NPYM Annual Session that it would be hard for newcomers to find or hard for parents of young children to participate in.


1. Bible Study at Breakfast.

--A Friend has a continuing leading to lead this; other Friends have continuing leadings to show up. Some years, announcements about this make it into the Daily Bulletin. This year, a table in the dining room filled by word of mouth without ever listing it in the Daily Bulletin. RantWoman thought of mentioning the listing, but then kept silent.

--This year's readings were from I Kings, chapters 17-19 or so. RantWoman GOES to Bible studey to learn more bible stories and this year's readings rocked in that regard.
--The hard for parents point: it's a time when there is no childcare. A single mom had a grandmother in her circle supervise her 4-year-old. Note to self: Accessibility to Families Committee could ask people who have been attending Annual Session since infancy or people who have brought young children to Annual Session what coping strategies they used.



2. Meeting for Worship with Attention to Chocolate

This event customarily includes both chocolate and stories of brushes with Fame.

--The event occurs on either Friday or Saturday of Annual Session and is oe of those only by word of mouth occasions that RantWoman gets invited to when she happens onto it but that otherwise no one would have any way of finding. This comment is in no way any opinion about whether eating chocolate at 10pm is GOOD for RantWoman.

--The Brushes With Fame must refer to the Brusher in some indirect terms. For instance if RantWoman were to speak of the story behind this blog post http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2013/07/spank-spitzer.html, RantWoman might says something like "my grandparents' oldest grandchild" went to school with the former governor of NY now running for other public office.

--The hard for parents point is just that Meeting for Chocolate usually occurs when kids should be headed toward bed and in fact around 10 pm Quaker Midnight, the witching hour when even many Quaker adults (not RantWoman) also head off to bed.

--Some years attendance at Meeting for Chocolate is greater than other years. RantWoman is meditating about why she even feels entitled to be invited or to have the event widely enough known for newcomers to participate in, but she does. Cope!

Scratch that. RantWoman thinks if God is supposed to be accessible to all, the chocolate should be too. RantWoman further thinks that what Friends have to offer the world is a lot bigger than Meeting for Chocolate, but if we cannot even invite ... into Meeting for Chocolate....

--RantWoman tends not to think of the event in advance for instance to contribute some chocolate. So RantWoman is putting this on her maybe try to remember for next year list.

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Food, Fed, Feed Spiritually

On eating,food, stewardship and Wealth

Eating sunshine for the butterflies in one's stomach
http://nancyjthomas.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-sunshine-eater.html

Spirituality and community and struggles with anorexia
http://morewithmuchless.blogspot.com/2013/06/my-name-is-michelle-and-i-am-thirty-two.html

Biking as meditation and the gratitudes involved in a family being able to do it.
http://quakeroatslive.blogspot.com/2013/06/mama-does-god-hate-cars.html

Pope Francis: Wasting Food is like Stealing from the Poor
http://sojo.net/blogs/2013/06/05/pope-francis-wasting-food-stealing-poor?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sojourners%2Fgods-politics+%28Sojourners+God%27s+Politics+Blog%29

The Lamb's war wioth dialogue in the comments about stewardship
http://www.lambswar.com/give-it-all-away/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LambsWar+%28The+Lamb%27s+War%29

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Contagion?

Who do you say I am?

RantWoman hereby celebrates the election of a new Pope, a Jesuit who has chosen his Papal name to remember St. Francis of Assisi's focus on the poor and humble by invoking.....Robert Barclay, educated by Calvinists and Jesuits, ... and John Woolman. RantWoman needs to get a couple Quaker in-jokes out of her system; RantWoman also promises she DOES mean to poke and probe at what the living presence of the Holy Spirit asks of her Meeting or at least of RantWoman.


Furthermore, RantWoman hereby celebrates both Nominating Season and the season of drafting the State of Society Report. "Celebrates" is a peculiar word. RantWoman is wondering whether she has been fed some weird too much of the truth serum of quinoa, guacamole, and 4 stars spicy salsa or whether some stray bedbug left over from last year's contingent has just been scouring her email:



Recent email from....Conflict is a Gift of God Friend:

"We are facing a significant down-tick in participation this winter -- worship attendance is down almost 20% from last winter. "


RantWoman:

Thank you for sharing this concern. I appreciate info about something I would not necessarily have noted.

