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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Galina Evgeevna Orlova 10 May 1937 - 23 December 2013

Galina Evgeevna Orlova, one of the founders of Friends House Moscow, translator of Thomas R Kelly, Bill Taber and many other Quaker materials, passed away today. Blessings, prayers, gratitude for her life and all who loved and admired her!

Here is the Russian text of a memorial minute by Patricia Cockrell of Britain Yearly Meeting, as posted today on Facebook. Given last week's experience with Bing, I will either look for an English version of this item or provide one later this week.

Галина Евгеньевна Орлова
(10 мая 1937 – 23 декабря 2012)

Свои первые пятьдесят лет Галина Евгеньевна жила жизнью непримечательного советского гражданина. В университете она прошла обязательные курсы марксизма-ленинизма и вышла замуж за однокурсника Эрнста Абрамовича Красновского, изучавшего русскую литературу. После ВУЗа их вместе распределили на работу в школу на Камчатку, в девяти часовых поясах на восток от Москвы. Им нравилась и их работа и природа того края, но они скучали по культурной жизни столицы и были рады по окончании обязательного срока вернуться и устроиться работать учителями в Москве, где в 1968 году у них родился сын Глеб.

Галина впервые встретила упоминание о квакерах в одном из рассказов Николая Лескова. Ссылка в советской книжке поясняла, что это была секта, недолгое время существовавшая в Англии, а сейчас почти исчезнувшая. Поэтому, когда мы встретились у нее в школе в 1988 году, она была удивлена, узнав, что я квакер. Хотя у нас был очень плотный график, между уроков мы находили время поговорить о разном, но Галину особенно интересовали квакеры. В последующие годы, когда я со своими учениками по программе обмена приезжала к ней в школу, в моем багаже были книги и брошюры о квакерстве. Галине было интересно читать их, но чтение вызывало и чувство неудовлетворенности: частью из-за того, что она тогда не достаточно хорошо владела английским языком, а частью и из-за того, что каждый текст вызывал новые вопросы. Я посоветовала ей присоединиться к небольшой группе, проводившей в Москве молитвенные собрания по примеру Друзей, потому что квакерство должно быть прочувствовано на личном опыте, а не выучено по учебникам. Но это тоже не удовлетворило ее вдруг проснувшуюся жажду духовной жизни, хотя некоторые книги ей особенно понравились, в частности работы Томаса Келли и Уильяма Тэйбера на русском языке.

Галина завершила свою учительскую карьеру и посвятила себя изучению квакерской веры и практики. И для этого ей понадобилось улучшить свои навыки в английском языке. Она получила грант для прохождения курса обучения в Вудбрукском учебном центре, и там же она обратилась с заявлением и получила международное членство в Обществе Друзей. Она говорила о своем времени в Вудбруке, как о золотой возможности для внутреннего преобразования. Каждый день она участвовала в молитвенных собраниях и эпилогах, и до конца своей жизни сохранила привычку ежедневной молчаливой молитвы.

Когда она стала клерком только что признанного Московского месячного собрания, Галина с большим интересом читала о сути собрания и практических функциях клерка в книге Брайана Морли «За пределами консенсуса», которую она и группа Друзей перевели на русский язык.

1 января 1996 года, когда в Москве начал работу Дом Друзей, Галина стала его сотрудником. Она упорно шла по пути собственного духовного роста, и у нее хорошо получалось обучать как отдельных духовных искателей, так и группы квакеров на территории бывшего Советского Союза. Посетители офиса принимались с теплом и уважением. Для поддержки проектов Дома Друзей Галине пришлось много поездить – в том числе в Псков (поддержка детей-инвалидов), Краснодар (беженцы), Чечню (жертвы войны). Она также в течение многих лет посвящала уйму времени и усилий проекту «Альтернативы насилию», переводя материалы, готовя фасилитаторов, участвуя в работе Совета проекта.

Глубоко преданная целям Дома Друзей, Галина была несколько лет членом правления этой организации после того, как в 2004 году болезнь вынудила ее выйти на пенсию.Затем она посвящала себя уходу за внуком Кириллом, одновременно с мужеством и смирением борясь с постоянно возрастающими печальными симптомами болезни Паркинсона.

Она никогда не искала себе наград и говорила правду, даже когда это было неудобно. Она жила скромно и имела минимум личных нужд. Галина говорила, что время, проведенное ею в Доме Друзей, стало радостным опытом учебы, совмещенной с большими возможностями поддерживать других людей и следовать своим собственным духовным путем.

Патриша Кокрэлл (Британское Годовое собрание)
Из свидетельств Божьей милости в жизни ушедших Друзей

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Christmas presents: minutes AND email.

RantWoman has discovered that her email drafts folder is a little like the closet where one stores Christmas presents one has accumulated over a good spell before the holiday. Here are two such presents, one about minutes and one about email. Readers are invited to note that RantWoman is holding them in the Light as they read.

RantWoman of late has been called, repeatedly to concerns about minutes, specifically the difference between recording decisions and recording minutes of exercise hopefully reflecting the range of comments about some or another issue.

RantWoman is aware that, at least in others' estimation, she is probably overachieving on numerous not preferable dimensions. RantWoman suggests that readers who venture further and find themselves perplexed either trust their Light or feel free to inquire of RantWoman what the heck she is talking about.

With minutes of decision, precision and clarity are greatly to be desired. With minutes of exercise, RantWoman feels called to point out that part of the POINT of the exercise is like tilling a garden with different plants able to make different things of the available material.

RantWoman is holding several minutes of exercise situations for additional discernment. RantWoman takes exception to what has gotten recorded in all of them. RantWoman is clear repeatedly to speak specifically because of a sense of community going astray from Truth if she does not. Hold RantWoman--and community--in the Light.

First, the tilling the garden thoughts came from a conversation involving lots of references to pruning, dislike of thinkings that seem like voting or that seem argumentative or repetitive. RantWoman wanted to speak more of tuning, of pulling different voices into the right chord and harmonies for the situation.

Not to be argumentative, but how are Friends supposed to discern sense of the room if some threads do not get woven into a succession of offerings?
RantWoman also particularly points out that Friends sometimes need to hold thoughts of "helpful" on different timeline. RantWoman sent argumentative email to one of the people behind the "don't be argumentative" votes. RantWoman has acquired some experience working with disaster preparedness topics for very diverse audiences. RantWoman pointed out that certain behaviors which are actually already darned annoying when everyone is warm and dry and the lights are on might be peculiarly helpful in making those assembled think of resources needed for more extreme circumstances. If RantWoman thinks about this thread a few steps further, she suspects a topical query might be what spiritual resources are needed in worlds of White People Adjustment / What really needs to evolve to whip this Climate Change thing conferences?

Not to be argumentative, but RantWoman has been holding the following thoughts:  "Trust the committee" vs test the committee; bring it to the group and let go. When RantWoman drafted this she had in mind 3 situations where what the Business Meeting did with the work of the committee was very different from what the committee did. In the interest of conciseness if RantWoman recalls these situations in form sufficient for blogging, RantWoman promises to examine them in their own entry.


The second challenge on RantWoman's mind is the use of email for Quaker Business. RantWoman is not prepared to lay down her clerkship of the Association of Bad Friends Still Didn't Get the Memo Committee on Email Immoderation; this can be one problem. The other problem is that every time RantWoman picks up the question of email, it turns all squishy in her hands.

RantWoman adores email BECAUSE it is a record of what was said. RantWoman deeply appreciates being able to use a search bar and find things without having to skim her own impossible handwriting. RantWoman also has personal experience with people who say they dislike email, have work history reasons for being leery of email, but also maybe have a hearing loss and, it turns out, actually do much better by email.

In this vein, RantWoman was thrilled by a Quarterly Meeting plenary a couple Quarterly Meetings ago involving a restorative circle exercise exactly about the pros and cons of email. RantWoman only wishes everyone in her life for whom email is a vexed question had been at the Quarterly Meeting.
For example RantWoman attended a Clerking workshop with Weighty Friends who Teach Clerking. One of the items handed out as if it were holy writ without invitation to discuss was a statement on email seasoned by Milwaukee and Claremont Friends, Friends of a generation who dislike email. 

After the clerking workshop, RantWoman banged out a series of emails to the effect, among other things, that perhaps Friends who cannot imagine God showing up by email may in fact be writing whole generations out of their concept of the divine. RantWoman is grateful that her offerings were well-received in the abstract; applications in practice around RantWoman continue to evolve.


Friends

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Advent Week 2

RantWoman, inquiring minds may or may not want to know but they get to find out anyway:

What is thy leading as to Advent Bloggery?

RantWoman's leadings are as follows:

--There are FOUR Sundays in Advent and RantWoman means to try at least to mark all of these, plus or minus a day or two.