--To what might we attribute this decline?

--the annual flu / crud being worse than average both in firs instance and in tendency to recur?

--a significant number of Friends called to travel because of deaths in their families, work, pleasure?

--the exhausting barbarity that passes for work schedule for many working age Friends

--the expense and tiresomeness of travel by car or bus

--childrearing, eldercare. grieving, medical events all the matters lurking amongst us trying our spirits right now

--The demands and darned inconveniences of aging. We have many weighty wonderful but rapidly decrepitating elders. Without in the least making any effort, for instance, to ask Rantwoman's permission (Rats. RantWoman would not grant it anyway) many of these weighty souls are beset by hearing loss, rheumatism, Parkinsonism, various forms of vision meltdown, digestive obstructions, dyspepsia, disinclination to leave the house, and multitudinous other distresses. A certain Pendle Hill pamphlet may well go on as to "Hallowing our Diminishments" but what if Friends really need is "Howling about our Diminishments"?

--weird weather?

--people coming once and not feeling led to return?

--People besides RantWoman sometimes feeling bored and stifled by all the beloved Friends in Adult Religious Education who are certain they have things figured out and need to say so instead of listening when some of us don't?

--People afraid of being accosted by someone loudly calling them to the community of coffeemaking?

--People who want other people just to shut up and go make coffee and don't deign to listen about spiritual matters or who demand conversations about spiritual matters predigested according to each person's individual tastes?

--Fear that Nominating Committee will try to draft them for something frustrating that does not feed them spiritually...?

--Something else which has somehow evaded the fog and blur of RantWoman's oh, so limited Light?


Have you considered whether you should also perhaps share your concern with:

--the clerk of Meeting?

--members of Worship and Ministry?

--members of Oversight?

--the clerk of Finance Committee?

--someone on Nominating Committee?

--random people who those listed above do not necessarily talk to



What would YOU have us do about this? Any guesses what others might feel led to do about this?

--Different format activities?

--Weekly invitations on Facebook so that all the people who Beliefnet tells are Liberal Quakers know how to find us? Oh dear. That means presuming we have something to offer a world hungering for spiritual communion. Actual agents of contagion? (See below)

--Potlucks at arbitrary intervals, perhaps featuring random rambling moments from RantWoman's dorky documentary collection, disaster preparedness, other slightly demented entertainment?
--The harangue a month Saturday brunch club?

--some sort of neighborhood based gathering / witness and gardening party

See some of these ideas definitely speak to Rantwoman and RantWoman is having problems finding other Friends who either share her enthusiasm or are willing to be carried along, say for the sheer privilege and delight of hanging out with RantWoman, the joy of walking in the Light....?

Recently RantWoman saw something connected with flu season about infection control and different religious practices including communion. Having read Barclay's Apology last year, RantWoman might offer one comment about infection control through spiritual rather than physical communion, including HOPEFULLY the immune boost from just showing up around one's community.


(Disaster Preparedness Brain also recalls encountering a story of one community whose residents during the 1918 flu epidemic were too scared of contagion to go out and care for each other. Guess which community suffered a much higher than average death rate!)

The Woolman reading group this year is getting a really different spin on infection control and particularly sometimes deliberate exposure to small pox.

Put this all in the salad slicer with someone's definition RantWoman read recently of being an elder as "agent of contagion for the Holy Spirit." What might "agent of contagion for the Holy Spirit look like around our Meeting?

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Sexuality Education in Friends Schools

Sexuality education in Friends schools

http://www.friendsjournal.org/friends-schools-and-healthy-sexuality/

Friends Journal article, blog as filing cabinet.

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The Princess Dress?

RantWoman is fitfully in her own fashion observing National Women's History Month. This item includes actual historical women.