--RantWoman's soul is seething with backlogged topics to write of but RantWoman is challenged both by time and by need, overdue, to upgrade personal computer.

--RantWoman's brain is seething with topics which involve her faith community but may or may not be confined to her faith community.

--RantWoman's life is RICH in inclinations to rant at length and may or may not rant only in her Quaker blog.

Please hold both RantWoman and those in the vicinity of the Inner blowtorch in the Light.

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Horrors? Oops. Well. Care and Counsel!

The Bedbugs? (Put bedbugs into the search box to see what RantWoman is talking about) Have the Bedbugs hacked up another missive? The bedbugs in RantWoman's Meeting utterly disclaim and disavow any knowledge as to the provenance of the document below. In fact they are shocked, shocked, and also appalled even to appear in the same paragraph.




RantWoman herself handles the material with trepidation. RantWoman writes in a spirit of love and Truth of people and situations she cares deeply about. RantWoman takes full responsibility for crankiness, excessive zaniness, and the glorious gratitude for all the trouble she has fixating visually in actually sometimes getting unspeakably fixated on SOMETHING.



The RantWoman eye view of the world can see between 0 and 5 of any given object; this can be particularly alarming if RantWoman is seeing 0 of a Mac truck barreling alongside. RantWoman also writes with trepidation lest the, um, unique RantWoman eye view of the world and RantWoman's own overly endowed capacity to muddle and misapprehend somehow distort Divine messages as well.



RantWoman IS a recording clerk. RantWoman is aware that there are themes here entangling several recording clerks. RantWoman is holding that role in the Light. The information below is DATA. Sometimes data adds up one way; sometimes one throws data up on a screen, metaphorical PLEASE, no death by Powerpoint for the shared Light of many. Sometimes RantWoman really would NOT mind finding a whole lot less data to collect.



Needless to say, editing has NOT occurred and any resemblance between the events recorded here and actual Meetings for Worship with attention to Business at any actual Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends are pure conjecture.





Minutes? Hours? of Bad Friend Monthly Meeting of the Society of Irreligious Fiends.



Once upon a time a fashion spread upon the land: We must eradicate every vestige of racism in our community's language and especially in our organizational bylaws. Yea verily, people of color are not tramping down the door coming to us. Some among us make a point to go nearer to others and listen and sometimes to struggle together; some among us wonder whether the reason is obscure Quakerese.



For instance, the word Overseers, lurking with greater or lesser visibility in different Friends communities, reeks of enslavement. The word is a veritable cataclysm of racial signification. We are told, the word Oversight, often seen in close proximity with or as a substitute for "overseers" is no better. So, to eradicate racism we would like to....drum roll please... rename the Oversight / Oops Well Committee. We would like the new name to be Care and Counsel.



Care and Counsel .Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel.



First we will publicize the proposed change in the newsletter of Bad Friend Monthly Meeting. Then we will or won't respond to questions we receive about history and consideration of other choices.



Then we will hand guests attending the White Privilege conference a big sloppy "Thank you for coming to town" kiss and discuss it in Meeting for Business right after the conference. And just to eradicate any whiff of discernment in Business Meeting we will bring a proposed bylaws change with Care and Counsel already enshrined as our choice. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel.



Care and Counsel .Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel! Shake those Quaker pom poms. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Set it to Music. Care and Counsel.



Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Next we will bring the change back to Meeting for Business where we will hear more than one person express specific concerns about the choice and we will AGAIN hear an inquiry about the word Oversight as opposed to Overseers. We will also hear notice of concerns about the use of oversee / oversight in contexts such as marriages where RantWoman thought it was God who oversees such things.Foreshadowing, RantWoman has decided that what made it into the final bylaws about this concern is not a change, not an improvement and therefore exempt from one very, very picky procedural point.



Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. RantWoman THINKS she has somewhere expressed concern to hear the "why" of different choices, not just some kind of internet poll of what choices are used.



Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel.



RantWoman had one conversation where she admitted to having trouble with the word Counsel because members of said committee have in the past offered counsel that misses big points in spectacular ways; RantWoman's counterpart did not inquire as to what RantWoman has in mind. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel.



Somewhere in here RantWoman extended an offer to come talk to all of said committee about several things. RantWoman met with one Friend who missed several of RantWoman's points; that Friend is due to go off the committee anyway. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel Care and Counsel



RantWoman had another conversation where "we don't see any reason to change the proposal." LOOK, RantWoman has asked questions about history. RantWoman harbors faint hope that there might be something concise in a b-b-b-book someone has already read. RantWoman finds it really hard to go look things up herself.



RantWoman is still stuck on do we need to change from Oversight, never mind whether she can live with Care and Counsel. But first, RantWoman would be ever, ever, ever so grateful if SOMEONE can just listen to RantWoman's question about history and help look something up, not tell RantWoman she does not need to know, not just chant Care and Counsel, Care and Counsel, Care and Counsel.



Care and Counsel .Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel! Shake those Quaker pom poms. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Set it to Music. Care and Counsel.



RantWoman repeated her offer to come talk to all of the Oops Well Committee, this time with a different emphasis. Instead Care and Counsel Friend was dispatched to visit RantWoman. RantWoman has a fine conversation with Care and Counsel Friend but Care and Counsel Friend again missed several of RantWoman's key points. Care and Counsel Friend is already wearing too many hats anyway and should get to share the task of talking to Rantwoman. Care and Counsel Friend absorbed about the same percentage of RantWoman's concerns as anyone else; it's just that if RantWoman speaks to several people and they all absorb different fractions, the cumulative effect is much stronger than if one Friend missess key points and then a fraction of what that Friend remembers gets lost in the retelling.



Care and Counsel .Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel! Shake those Quaker pom poms. Care and Coumsel. Care and Counsel. Set it to Music. Care and Counsel.



More months pass and Care and Counsel Friend, the principal champion of this effort finally was able to return to Meeting for Business. What is wrong with this picture? If this is such a universal concern, shouldn't one of the other members of the Oops Well Committee be able to present about this? After all, we are all ministers of God, right?



Care and Counsel .Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel! Shake those Quaker pom poms. Care and Coumsel. Care and Counsel. Set it to Music. Care and Counsel.



The week of Meeting for Business, Care and Counsel Friend's husband was in the hospital. Care and Counsel Friend was hurrying and needed to present two minutes, the one about renaming the Oops Well Committee and one with Care and Counsel Friend's Peace and Social Concerns hat on about upholding treaty rights for the Lummi people. RantWoman thinks presenting two such minutes was TOO MUCH and deeply wishes that Care and Counsel Friend had just stuck to the Lummi minute.



Care and Counsel .Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel! Shake those Quaker pom poms. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Set it to Music. Care and Counsel.



On the presentation went. Care and Counsel Friend still presented no information in response to RantWoman's question about history. Care and Counsel Friend did present a brief list of other names for this committee, but she presented them so fast that even RantWoman could not track them. RantWoman is used to gleaning information from Mr. JAWS the screen reader at Squirrels on Steroids speeds and RantWoman thought the delivery was too fast. The rest of the room was all more or less chanting Care and Counsel, Care and Counsel.



Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel.



Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel.





Look, okay, RantWoman is not of one mind within herself about the topic of whether and what to rename the Oops Well Committee, formerly called Oversight and now after a drum beat of months apparently to be called Care and Counsel.



At this point, SOME of the time RantWoman would like to hear a lot more about bigger more profound ways many in RantWoman's Meeting ARE actually engaging about racism and privilege. This includes:



--one Friend who reads widely of US history and keeps summarizing to such as RantWoman who will listen



--Various small but regular acts of faithfulness connected with for instance voter registration and the Friends Committee on WA Public Policy



--the daughter of a founding member of our Meeting who engages in many community connections in her neighborhood and will talk honestly about her mother's work as a social worker and the relocation of Japanese Americans during WWII.



--RantWoman who has done projects with many people of color whose first language is not English and who MUCH prefer that RantWoman t-t-t-TALK to them rather than write email.



--numerous other points of engagement that RantWoman never minds hearing from.



But back to renaming the committee. Sometimes RantWoman thinks well who cares one way or another about anything to do with racism or privilege? Everyone else is renaming the committee, it's a really important committee and Quakers arriving from elsewhere darn well need to be able to find the committee. So we should all just jump on the bandwagon.



Some of the time, RantWoman hears from Arguing Friend something along the lines of "I only know one Friend of Color who cares about renaming this committee...Well, yeah but very international Friends are way overrepresented among Friends of Color Arguing Friend knows. Just because the history of enslavement in the US is not the driving experience of international Friends does not mean that Friends in the US have nothing to answer about today as far as carryover from enslavement.