And this post is dedicated, among other things to Irrepressible Nephew. Before Christmas Irrepressible Nephew was in the middle school play. Anyone remember middle school where some of the girls (Oh Quaker Auntie...) are about 8 feet tall and the boys, well, aren't? Hold Little Sister in the Light for getting her underwear in a wad about the number of girls in male roles. And enjoy the Bible!

For the record, Irrepressible Nephew does not own anything that could remotely be considered a Princess Dress. His father, who definitely exhibits many layers of tenderness, still probably would not let him out of  the house in such a thing if he did. This is fine with Irrepressible Nephew. His preferred standard of couture is as close to naked as possible anyway.

But here is Bible half hour

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Maybe the Velcro WAS the message.

RantWoman has been meditating on a recent week in Meeting's life including spells of words and silence, messages, new Friends working into worship, and people with specific concerns on their hearts. RantWoman writes in a spirit of Love and Truth and holds many in the Light. RantWoman promises to get to the Velcro. The road will wind a little. Tough.


Adult Education featured a pastor from the Interfaith Task Force on Homelessness. He had much to say. One story: he and a much younger advocate recently spent 8 hours walking alongside a guy who had been living in his car. The car got towed and impounded. The owner came up with money to get the car back from the towing company but it was obvious to everyone except him that the car did not run and continuing to try to live in it was untenable. It took 8 hours of him trying different things and falling short of goal after goal. Finally the guy realized that he needed a different plan. RantWoman does not even remember all the details such as what happened to the car or the guy's housing issues. RantWoman was simply transfixed by the 8 hours it took of walking with.

Off RantWoman and everyone else went to Meeting for Worship. RantWoman remembers hardly any trouble settling in. RantWoman remembers a long spell of blessed silence. Considering the disruptions to come for others, RantWoman has to consider the possibility that part of this blessed worship included a nap.

RantWoman completely missed matters of which she learned complaints later in the afternoon after those wading through John Woolman's journal chewed our way through a good deal of Woolman's essay on the keeping of Negroes.

In worship, after the long spell of silence or what RantWoman remembers as silence, there followed three nicely space messages:

--One was about something to do with suffering for one's faith and the possibly contradictory Biblical thought that when one is in line with God, one's yoke is easy and one's burden is light.

--One was a Friend reading Dietrich Bonhoffer in German with a message about "blessed are those who mourn," except that the German was Martin Luther's translation from the Greek, where the Greek usually translated as "mourn in English came out as "carry sorrow."

Language brain noodled about briefly around how different "the Lamb's War" sounds in English, Russian, and Spanish but none of those noodles seemed ripe for the rest of the room carrying sorrow.

--A third message RantWoman remembers poorly except that it came from II Corinthians and was a non-annoying message offered by a Friend whose messages sometimes annoy RantWoman.

RantWoman's mind wandered toward her standard "grab the blind person and bless them" / "I don't know what to do with all these blessings" meme but worship closed before anything came close to wandering out of RantWoman's mouth. Probably just as well.

The monthly meeting of the group meandering through John Woolman's journal turned out to be blessed sharing. RantWoman came without having done the reading and means to pen a separate item about texts and formats and why SOMETIMES it can be a gift just to work with what others digest of certain questions. RantWoman admits to considerable inconsistency about this point and an fact finds some people's print digestion efforts decidedly uncongenial, vexation, and annoying. Would anyone expect anything less than rabid flaming inconsistency of RantWoman?

Apparently RantWoman's call to listen extended beyond Woolman. After the reading group broke up, New Attender / Deeply Grieving Friend spoke to RantWoman and Weighty Friend of her grief and of multiple disruptions to her worship experience before she left worship and went to the library, apparently before the verbal messages.


The complaints RantWoman and Weighty Friend heard:

--One easily identifiable Friend, urk, a member of Worship and Ministry bounced into worship in his usual energetic way, LATE.

--Deeply Grieving Friend spoke again of her grieving situation and how she felt all the noise was just TOO MUCH disruption and going to sit in the library.

The things RantWoman heard from more listening:
--Another easily identifiable Friend disturbed the universe opening her velcro. This Friend admitted to feeling fidgety and RantWoman thinks was probably sitting near Deeply Grieving Friend. RantWoman just knows where these two Friends usually sit and has sometimes had the experience of feeling something close that others in a large room miss. Okay so that sounds a little woo-woo, somewhere between movements of Holy Spirit and emotional lie detector. Use what language you like. Sometimes it happens.

--Grieving Friend was so put out by the ripping Velcro that she fled and spent ther rest of worship in the Library. She later told RantWoman that she was just too overcome with her own grief. She had been reading Howard Brinton on worship and was worried about being too much for worship. RantWoman thought of all the others in Meeting grieving, of all the times that different people report being called to give a message and hearing from more than one person that the message was clearly for them. RantWoman has assured Deeply Grieving Friend that she should trust her Light because sometimes her message WILL also be for others in the room.

--RantWoman picked up one of those "it makes RantWoman fret when someone tells me..." points that RantWoman could not ignore and had to recognize the reality that probably she specifically was the one called to minister about.

--RantWoman also heard enough "Help" and felt enough "help!" on her own behalf that RantWoman AGAIN inflamed Friends' inboxes with email. The email bore all kinds of fruit for which RantWoman is VERY grateful.

So maybe the Velcro WAS the message.

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The Six Most Badass Things done by Pacifists

A Blog as filing cabinet item. RantWoman counted only 3 but one of them was a series of stories about Bayard Rustin, in the realm of setting impossible standards, but powerfully inspiring

http://www.cracked.com/article_20157_the-6-most-aggressively-badass-things-done-by-pacifists_p2.html

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Hannukah Flash Mob

And lo' the season of winter festivity fell upon the land and theological / thealogical options for time warp set upon RantWoman's brain.

And RantWoman reads young Quakers who DO advocate distinct days of Thanksgiving
http://lambswar.blogspot.com/2012/11/why-quakers-should-celebrate.html

and who think of thanksgiving every day.

http://www.jonwatts.com/2012/we-dont-need-a-holiday-to-give-thanks/
And RantWoman reads of solstice rituals

http://aquakerwitch.blogspot.com/2012/12/winter-solstice-2012.html

and adds Orthodox liturgical year to her options for hyphenated Quakers

http://johanpdx.blogspot.com/2012/12/more-thoughts-on-hyphen-within.html

and meditates fitfully but without bloggable coherence of Advent on
Can you Believe

and The Lamb's War
http://lambswar.blogspot.com/2012/12/advent-and-empire-of-this-world.html with spiritual digression with thoughts of Metro as mission field and wonderment for the God of the bus and the realization of the Kingdom of Heaven

and digressed to a different Word and Flesh moment
http://lambswar.blogspot.com/2012/11/should-quakers-be-laying-on-hands.html

And lo, tidings of Hanukah penetrated RantWoman's dense skull and  the Lord spake unto RantWoman and the Lord said "search engine hanukah flash mob" and lo, the Lord and the search engine delivered unto RantWoman:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULtglogZbR8

RantWoman has read the accompanying titles. RantWoman suspects that if she knew anything more about the exact organization who produced this video, she might find reason to become apoplectic. Nevertheless, RantWoman is clear to hadd this to this year's theological festival of singing and dancing and to let God handle any brouhaha which might result from theological collisions on her blog.

Coming up next: Presbyterians gone wild?

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Journey of Faith Flash Mob repurposes Temple of Commerce

From a relative RantWoman, who is actually very fond of said relative, still sometimes affectionately refers to as "Uncle Spam."

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Ben Pink Dandelion at North Seattle Friends

If news somehow has missed you of Ben Pink Dandelion delivering 3 days of Woodward lectures at North Seattle Friends Church, on the topic "A Short History of Time, Transformation, and the Quakers," there is still time for two more lectures.

http://www.facebook.com/events/157298894410964

If you are short of time, get on the road to the lectures and skip the rants below!