Further, RantWoman thinks Friend Who Often Opines about the Issue is more likely to hear from US Friends of Color than is either Arguing Friend or RantWoman. For comparison, RantWoman points to her experience as one flavor of blind person: somehow the presence of the white cane causes all kinds of other people to tell RantWoman things about their experiences that fall into the realm of "I didn't tell you about my day" when the people talking to RantWoman are around sighted people. From paying attention to LOTS of different blind people's experiences, RantWoman also knows to ask sometimes about different issues. Attending to this diversity of experience, RantWoman is frequently very reluctant to speak on behalf of all blind people, a tendency that is no darn help sometimes when simplicity and clarity is needed.



Simplicity? Clarity? You mean RantWoman not just being an obstructionist bitch whose sole goal is to drive Recording Clerks Crazy? Ummmm.



But no more Oversight. Oops Well. Care and Counsel it is. RantWoman feels SO thoroughly purified. Not! But RantWoman has PLENTY else to do and suggests everyone just hold the whole circus in the Light.



(Example attraction from current circuses while tending to statewide transportation issues, secondhand, originally from staff of a Republican state senator, "You mean we have to provide those people sign language interpreters?" Well, yeah, unless you want to get sued and put at risk every dollar of federal transportation funding the state receives.)



Care and Counsel .Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel! Shake those Quaker pom poms. Care and Counsel. Care and Counsel. Set it to Music. Care and Counsel.



And next month we are off to the Racism Exhibit at the Science Museum. Really!

(RantWoman DOES want to see this exhibit and definitely invites interested Friends along; MAYBE RantWoman will be on good enough behavior for everyone to appreciate the excursion.)

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Consultation on Quakers and Russia

Call for a consultation on Keeping our Promises for Quakers in Russia and otherse with a concern for Quakers in Russia:


http://maurers.org/promises/


RantWoman heartily endorses this kind of consultation and will holding in the Light and reading further with interest! RantWoman is posting this partly as a reminder to herself to look up more information sources to help track how the discernment evolves.

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Overseeing. Overlooking. Much Fog and Blur Over Something

RantWoman's Meeting is in the process of seasoning whether to rename the committee currently called Oversight and if so what to call it. Since Oversight is the name listed in organizational bylaws, if there is a change, the bylaws need to be amended too. In addition to multiple references to Oversight committee which would need to be changed, the bylaws also contain:

1. at least one reference to "Overseers" by which is meant members of said committee. RantWoman EXACTLY understands why the word Overseers is a problem. During the era of enslavement in the US, the overseer on a plantation was someone of African descent responsible for working the other slaves and keeping all the enslaved in line.

RantWoman is less clear about the word Oversight and whether it MIGHT be sufficient simply to replace "Overseers" with "members of Oversight committee" in the bylaws. RantWoman WISHES she felt any capacity to go all word nerd and quaker history geek on the problem. Instead RantWoman has raised the question in Meeting for Business and is interested to see what comes backin response.

2. two references to the word "overseeing" in the following contexts: "overseeing marriages" and "overseeing worship groups." In both cases, RantWoman in translator mode would reflexively change these terms to what she considers better Quakerese, something in the vicinity of the examples below.

"overseeing marriages" = "assisting couples in clearness for marriage and the Meeting in clearness to take marriages under the care of Meeting"

"overseeing worship groups" = "support and nurture of worship groups under Meeting's care"

RantWoman has a couple basic objections to the use of "overseeing" in the contexts above. For better or worse, Rantwoman does not hear the same resonance with enslavement in the word "overseeing" as with the word "overseers."

RantWoman DOES hear something she personally is HIGHLY allergic to, Quakers playing God, implying promises about more than it is humanly reasonable to promise..

RantWoman understands perfectly well that oversight has a more or less neutral administrative meaning. RantWoman understands this because "oversight" exists in RantWoman's mind with a cluster of other words like management, supervision, administration... which cluster and split different in English than the equivalent cluster of words in Russian. These words exist because the functions are needed, with full understanding of the limitations even of one's or one's organization's best efforts. Still, "oversight" gives RantWoman many headaches even without theology.

But when it comes to theology, worship groups are responsible for tending their own spiritual gardens; a committee of onlookers at best tends with a light touch. The phrase "overseeing marriages" even more insistently puts RantWoman in mind of a wonderful quote from George Fox about how we marry none but that is God's work.
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2013/01/marriage-as-god-ordained-for-our-good.html

THAT language,more than anything, is why RantWoman is allergic to the phrase "overseeing marriages." Furthermore RantWoman knows perfectly well that bylaws sometimes get read by people likely to have little interest in uniquely Quaker practices and this is exactly why RantWoman thinks it is quite reasonable to spell out the Quaker distinctives of the matter! In the world of translation, however much one strives for verbal economy, sometimes one gets to substitute a whole bunch of words for one word. RantWoman believes this is such a moment.

Alas, all of this is such Light as has come to RantWoman. RantWoman actually really, Really, REALLY wishes the bylaws changes would not keep coming to Business Meeting until RantWoman hears answers to her questions about history AND there is unity about what if anything to rename the committee in question.

So far, the bylaws changes keep showing up on the Business Meeting agenda but for various reasons not getting acted on. Wordsmithing bylaws in Business Meeting is one of those exercises in applied Quakerism that is either quite charming and educational or really tedious, but RantWoman thinks these suggestions need to be heard out loud and heard in separate Light from the question of what to call the committee now called Oversight!

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Morning pages mid afternoon

RantWoman recollects Hurricane Katrina anniversaries, global climate change, and sundry world concerns while praying fervently along with radio updates that good sense holds as far as Syria and international supervision of chemical weapons.


By way of digression / distraction / reflection on what does or does not change, an interesting web based history snapshot via RantWoman's #NatlPrep tweet stream from the Presidential recordings program about Lyndon Johnson and Hurrican Betsy:

http://whitehousetapes.net/exhibit/lbj-and-response-hurricane-betsy

Presidents are required to show up at disasters and sound sympathetic; RantWoman always appreciates historians who can pull at all the other threads of motive and decision in such moments.

Warning, if you need one thought at a time, feel free to stop and to come back or not as led to read further.

RantWoman finds herself peculiarly grateful to have the time to reflect on Lyndon Johnson and digressive #disaster responses or the shadows of climate change in modern hurricane realities or the life-upending effects of earthquakes rather than, for instance to endure a barrage of breathless war-themed broadcasts.

Here, RantWoman does not even apologize to all her readers who wish she would do one thing at a time gosh dang it and have only simple messages and ... and... RantWoman IS trying to keep a handle on giant leaps but lately has been gratified to notice that other people have gotten that SOME things on RantWoman's mind are IMPORTANT. RantWoman is also grateful to get that RantWoman sometimes just trips over giant leap observations that take a lot longer for other people to come to. RantWoman has not necessarily gotten any more patient about this, but maybe appreciating the phenomenon is a good place to start.

In the rest of life, RantWoman is observing National Disaster Preparedness Month, seeing what kind of time commitment she can compress into meaningful daily messages. Besides #npm2013 #natlprep #disaster #preparedness #accessibility, be insistently but hopefully appropriately present in conversations goals, RantWoman has undertaken this effort just for the soul-purifying exercise of doing at least one blog post a day but TRYING not to singe her Meeting around RantWoman's Inner Blowtorch. Hold that effort in the Light.

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Spirit Sucked Out? Straggling: still not entirely back from Annual Session

Okay RantWoman admits it: she is procrastinating and would rather be somewhere else than her current daily diet of only occasionally diverting dramas.

RantWoman is still trying to get her brain home from Annual Session, also known as Quaker summer camp. RantWoman admits, part of this mental straggling has to do with NPYM being a geographically large but very unevenly populated Yearly Meeting. Being together in person really means a lot for many Friends even if this means long distance travel or organizing ourselves to communicate a lot of the time in new media.

Remember how RantWoman wrote ad copy about "it's Quakers go to camp, Business Meeting every day?" RantWoman had a great time regardless. Here RantWoman pokes at dances of the Holy Spirit as more or less corralled into plenary business sessions and other kinds of intentional and unintentional activities.


Opening Musings:
Weighty Friend who teaches Clerking sometimes points out that one can be dealing with both issues of process and issues of content or agenda. For me the entire issue of doing business at Annual Session falls into that category. I would like to outline some observations and see where they lead.

The structure committee originally intended to facilitate both doingbusiness at Annual Session and spreading out the work of the community across more committees. I think both ARE occurring; some comments about the second before tackling the question of Business at Annual Session.

There were a couple diverse committees including many different names and Meetings created last year; from the sounds of their reports some of them did a lot of spirit-led work. A couple other committees needed to come to plenary even if all they found out is their work needs more seasoning.

It was wonderful last year to hear the number of different names of Friends led to work on the structure evaluation and the question of relationships with Friends from other groups of yearly meetings.

I have enjoyed hearing bits and pieces of the work done by the Committee on the Discipline including all the consultations the committee did at annual session this year with Friends of different ages.

I like that the Youth Committee was clear to act on pretty tight timeline and to bring forward a proposal to hire a children's program coordinator. I think exactly what gets assigned to that position needs some adjustment and I would like to have better understood some numbers points about who participates in Annual Session and the impact of adding a fourth day, but I like being able to make decisions even if uncertainty is involved! I like that there is a full slate of Friends led to work on Outreach and Visitation.

I am not necessarily distressed that a standing Peace and Social Concerns committee has not coalesced. Friends are active in so many different ways that creating a standing committee might draw energy away from all the other ways Friends are engaged. On the other hand, between the geographic coverage of the coal trains issue and the fact that Sen. Murray D WA is the chair of the Senate Budget committee, I am going to continue to season some thoughts related to FCWPP and FCNL andNPYM.

I have been VERY impressed with the work done by M&O over the past several years. Meaning no disrespect to the people newly nominated to M&O, I have a continuing concern that M&O really needs the gifts and Light of Friends from Meetings in communities of different sizes and I hope that Nominating Committee and M&O will discern about ways to work with that concern.

[Comment added as this goes to blog: RantWoman means to foward to Nominating Committee and Young Adult Friends a list of about 5 standing committees where RantWoman would be thrilled to see added the name of 1 or more Young Adult Friends.]

[Further reflections due at some point on RantWoman's experience arriving at her Meeting at YAF age but never with any strong leading or draw to connect to Young Adult Friends.]

Turning now to Annual Session, different topics might require different strategies as far as shared seasoning. Friends need to attend to a sense somehow among at least a substantial number of Friends that structure is threatening to squeeze out Spirit. What do we need to do to preserve a greater sense of Spirit moving among us?

Such Light as has arrived to RantWoman, subject of course to all manner of RantWoman-derived distortions:


Agenda items are currently presented in plenary with framing one day and action after a couple days and opportunity between for God to work and for Friends to season and talk amongst ourselves before things come back to Business Meeting.

I rode back from Annual Session in a car with two other Friends and we ALL talked about how we are only now starting to get the hang of the presentation, season, discern in plenary cycle and by extension how we hope work occurs between Annual Sessions.

One thing that I think would help Friends understand the logic of the scheduling at Annual Session is to remind Friends of this multiple times multiple ways, when stuff is emailed out, in plenaries, etc. One Friend in the car was not crazy about the term framing, but maybe something like "opening a container" would be an interesting option. The container is partly blocks of time, partly environment, plenary or otherwise, partly the contributions of Friends' seasoning. If one block of time container gets full, another is needed but if might be a different container as far as room, timeline....

A second thing I think would help is to be REALLY explicit about a time and place for people to meet outside plenary with the committee when further seasoning is needed.

--The have everyone mob the speakers' area thing that has gone on for two years is really hard for anyone with physical limitations. Having a specific time and place announced is inviting, not exclusive, maintains a sense of worshipful space not just friendly mob. The idea would be that more seasoning is frequently needed but not by a whole plenary.

--Or if a new adhoc committee is needed, having an open meeting space gives a way for people to gather in person and worship briefly even if they wind up working a lot by conference call over the next year.

A third thing to think about: A Friend from the Youth Committee mentioned that the Presiding Clerk did a conference call with the people needing to present in plenaries before Annual Session I think this in general is a good idea. Maybe I misheard as far as who participated in the call though: the people presenting already know their topics well and the question of how to present in plenaries MIGHT benefit from fresh ears. Maybe a set or two of fresh ears would just offer questions that the Clerk or those presenting could listen for. Maybe the fresh ears would suggest that some items might need more time in plenary than others. Who knows? The idea is just to have some fresh ears to think about and uphold during sessions.

This year, ironically, one agenda item where I clearly saw the seasoning between plenaries pay off was the Relations with other branches of Quakers committee, the one that got postponed because God needed to work on Saturday. I heard the co-clerk's frustration about having done a lot of work to fix concerns which arose during framing and being disappointed that they could not present on Saturday. I am sorry their co-clerks had to leave, but I think we were well-served even when the plenary attempted some word smithing. Also, RantWoman heard one Friend talk about the work of the committee over the year and how she felt it had been rewarding to stick things out and work through some rough spots as a committee.

Where would time for open committee meetings come from?
One option that comes to mind is to have one or more meeting rooms during interest group time. People might have to give up an interest group but see an additional idea.

Another option: during service project time even though that also is a conflict.

A third: get rid of a plenary.
--There is one day where there were 3 plenaries. Cut back to two and do open committee meetings, several at once during that the time that would have been the third plenary. That means people can only go to one. Oh well.

--Have a separate space or maybe use the main plenary room for open worship and people holding the work in the Light. OR do a mix of open committee and interest groups so that there are three time slots with interest group options. ALWAYS make an open worship option during Interest group times.

--Also consider some kind of intergenerational freeform craft activity where people can get together and DO and talk at the same time but also in a way that is a break from other busyness.

--Part of the thinking is explicitly to take advantage of Friends all being together and to do at least some Business in smaller groups than the whole plenary.


What would I subtract from the plenary agenda if we cut back by one?
--There should be at most 1 or two Quaker alphabet soup presentations at plenary. Everyone else gets interest group options or the Quaker fair. MAYBE spend some time thinking about ways to make the Quaker fair a little bit less of a mob scene.

--One interest group option: the Alphabet soup interest group with short presentations by several groups. Maybe ask people who present in plenary what their efforts yieleded this year and whether they are satisfied. Then use those thoughts in planning how presentatins are done next year.

--Another option, just repeat some of the interest groups and maybe create room for one or two more, especially if way were found for a third interest group time.

Another important discipline is just to focus on decisions that absolutely have to get made such as approving the budget.

Money

This year, I heard great lack of clarity about financial concerns including tradeoffs of different choices regarding length of Annual Session, whether Annual Session is covering its costs, financing Annual Session partly through assessments or expecting it to be self-supporting, how to ensure that different parts of our community are able to attend, spending from reserves and general budget balancing.

Some of the time I think it is reasonable for Finance and Legal to prepare one budget; sometimes I think it would be more helpful to present a couple alternatives with tradeoffs clearly spelled out in the first framing session and then expect people to have gotten clear about recommended choices in time to approve at a subsequent plenary.

For myself, I come from a large Meeting but I think a smaller percentage of our community regularly attends Annual Session than from other Meetings. This is a point I think about when thinking about large dues increases and how to finance Annual Session vs other choices of activity for the Yearly Meeting. I have no clear answers but I do think about it and I am grateful for time to season big changes with my Meeting in time to offer meaningful input over a series of years at Annual Session.

Thank you all for your work.

In the Light

(RantWoman)
Link to apage full of documents, including epistles from other Yearly Meetings.
http://www.npym.org/as/index.html

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Exercise, Families, Saturday Plenary, MONEY

RantWoman DOES have an I voice. If readers are lucky, RantWoman will preserve her I voice out of an edited email. This item summarizes some circumstances feeding into the famous Saturday plenary at NPYM Annual Session where God needed to rearrange the agenda as well as some points RantWoman heard or did not hear spoken out of worship.


RantWoman notes that God still seems to be organizing several points related to how NPYM conducts Annual Session in addition to the content questions connected with the items being discussed. In other words, RantWoman means to post a couple other pieces of the picture separately and pointedly encourages readers to hold all the pieces when trying to understand why Friends needed just to work with God.

At an earlier plenary the Annual Session had approved creating a 1/4 time paid position to coordinate the entire Annual Session children's program, carry out the requirements of the Youth safety policy, and find people to staff programs for all age groups at Annual Session. This proposal emerged from an ad hoc committee in late spring and was circulated among Monthly Meetings and Worship groups before Annual Session. The proposal included straightforward job descriptions and suggestions about how to fund the work but did not address some points which RantWoman speaks to below..
RantWoman's Meeting heard an announcement about it almost in passing at the very end of June Meeting for Business and the actual proposal was distributed electronically the next week with the weekly bulletin. RantWoman read the proposal including a proposal to fund the first year of the position out of reserves and a request later for about a 17% increase per capita in Yearly Meeting dues assessments and a proposal in subsequent years to add an outreach component.
RantWoman sent the clerk of the ad hoc committee some questions:

--Should the outreach component begin immediately if only so that the person doing the work can identify counts of children and of adults who might be recruited to support the work to be done?

--Should there be targeted fundraising so that assessments do not have to be increased so much, particularly for Friends who never attend Annual Session?

--Does the proposal need to take into account other issues such as the Great Recession, our Yearly Meeting's practice of changing venues every two years to reflect our geographic size, addition a few years ago of an additional day?

--How does this proposal relate to several questions about attenders, identity as members of a Friends' community, membership coincidentally being thought about as the Committee on the Discipline works to describe current practice and to revise our Faith and Practice.