The stories of Ben Pink Dandelion's name make RantWoman smile, not only for the utterly engaging delivery. Ben was born a surprise to parents, "devout atheists," in their 40's. For some reason a Biblical story about parents in a similar state led then to name him Benjamin. The surname? Oh, the surname. That dates from a peace camp in 1984. All the anarchists there took very silly names. Everyone else with even sillier names changed their names back the next year. Pink Dandelion did not. RantWoman wonders whether the concept of parental consternation applies to atheist parents faced with such choices.
RantWoman is  Biblically challenged as far as the finer points of theNew Testamentand the evolution of Paul's thinking. RantWoman is also severely challenged as to early religious tracts and the history of 17th century England. Perhaps it is no wonder that some pieces of the story Pink Dandelion is trying to tell have not cohered in RantWoman's mind. Alas, RantWoman is going to be unable to attend the Sunday lecture where the part about what all this means for our life today is on the schedule. So RantWoman wil have either to get the lecture secondhand subject to idiosyncratic digestion,  , read abook, or trust her own Light. Oh Dear!

Speaking of reading a book, SIGH! RantWoman visited both Amazon and Pendle Hill sites. Pendle Hill is selling NOTHING electronically, not even so much as a PDF version of a pamphlet. SIGH! RantWoman found a number of things on Amazon and bought a small pamphlet for her Kindle. RantWoman gets to debate about any more of the subset of the total titles that are availabe for her Kindle. Sigh!

And then there was Powerpoint, aka Death by Powerpoint in Quakerese.

RantWoman congratulates Pink Dandelion for his very first Powerpoint ever, a VERY Quakerly Powerpoint.

First, RantWoman was told there were three slides;RantWoman remembers only two. In eihter case, RantWomanappreciates numerical modesty. The title slide was appropriately plain. Bold font, womehwat larger would not have hurt.

The other slide RantWoman remembers featured some kind of a line drawing of timelines tying together the first Coming and the Second Coming. The image was very Quakerly in the following sense. No one expects RantWoman to see anything but fog and blur; almost no one else could see anything either. This approach certainly evokes a certain visual sense of Waiting on God. If that was the intended effect, RantWoman thinks this Powerpoint virgin succeeded remarkably. RantWoman is not feeling nearly as absolutist as sometimes about Powerpoint. In fact, she is compiling a couple of Powerpoint sins forto send to a blind Powerpointer needing to make some pedagogical points; in the Spirit of integrity and single standard ofTruth, for purposes here, advice: if you are going to sin with Powerpoint in the first  place, PLEASE sin boldly!

In the meantime, another concept to check out at the lectures, get thee to  the next two lectures!

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Halloween, Hanging over

Silence.




(Warm lighting



Grey-brown chairs against grey-brown walls punctuated by Exit signs.)



Silence.



(I will not text during Meeting for Worship. I will not text during Meeting for Worship. I will not text during Meeting for Worship.



No, but I WILL do my hand PT exercises.



I will not text during Meeting for Worship. I will not text during Meeting for Worship. I will not text during Meeting for Worship.



No, but I will exercise legs, ankles, wrists….)



Silence.





(Halloween is the middle of the week, so which Sunday gets to be Reformation Sunday?)



Silence.











Zombie figures wandering back and forth between worlds or at least in and out of worship mourning

Andrew Tole, whom RantWoman never met, of Harvard Business School and case study method fame.

Rice Bucket Friend who just had a memorial that should have its own post

(Mother of Peace Activist Friend, seriously weighty Friend in her own right

Mr. Recently Widowed Friend

Lynn Waddington whose book needs to be an audio book.

Police officer shot in line of duty the same day Lynn died and his brave partner who returned to work after also having been shot

Recently Decamped Neighbor due to get her own memorial)





Halloween #Haiku #Quakers





Too much Quaker grey?

Bright lighting, many fidgets

Again with the bland?



Too much Quaker grey?

A time of many colors

Worshipful palette?







A Rainbow sweater

A coat of many colors

Halloween party!



A Rainbow sweater

A coat of many colors

Biblical harvest



Multihued Worship

A night of many colors

Happy Halloween







More blog characters

Think Worship and Ministry

Maybe don’t think hard.



I see you’re in pain

Let me tell you about mine.

Worship and mourning?



Evolution Friend

All evolution always

When do we evolve?



Overbooked parents

An hour and a half per month

To get God’s work done?



Put it behind you …

We have a fresh new load of …

Biblical harvest?



“I’m scared. God’s spooky”

“Your God’s too spooky for me.”

“God is mine, all mine.”



Hold us In the Light!

I do not apologize

For speaking my Truth



Multihued Worship

Discerning many colors

Happy Halloween



So I thank You God

For the fabulous curry

Still warming me up



Multihued Worship

Discerning many colors

Happy Halloween



Oh, Oh, Montana

Neighbor Recently Decamped,

From East Helena



Oh, Oh, Montana

My brother wants, needs his coat

Winter drawing near



Oh, Oh, Montana

Painful things near my surface

Oh, Oh, Montana



Multihued Worship

A night of many colors

Happy Halloween





Metro Halloween

All kinds of Spooks and Goblins

May I get off here?



Multifaith Metro

Need Peace Testimony NOW

Happy Halloween



Are you a Muslim?

A very drunk Halloween…

May I get off here?



Metro Halloween

A very blessed Halloween

Again with the blessed?

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Blue Jesus Prayer for our nation (and everyone else?)

RantWoman received this offering from one of RantMom's church friends. Church Friend has many family reasons to need to be held in the Light; one might or might not need Blue Jesus to hold Church freind in the Light. RantWoman is unsure what message Blue Jesus has for her.

God Bless America, indeed! RantWoman is thinking of Weighty Russian Believer friend's thoughts about need both God Bless and God be Merciful (Gospid blagoslovi/ Gospodi pomilyi!)

Follow all the directions for maximum effect although RantWoman thinks she got as much as can be gotten without maximum effect.

Click on the link below.

If you have speakers, turn them on.

I do pray for our nation and its leaders to change their hearts - let us unite in prayer for our nation and our leaders.
When the screen fills up with words, the words tumble to the bottom and new words start up again at the top of the screen.

Listen, read and watch.
Click here >  The Lord's Prayer set to music with Blue Jesus

Pray for our nation
then click on F11 key to go full screen.


God Bless America--and everyone else!!!!

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Elevator Speeches 1, 2, 3

Elevator speech 1
A. Be true to your Light.
B. Use the correct terminology. Use it all the time as often as possible.

RantWoman takes to heart two pieces of advice from sexuality educator Marja Brandon. First every time RantWoman has heard Marja speak Marja has said something along the lines of "Be true to your Light." For the more secular-minded or those squeamish about Marja's lamguage Gavin DeBecker, author of several books about stalking and per sonal safety says "trust your gut." RantWoman likes "Be true to your Light better, even when the issue is her own inner blowtorch.

Marja's second piece of advice: use correct terminology. Use it correctly. Use it as often as you can. Practice saying it in all kinds of innocuous settings so you have it easily at hand when you most need it. RantWoman means to take this to heart. Really. Yes, but a still small voice keeps tugging at her soul: "Um, earth to RantWoman, you know that much-hyped Russian punk band whose name you are too uptight to say? How is that 'use the correct terminology' thing working out for you?"

Another voice chimes in. "RantWoman, not everyone even wants to speak of all this either." Forget the still small voice thing there are a LOT of people around here with hearing loss. What was that you said? People would rather not talk abut it? It does not matter whether it's important to talk about. The "rather not talk about it crowd thinks you are just stomping on their nerves. Sure . Okay. I CANNOT read their faces so they are going to have to USE THEIR WORDS.



Elevator Speech 2
At the Faith Action Network summit in Seattle.

I am a Quaker...

[appreciative nodding We LIKE it when Quakers come.

Urk! May I adjust your expectations? I am not a Quaker because I am any good at this peace and love stuff; I am a Quaker because I need all the help I can get! Oh Wait, maybe that's TOO MUCH INFORMATION?]

Going around the room, people talked about what speicific concerns rise in their congregations. People mentioned marriaige equality, education. Someone else mentioned offender re-entry.