RantWoman did not expect a reply to her questions any sooner than Annual Session; RantWoman did not hear her question about numbers addressed at all one way or another in the plenary discussions of the paid children's program arranger position.

RantWoman remembers speaking to support the general thought of investng in youth programs. RantWoman also remembers urging Friends to go forward in faith about money even though for her some money parts of the proposal did not compute; at the time RantWoman was assured that discussion of the Ad Hoc Committee on affordability for families committee work would address RantWoman's concerns. This turned out not really to be feasible.

The Ad-hoc committee on Family Affordability was the focus of the agenda for the Saturday plenary when God and several young Friends rose to speak. There had been various questions about how the committee proposed to work to better understand the issue, what it was trying to accomplish and other ways to understand priorities. Process, content, how to listen to movements of the Divine were all muddled in Friends' questions about the proposal and ministry on the topic.

This was the point where a Weighty Friend spoke to a sense of unease in the room and a whole sequence of Friends spoke before a suggestion was made simply to go into worship and allow Friends to speak out of worship for the remainder of the time for that plenary. RantWoman spoke of her sense that the question before the group was how best to use our resources to draw our community closer to God and to each other.

(RantWoman also led a worship group. Email among Worship Group leaders after Annual Session indicates that several of the Saturday Worship Groups, though not RantWoman's were led to speak of the plenary within their worship groups.)

Here is RantWoman's email after Annual Session, in the spirit of Minutes of Exercise edited only minimally, and offered with RantWoman's name attached even though she is NOT the Recording Clerk: This is such Light as has come to RantWoman and RantWoman is specifically NOT speaking on behalf of the whole group.


This message is topical to the paid children's program discussion and to the Family Affordability committee. Friends are welcome to ask for clarifications or to forward. I do not want to make a blanket offer, but would also be willing to discern whether I have additional increments of time to devote to this work.Other than that, I am happy just to feed my thoughts into others' work and not necessarily expect responses right away.

As a process point, I am aware that I may be suggesting things other than decisions made in plenaries and I would remind Friends that Coordinating Committee (the representative body which meets a couple times / year between Annual Sessions) might be a place to consider adjustments to charge, scope of work, objectives for the newly approved position of children's program arranger.

Here I want to outline some stuff I heard, some stuff I did not hear, questions on my mind, and see how my thinking feeds into next increments of work.


To Friend Clerk of the Ad hoc committee on children's program coordination:

I did not hear ANYTHING in my report about your committee's request for numbers. I was hoping someone else would have the same thought in plenary; they did not so I am raising it here. I asked for data about numbers of people of different ages at Annual Session different years, different locations with a couple other before and after points in my ask.

To me a bunch of people looking at numbers CAN be really valuable and that is the kind of thing I wish Friends could wade into when an issue is framed. My request may or may not have been easily doable in the time between when I made it and annual session, but it's something to think about. In fact, in the car on the way home, I jotted down some other thoughts about making an analysis dataset from historical registration data. MAYBE I will elaborate especially if anyone else is interested in this idea.

I DID NOT hear ANY mention in either the Annual Session affordability or the Paid childcare arranger discussion of the survey done at the beginning of 2012 about families and Annual Session. The survey was HOPEFULLY going to collect input from people who do not attend annual session. Since the survey was done, even the fact of there being only a few respondents might be important in thinking about next steps. I heard LOTS of people talk in plenaries and otherwise about the value of Annual Session.

I heard some amorphous thoughts about care of Quarterly meetings as an idea not attached to particular actions. On the way home a Young Adult Friend mentioned Young Adults' interest in travelling among different Quarterly Gatherings. I wonder what opportunities there are for synergy with Outreach and Visitation, information sharing....

I heard and share a concern about sucking out Spirit either with too much business or in how we do business. I will send some thoughtsabout my Quakers go to Camp / Business Meeting EVERY DAY theme and will write separate emails about these thoughts.
I heard complete lack of clarity about a whole bunch of questions to do with assessments, various charges for Annual session. I think complete lack of clarity is actually a helpful place to start. I would find it valuable for the family affordability committee at next year's Annual Session to present a few different scenarios addressing both the length of Annual Session and apportionment of costs between assessments and things charged to those who attend Annual Session and even some different per person breakouts. For instance, I think it might be fine to ask all annual session adults to help subsidize children / families.

I heard voices of Monthly Meetings saying "ask us what we need, don't just ask us to keep seasoning stuff." (This is a reference to our evolving standing committees, all of whom seem to be sending out queries asking Monthly Meetings and Worship groups to season various questions.) I do not know whether there is a disconnect about the ask here but the "ask us what we need" is important.

I heard mention of lots of interest from Monthly Meetings in educational curricula and help with children's programs. I am not sure where that comes from but I have heard it before and for instance the paid children's program coordinator job description as written does not address that concern right away. Would anyone besides me find value in reconsidering elements of the job description?


Friend, Clerk of the Ad Hoc Committee, you talk about wishing more of your Meeting would come to Annual Session.

--Why do you think they don't? Are they not interested? Does no one do anything to promote? Is it only cost or are there other barriers?

--What if anything would a paid children's program arranger position contribute to getting more people specifically from your Meeting to attend Annual Session? Do Friends feel any call to think about this question with respect to other Meetings?

--Here is a blog post with my take on some possible barriers:
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2013/07/annual-session-ad-copy-too-late-and-too.html

--I always have a reflex to try to spell out some "how do we know it works" criteria. I know God showing up is--and SHOULD BE--hard to measure, but things like numbers, repeat attenders, finances that balance might suggest some basics.

I hope these comments are helpful. I would be interested to hear Friends responses if led but I am also happy just feeding thoughts into the work.

Thank you all for your work.

In the Light.

(RantWoman)

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Random Reflection Rising from NPYM Annual Session: Let's have a Party?

RantWoman thanks a Junior Friend in her worship-sharing group for the message from which the leading to pose this question arises:

If becoming a Quaker automatically came with your choice of tatoo and location for the tatoo, what would you tatoo and where on your body would you tatoo it?

RantWoman is VERY high. RantWoman's nerves are zinging with ideas.


God(dess) showed up at NPYM Annual Session in the middle of Quakers go to Camp Business Meeting EVERY DAY. God(dess) showed up in the voices of young adult Friends who have grown up in our Yearly Meeting, in the form of seasoned Friends who spoke Truth, who held silence, and who worshipped together. God(dess) showed up in business between plenaries, in learnings, and in muddle.

God(dess) showed up in an Interest Group about the Quaker Language Barrier, that sociological / anthropological line between jargon fetishism and group coherence. The group did only some on Quakerese and did even more about some of the same big Meeting challenges in RantWoman's Meeting: transportation, scheduling meetings, varying comfort zones about electronic communication. Knowing one is not alone is a mixed blessing.

God(dess) showed up Sunday when Breakfast Bible Study could not stay on topic. Topic was I Kings and all sorts of dramatic doings with Ahab, Elijah, Elisha. RantWoman can ALWAY stand to shore up her Biblical knowledge but God(dess) saw fit to require Annual Session to share our dining space with Really Different people headed to a classic car show. Blame the car show people? Slaughter a yoke of oxen? Oh, there are still 11 more yoke so we're still rich and let's have a party. Jesus comes back after, as one group participant put it, "getting tortured to death:"  don't messa around about revenge; let's just have a party (?!?!?!)

RantWoman hopes other bloggers who were there will provide a more detailed account of the exact turn; RantWoman wants to concentrate on sharing the Light which has come from the plenary, subsequent events at Annual Session, and the ministry of car ride conversations.

Regarding the car ride conversations, God(dess) has a twisted sense of humor:
http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2013/07/five-volcanoes-65-hours-and-finally-home.html

The ONLY excuse for it to take 6.5 hours to go from Forest Grove to Seattle is that God MUST have needed more work out of Annual Session! Stay tuned.

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Annual Session Ad Copy, too late and too early

Ad copy: Why should YOU consider attending Annual Session:

How will Annual Session make you / your Meeting more open to movements of Spirit, better steeped in God's currents, more full of daily centering and prophetic witness?

What will you bring with? What might you take away?
Look world, RantWoman actually does NOT prefer to offer ad copy after Meeting for Worship about “why should YOU consider attending Annual Session” on the last day of registration. RantWoman prefers to weigh in a lot sooner, like maybe January so families who need to request vacation time and fit things into a tight budget have a prayer of doing so. RantWoman further points out that these days RantWoman goes to Annual Session already wearing too many hats, determined not to take on more hats, and aware that there are hats attached to fun, rewarding doable work which RantWoman wishes would find other heads. This year, RantWoman went so far as to tell Worship and Ministry that if heads who might be inspired to take on some of this work apply for money, they should get money ahead of RantWoman! Guess who got her full grant request approved!