Here, more or less, was the RantWoman elevator speech for the occasion:
I come wearing two hats, my own congregation (Meeting) and the Friends Committee on WA Public Policy.

At my Meeting,

People engage at the individual level by supporting the League of Women Voters voter registration campaigns, by phone-banking in support of marriage equality before the Ref. 74 vote in November. Several of us feel quite strongly about bicycle, pendestrian, and other transportation issues as part of concern for sustainability.

As a Meeting:, we host a SHARE (self-managed homeless) shelter. Another important ministry is being a spiritual home for survivors of abuse, attending to the safety needs of our members and including two known sex offenders in our community. We did not go looking for the sex offenders ministry. It kind of came and found us; it is not always easy. It is also a rich experience .

[NO reaction RantWoman could detect. Not even any conversational lingering.]

And in terms of dealing on the front end with racial disparity in the criminal justice system (also  already mentioned more than once), an important achievement for the Friends Committee for WA Public Policy has been enactment of a law listng restorative justice as an option for dealing with juvenile offenders.

[also NO reaction RantWoman could detect. Nor conversational lingering. But much else to get on to.]




Elevator speech 3:
It's 3 or 4 country western songs. Please just hold my family in the Light. Lots of things are happening to churn up topics that need elevator speeches. No, frankly I do not need anyone's opinion that my family is crazy. NO ONE except someone inside it gets to say that. Plus, frankly, I am bored of the details. Maybe one of these days continuing revelation and New Light will team up in new directions. In the meantime, all prayers gratefully received.

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Morning Moral Uplift 2: Just add Sex

RantWoman has been inspired by this item about sex as the key to notice in the world of publishing.
http://sojo.net/magazine/2012/09/authors-cry-help

More on that (vulgarity) Riot Band
http://johanpdx.blogspot.com/2012/08/is-christianity-under-attack.html
--Who SAYS caring about feminism and gay rights means Christianity is under attack?. At least in the US there are many committed Christians in the US who think supporting both reflects the height of Christianity.
--Virgin / Whore. Virgin / Whore down to the female judge primly lecturing the defendants about their "blasphemous" intent. What kind of wimpy God are people talking about if God cannot handle people's heartfelt concerns for their country?
--RantWoman is not impressed by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin calling Madonna a slut all over Twitter for her support of the band. RantWoman supposes that Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin should be a better man than to need to beat up on a woman, no matter how low his opinion of her. More to the point: he's the Deputy Prime Minister. He should be able to do better than name-calling!
--RantWoman is delighted with the bilingual pun on the band's name on a T-shirt. Sure, make them do time.


On a more serious note, another of those RantWoma nis interested in further reading but may or may not get more read than...
http://sojo.net/magazine/2012/09/shame-grace


Readers wondering how all this passes for moral uplift get only to compare notes with yesterday. Yesterday RantWoman made it through her first whole Psalm in Braille since breaking her arm. Reading Braille like a whole lot of other things is hard for RantWoman to do left-handed. RantWoman has tried a couple other Psalms since getting a shorter cast with more liberty for fingers but something else just got too painful within a sentence or two. Cue Psalm 137, a short one but one htat ends in the RSV with something about God slamming children against walls if parents forget his name. RantWoman was absolutely BLESSED to find yesterday's moral uplift item in her blog roll.

Today RantWoman skipped the Psalm. See what happens?

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How they do it in Canada

RantWoman notes with interest several things about this post from the Canadian YM Annual Session and other things CYM:

http://www.quaker.ca/Committees/hmac/blog/cym-2012-camrose-ab-bible-study-monday-morning

--What CYM calls its two variants of what RantWoman takes to be Worship Sharing

--Worship Sharing departing from Bible study and it appears from a challenging passage at that.

--Blogging the course of Annual Session. RantWoman in many contexts finds this kind of dispatch helpful in her h olding in her care even ts sh e is un able for one reason  or another she is unable to attend in person.

--The YM website includes links to several CYM blogosphere publishers of Truth.

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