Ad copy, such as it is:

LOTS of ways to renew connections and nurture spiritual growth including Friend in Residence, Interest Groups, Worship Sharing, singing, singing, singing.

It’s Quakers go to camp! Business Meeting EVERY DAY! ?!?!?

It’s our youth needing to get together.

1. RantWoman remembers the Central Friends calling adults out last year. The latest CO mass shooting occurred during last year’s Annual Session. The Central Friends were the ones whose epistle called Friends’ attention to this outrage. RantWoman has been holding that concern all year as Friends Committee on WA Public Policy talks about different aspects of gun violence, suicide, shootings in the headlines and which states have most well-developed restorative justice and violence prevention programs; RantWoman admits this energy from our youth also causes her to invite youth to talk to Friends Committee for WA Public Policy about leadings which might develop further.

2. RantWoman remembers Pacific Northwest Quarterly Meeting last year, the one where urban families all got smoked out by wildfires in the area. Two business meetings did need to happen, but the youth who had come from many less urban places also implored the adults who came to please stay so the youth could also have time together as Quakers.

RantWoman has been holding these thoughts while considering a large proposed dues increase to fund planning of the youth and children’s program at Annual Session. See “it’s Business Meeting EVERY DAY.” RantWoman has some probing questions about Annual Session and planning youth programs and has duly made, basically, a data request; RantWoman also finds herself wondering whether a good youth program at Annual Session might depend on outreach and nurturing local Meetings and Worship Groups all year. RantWoman has two further possibly controversial thoughts:

1. RantWoman suggests that NPYM do targeted fundraising to support both immediate outreach and work focused on youth programs at Annual Session. RantWoman’s Meeting has been able to invest from a large donation to pay First Day School teachers. A more stable program with more consistent participation has bloomed because of this. In other words, there are youth whose families theoretically might come to Annual Session precisely because we are investing all year. RantWoman thinks targeted fundraising could share the costs of this outreach. The proposed dues increase also just looks really dramatic.

2. RantWoman is all for good Annual Sessions, BUT RantWoman notes that some Yearly Meetings only have large gatherings every other year. RantWoman remembers a couple years ago when a proposed minute arrived about overpopulation and was left hanging without final action after being transformed into concerns about overconsumption. RantWoman thinks Friends should test the thought of having large gatherings only every other year and investing our travel time and other resources in activities closer to home on the off years.


It’s two contradictory extreme writing exercises:

1. Daily Bulletin editor. 1 page, 2 sides, a deadline, God and LOTS of people with opinions about what should go on that page every day. Someone with even the slightest inclination to be a petty tyrant might be a good match for what is needed.

2. Epistle Committee. The fun parts: Epistle Committee gets to read all the epistles from all over the world. This is a great opportunity for naturally introverted Quakers who do not just burst into spontaneous conversation every time they find themselves in a flock of people. One contributes by reading quietly on one’s own and by seasoning with a committee how to send a sample of the year’s gathering out into the wider world. The downside: reading the epistle in plenary where God and 300 people all want to help edit one’s STUFF.




Ad copy HIGHLY specific to RantWoman’s situation that probably ALSO speaks to at least a few other Friends.

RantWoman’s annual session lately has come with bonus interactions with campus tech support staff when RantWoman has encountered difficulty interfacing with campus computer networks. RantWoman considers it a great good thing that over time she has acquired more of her own technological prerequisites AND also received appropriate technologically competent and otherwise astute help, particularly dealing appropriately with the presence of RantWoman’s assistive technology from the tech support staff of every university where Annual Session has taken place.

It’s a really awesome place to hang out while living with a long succession of medical issues. RantWoman is not sure the Quaker spa angle is the BEST marketing she can come up with, but….

If you are not interested in RantWoman’s experience on this score, please stop here, check out npym.org and get about discerning what Annual Session might have to offer you. If you want testimony to community in spite of multiple forms of difficulty read on.

2012: PLU Reports back from World Gathering; Benigno Sanchez Eppler. Many messages of renewal in closing worship and work to get there. RantWoman broke her arm a week before Annual Session. RantWoman spent all of Annual Session seesawing between pain and the downsides of different painkiller regimens. More than enough said. RantWoman held daily one-person worship lethargy events during Worship Sharing time. RantWoman is deeply grateful that every day someone sat down for a visit and that someone was willing either just to help RantWoman tie up her hair OR let RantWoman teach them how to French braid. RantWoman in passing also particularly upheld epistle committee and participation by one youth attending with his grandparents and masterful attention from his age group leader.

2011: PLU RantWoman’s attention and Light were needed by situations not suitable for specifying in further detail except to say this was a blessing as far as channeling scorching opinions of other matters.

2009, 2010: U of MT. RantWoman was Daily Bulletin editor. RantWoman has written previously of her long life history with the University of MT campus. RantWoman loves having Annual Session in Missoula, and RantWoman also always has to tend to layers of memory.

2008: Oregon State. Great swimming pool. Same great dorm windows that always irresistibly draw people to sit and dangle their legs several stories above the ground. RantWoman has decidedly mixed feelings about the allure of these dorm windows and visitations to Annual Session by state police who prefer to err on the side of caution as far as gravity and potential lawsuits.

2007: Reed College. RantWoman thinks, looking back that by this year she at least had taken up with Ambassador Thwack the Badly-behaved White Cane. RantWoman THINKS she was in pretty good shape, but her roommates, Grandma and granddaughter had some rough moments RantWoman found herself unsure how to uphold. RantWoman learned after the fact that those organizing Annual Session need upholding as far as relationships with our venues. RantWoman thinks that is enough said about the change in venue for the next year.

2006: PLU abbreviated session before Friends General Conference. RantWoman was very glad to get to go to the FGC gathering. RantWoman also was glad to help about accessibility. And RantWoman was not yet speaking up for herself as far as desire to consume Quaker print in forms accessible for her. Sigh. But half the allure of Gathering was just a big break from other family members’ medical issues.

2005: PLU. RantWoman had some role related to Interest Groups for Annual Session planning. RantWoman does not think she fulfilled it brilliantly. On the contrary, RantWoman thinks it MAY have been at least a mixed blessing that RantWoman left Annual Session 2 days early to fly to MT and tend to RantMom after cancer surgery. RantWoman also thinks she had some undiagnosed eye yuck because the eye yuck was finally diagnosed after RantWoman returned from MT in September.

2004: U of MT. Two months out from surgery for detached retina. Face still swollen with a serious “my doctor got paid to do that to me bruise.” RantWoman spent lots of time falling asleep in plenaries or on whatever furniture was handy in air conditioned spaces. RantWoman was blessed by a travelling companion who asked her thoughtfully whether she ever considered having an anger management moment. No, not in the last 11 seconds or so. And what about a service python? RantWoman considers the idea of a service python so deliciously inappropriate that she grins every time it comes up. Thank heaven RantWoman does not try to get into a cab with an actual python though.

2003: U of MT: RantWoman’s other arm was still in some kind of cast or exercise regimen. RantWoman apologizes for not remembering who were Friends in Residence….

RantWoman is grateful to feel well-held in many ways; RantWoman does NOT think she could have handled all her own circumstances if, for instance, she also needed to tend to a child. RantWoman thus finds yet another reason to be humble and seek Light about what exactly Annual Session offers others and how to make those blessings more apparent when people are choosing whether to attend. RantWoman also darn well wants to interact with the questions more timely with respect to future years!

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New Book about Gordon Hirabayashi, fascinating history of WWII antiwar movement, and accessibility tirade

No!

Uh-uh!

RantWoman would LOVE to be emanating grounded centeredness on par with Nelson Mandela or Gandhi, but she is NOT.

RantWoman MEANS simply to recommend a blog post and an interview pointing Friends to a new memoir about WWII anti-war activist Gordon Hirabayashi. But first, RantWoman needs to have an "I didn't tell you about my day" accessibility digression!

Wait! Hallelujah???

Hallelujah! You mean RantWoman gets to branch out? Instead of a couple weighty Friends missing something, now we see they have LOTS of company and it's other people's turn. RantWoman tried, albeit feebly, to labor with the authors of this year's State of the Meeting report about how they treat disability. RantWoman spoke about blindness and disability two Business Meetings in a row in her own Meeting and had the Recording Clerk record nary a word of RantWoman's concern. Instead, RantWoman heard complaints that she is taking up a lot of community time about a personal concern; RantWoman is unsure whether her point about a double-digit number of others suffering from various sever vision issues has sunk in--yet. Now, though, RantWoman gets to branch out to rail about every print-emanating, not ready for the 21st century corner of the Religious Society of Friends. Oh Hallelujah!


No! No! No! DO NOT send RantWoman to a certain online retailer to learn a brand new book is ONLY available in print, not in audio or any other electronic format! Oh wait, RantWoman should check out whether this one might get recorded as local interest through the Talking Book and Braille Library. / NLS In the meantime, RantWoman needs to finish her tantrum.


No. No. No! RantWoman wants to read the book. She wants to read the book in the format of her choice. RantWoman wants to read it NOW or at the same time as others without an extra round of waiting so an alternative format occurs. RantWoman does not (insert Bad Friend epithet of choice) CARE whether almost everyone who listens to her screen reader has to exclaim about how weird it sounds; a LOT of the time thtat's how RantWoman reads!

RantWoman darn well feels entitled to state her preferences / needs; for better or worse RantWoman has pretty limited experience with the God as personal butler model of Divine presence. She and everyone in her orbit may instead need just to COPE.

RantWoman KNOWS that in the hoary mists of pre-history before the invention of the Kindle, there were only books on tape, talking books, much less often Braille, assuming someone could read Braille in the first place, and having someone read the book aloud. When RantWoman is being honest, she has so little time for reading that MAYBE she should just be content absorbing the content of the book from what others read and say about it. Yeah, except the idea makes RantWoman feel like a baby bird getting fed its parents' predigested offerings.

If RantWoman really must fly off the handle about lack of alternative formats for a new book, it's possible that should be taken as a sign that RantWoman REALLY needs to chill out and figure out some way to interact with the book, like make everyone around her read it and discuss it in her presence. Good thing talking about privilege gets to be on the agenda as RantWoman's Meeting figures out whether and what to rename our Oversight Committee!


Oh wait, now what was the topic RantWoman had to have an "I didn't tell you about my day" accessibility digression from?

RantWoman is entranced by this interview with Lane Hirabyashi, nephew of Gordon Hirabayashi, a WWII-era anti-war activist and one of the best known resisters to the internment of Japanese Americans.

http://www.afsc.org/friends/fresh-voice-resistance-interview-lane-hirabayashi

The interview is in connection with the publication of a memoir, A principled Stand: the Story of Hirabayashi vs United States. The book draws heavily on Hirabayashi's letters as edited by his brother James and his nephew Lane. The interview talks about several ways the case was interwoven with the history of RantWoman's Meeting. RantWoman feels led also to speak to something in the comments.

RantWoman would REALLY like to read this book. Lather rinse, repeat that thought along with the comments above.

As long as RantWoman is casting about for the right giant spiritual chill pill, here is another reflection offered by another Friend from RantWoman's Meeting who also went to the White Privilege Conference. This Friend talked about going to a presentation by Mary Matsuda Gruenwald, author of Looking Like the Enemy. Matsuda Gruenwald talked about how one of the things that helped restore her sense of justice was many times being treated with dignity. The FBI agents who searched their house treated them with dignity. After the war when she went to nursing school somewhere inland, everyone there treated her with dignity. Hold that thought.

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Beloved dead, about the Recording clerk

RantWoman elders her Meeting's Recording Clerk, based on multiple RantWoman experiences, including RantWoman's heroic vexation of the Recording clerk during last Meeting for Business....add an exhortation: if something RantWoman says is not clear consider the options of either just letting God work on it or asking for clarification. RantWoman cannot read faces. RantWoman cannot read minds. If someone is upset or not understanding things a lot of the time someone has to use their words. Otherwise, as another blind person RantWoman is in a lot of meetings with says, RantWoman can offend you with impunity whether she means to or not.

No, RantWoman is NOT just taking up space for herself.  RantWoman  had occasion to think about a number of people in our community who she knows are grieving the loss of a loved one. RantWoman actually did not do this to start because she was overflowing with empathy. RantWoman did it because she made a list of people she needed to talk to and realized several of them were grieving. Then as RantWoman poked at various thoughts arising from that, she recognized that in fact there are even more people in our community who have lost loved ones over the past year. THEN RantWoman decided she should just say some prayers for awhile AND think about what space the topic might need in community conversation.

Okay, so you read on. How about a request to be held in the Light after the fact. The hold in the Light after the fact point is part of RantWoman's sometimes shit happens and the interpreter gets to keep on talking or the recording clerk gets to keep on recording thread.

RantWoman heard that people spoke last week of Doris Ferm of Bellingham who
passed away the Friday after Quarterly Meeting. Doris was a STALWART of
FCWPP Steering committee meetings and she just beamed when she got there this last time even though she was an hour late. RantWoman wound up rooming with her and her 80-year-old sister. That all
wound up being very sweet in a geriatric chaplain and passing of generations sense but that is another story.) But the real kicker came late in the meeting when people were talking about interest groups planned for the next day, one usual one about legislative matters and one about gun-related deaths. A couple people looked at death records for like 5 years and discovered that suicides outnumber homicides and all else by about 5 / 1 across the state. They planned to do an interest group about it and were chattering away chirpily.

One problem for RantWoman: a few years ago a friend of hers shot himself. He had MANY tough circumstances and barriers about getting help. He was able to buy the gun he used despite having been hospitalized multiple times the previous year for suicidal depression. Some of the time when gun suicides come up, RantWoman just thinks "better access to mental health care..."  Some of the time brain just leaves the room! RantWoman's brain was leaving the room at that point in the FCWPP meeting. Even worse, someone else in the room, RantWoman knew from listening around Meeting, might also be having a really rough time. RantWoman looked at that Friend at one point and had definitely guessed correctly, but the Friend was across the  table and saying anything would have been
awkward.

Luckily at that point RantWoman did not have to try VERY hard to focus enough for what was needed in the minutes.

And the Clerk is not sure about there being a God.

And RantWoman has a pretty versatile concept of God getting things done all kinds of ways, but it was only after the brain leaving the room moments repeated themselves the next day at the actual interest group that RantWoman managed to email the presenters with concern about sensitivity if people have stories the presenters say they are interested in. One of the presenters got the  point immediately; the other one RantWoman is not so sure.

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Oops, Well? Phonetically Infelicitous? Anyway, not yet.

Oops well

RantWoman takes note:
The word "oversight" is included in the following list.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/49834/14-words-are-their-own-opposites

RantWoman for sheer geek nerd delight in connection with another matter reread her Meeting's bylaws and discovered that the word Oversight appears about 14 times throughout the 3-page document. Even worse, the word "Overseers" also appears.

Just in time for the recently-ended White Privilege Conference, #wpc14, the latest edition of our Meeting's monthly newsletter includes the following item:

Oversight Committee is considering changing our name. We have discussed potential names including Care and Counsel.

Why?

Let’s consider the query from North Pacific Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice, 1986:

“Do you endeavor to cleanse yourself of every vestige of racial prejudice, and firmly but lovingly oppose it in your home, among your friends and acquaintances, and in business?”
Here is one Thesaurus definition: oversight - a mistake resulting from inattention, or an unintentional omission resulting from failure to notice something.We may be making a mistake resulting from failure to notice that the terms overseer and oversight have hurtful connotations to some people. In an online discussion about ending racism among Friends one Quaker says:“I was on Nominating Committeefor a Friends group, and we really were hoping a certain African American Friend would bewilling to serve on our Overseers Committee. The Friend in question gave me and my fellow Nominating Committee person (both of us white) a long look and then, as best I can recall, thanked us for thinking of him, expressed his affection for both the organization and the committee in question, and then said there was really no way he could even consider serving on a committee with such a name.

”Perhaps “Overseers” conjures up images of slavery more readily than “Oversight.” But why risk using hurtful language? Vanessa Julye, who led sessions for UFM on racism several years ago, in an article entitled “Racism Hurtsand Challenges Everyone” asks us: “Most of the racism I have encountered in Quakerism has been subtle. It is present in the language and some of our traditions. When we celebrate our history and traditions, is it done in a manner which is inclusive? Do we use terms, or focus on certain aspects of history, leaving out the painful parts? “

Here is a second Thesaurus definition of oversight: “management by overseeing the performance or operation of a person or group.”Depicting oversight as management, also made us question our name. It feels less like what wedo than a name such as Care and Counsel.

There are many precedents for name changes. The National Congress of American Indians issued a resolution opposing continued usage of Native team names, mascots, and logos. Wikipedia notes that over 70 sports teams have changed their names, including the Eastern Washington Savages who became the Eagles in 1973. Similarly, when Stokely Carmichael coined the phrase “black power” in 1966, “Negro” was how most black Americans described themselves.

By the mid-1980s even the U.S. Supreme Court had largely substituted black or African American. Many Friends Meetings have changed the name of their Oversight Committees. We hope Friends will help us think about this issue and consider changing the UFM bylaws to allow a name change for our committee.

[A draft minute specifically proposing to change the name to Care and Counsel was included with the agenda for this month's Business Meeting; RantWoman does not in the least repent of the part she played in Business Meeting not getting to this item.]

RantWoman opines:
(RantWoman THINKS she is going to maintain enough discipline not to spell out all the reasons she herself could be thoroughly delighted just to call this the "Oops Well" committee right now. RantWoman urges readers, Lead RantWoman not into temptation.)

--Well, gee, it's nice to see this just in time for the White Privilege Conference, but i hope changing the name of Oversight is not the only thing we do to re-examine issues of racism

--Rantwoman definitely unites with the thought of changing our name but HATES "Care and Counsel" for two reasons:

--Confusion with the Care Subcommittee. The Care subcommittee (of what is now known as Oversight) helps arrange committees of support for Friends with individual specific needs. Rantwoman means to write more of this topic elsewhere.

--Counsel implies more training and perspicacity than the Nominating process at our Meeting by itself generates. Pretty much does not matter what words might come with Counsel;RantWoman does not like the word Counsel because it sets up unrealistic expectations. One nearby Meeting calls this committee Community Spiritual Life, a name RantWoman is not crazy about but it works for them.

--RantWoman thinks "Care and Counsel" promises way more than can be assured. Precisely because RantWoman is prepared to live with people doing their best in Faith, Rantwoman really likes the thought of Community,Faith and Discipline committee. (Okay, this first came to RantWoman as the Faith, Community, and Discipline Committee. Can anyone see the phonetically infelicitous acronym that results?)

But the most important point: RantWoman wants the whole community, not just the soon-to-be-renamed committee to grapple with the theology and historical associations of the different words. Can you say "Word nerd?" Hold RantWoman in the Light while she tries to stay centered about this. In any case, the Friend presenting is not available until the June business meeting.

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As stated?

Reviews in Business Meeting of the State of the Meeting report below, from those assembled: "Beautifully written" x about 5

Review from RantWoman: excellent, high-quality happy talk and twaddle. Not only is there barely any room for disability or difficulty or the next chapter of a long history, there is not even room for pain and challenge hanging silently on a clothesline. WHAT kind of wimpy divine presence are we talking about anyway?

The text after the authors and Business Meeting declined not only the extensive edits RantWoman previously proposed http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-meeting-as-stated.html but the two items she reiterated in Business Meeting, one about disabilities and difficulty, and one about marriage equality, imperfect as the WA measure is without federal changes.

State of the Meeting Report (April 2013)


University Friends Meeting


Our worship this year has been rich and balanced. Our meetinghouse hums with life: in addition to two First Day meetings for worship and midweek worship, our Social Hall is rented out most nights, a preschool thrives on our ground floor, and 20 homeless individuals find shelter in our worship room each night. At Quaker House, we welcome both travelers and six new social service Fellows each year through our QuEST program. This year we’ve had three new adult members, two new junior members, two transfers to other meetings, and three deaths of members: Rich Beyer, Bill Hanson, and Frances Hain. It has now been a few years since our Year of Discernment, a process many of us found to be quite enriching and strengthening, and this year we ask where the clarity we found that year might again serve as a way to reset our compass.

One question that weighs on us is how to respond to some members’ feelings that we are overcommitted or overstretched. With our numerous committees, care committees, two buildings to maintain, and a full roster of staff positions, some members wish for a greater lightness in our Society’s step. Are we attempting too much? Are our tasks and roles the right ones? Do we work in simplicity and Light? At a threshing session on this topic, a suggestion emerged that we might try a drastic winter pruning—cutting back on the number and size of our committees and endeavors, and from that cleared space, seeing what structural needs emerged. We wait to take action until we are clear we fully understand the challenges faced by staff, member/attender-volunteers, and staff support.

We have been quite clear in our commitment to properly welcoming and supporting our youngest attenders. To this end, in addition to our permanent preschool teacher, who is in her second year of working with our infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, we’ve hired two permanent First Day teachers, who provide regular programming for our elementary-aged children. (RantWoman is unsure of the precise wording re Junior Friends). A group of Junior Friends from our Meeting and South Seattle Friends Meeting meets the first week of each month.  We gather quarterly with young families at our meeting and South Seattle Friends Meeting, in order to grow our community and to share our experiences of raising children within the Quaker faith.


Our worship community includes survivors of sexual abuse as well as sexual offenders. We hold this balance carefully and with deliberate transparency. From this attention has grown a set of policies and practices geared towards the safety of our children.


At our fall community-building retreat, we considered how our worship nurtures our community. We are a large meeting, and there are many ways members and attenders find their home here: in play with our children, in connection to the homeless individuals sheltering with us who lead us to consider the plight of the homeless across our city, through the dozen individual care committees that allow us to focus our Light, through attention to the act of ministry in all its guises, by reaching out to the QuEST Fellows whose service work inspires us, enjoying each others’ company at Light Lunch, engaging in collective social action and political advocacy, tending to the native plants that surround our meeting house, and by greeting with open and attentive hearts the newcomers and old-timers with whom we meet for worship.

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Business Meeting snapshots

Blog as filing cabinet items about Meeting for Business

The new priesthood, Sheffield
http://sheffieldquakers.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-new-priesthood.html

Chris Mohr, as to the funnel, as to the sifter
http://chrismsf.blogspot.com/2013/03/vital-quaker-tools-kitchen-remix-version.html

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Rapture? Raptors! Playoffs, Secondhand.

RantWoman is deeply amused. Recently, defined as a couple Sundays ago, there was a Game, a Playoff Game featuring the Seattle Seahawks and the Atlanta Falcons. The Game occurred in Seattle, within busborne spitting distance of RantWoman--if RantWoman were not otherwise engaged. RantWoman is nearly ALWAYS otherwise engaged when it comes to Football. RantWoman does not even care if it's a playoff game


The Game began at 10:00 am on a Sunday morning. Those who regularly consume religion in the form of religious services realize that this timing poses a peculiar dilemma: Raptors or Rapture? Except in RantWoman's world, that week it was Raptors or Business Meeting. Attendance at Business Meeting was down a little. Apparently the Raptors were a big draw.

RantWoman is a nerd. RantWoman did not even interact with the Raptors until Monday morning and then secondhand with a thoroughly amusing live sportscaster. The outcome of the game probably chattered past RantWoman on the radio but it did not register with RantWoman, until.... until the next day aboard a bus. One of RantWoman's fellow travellers was just FULL of news, overflowing with distress to boot. It seems that until late in the last quarter, it looked as if it was going to be a Seattle rout and then suddenly the Falcons roared back.

Here another passenger spoke up. He said he missed the game. He was in church. The bus driver seemed to know the passengers and she joined the recap. The fan who had been in church spoke of all the people in church watching the game on their electronic devices. RantWoman, gadfly at large about matters of worship and ministry gasped. Talk about "lead me not into temptation." Glory be to God: thank heaven RantWoman does not own a Smartphone.

RantWoman ALSO celebrates a peculiar economy in her accidental consumption of sports history: RantWoman appreciated the boiled down 5-minute highly digested secondhand version of the game aboard the bus far more than she probably would have cared if offered the opportunity to watch the whole game. Hallelujah! Amen!
Sorry Seahawks. Try again next year.

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Go Tell it on the Mountain

RantWoman is feeling an opening in her leading to hold a holiday festival of singing and dancing on her blog. Okay, so RantWoman is opening the floodgates not only to her own prodigious capacity to free-associate, misconstrue, and leap deep chasms of incomprehnsion in a single bound, even worse, God keeps telling her also to open herself to torrents of info through search engines.

Today's theme: Go tell it on the Mountain presented in several versions thinking that different ears need different voices.


A great kids choir; sorry about the annoying ad at teh beginning




Vanessa Williams and God as movements of bodies, not just of the Holy Spirit





Jewel and Toby Keith





A Wikipedia item about a novel by the same name

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Tell_It_on_the_Mountain_(novel) 1953, by James Baldwin



Go Tell it on a Mountain?

Oh, Hell's Bells.

Mr. and Mrs. Friend with a Remarkable Story just want to come to worship like everyone else. RantWoman recognizes that Friend With a Remarkable Story has less control than other people about reasons his life might get publicly commented about. RantWoman is perfectly fine her Meeting sometimes carried along in the wake of that, along with all the other forms of Quaker witness about in her Meeting.

But along comes Friend from a Nearby Meeting going on and on in kind of an inflammatory way about Friend with a Remarkable Story and then censoring the Remarkable Story pieces RantWoman tried to insert into the narrative in the comments, not to mention some other pastoral care of Friends at challenging moments threads RantWoman decided not even to touch yet.

http://quakersusanne.wordpress.com/2012/11/24/another-difficult-topic-sex-offenders-and-quakers/

http://quakersusanne.wordpress.com/2012/12/01/discipline-and-emotions-sex-offenders-and-quakers-part-ii/

http://quakersusanne.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/rules-of-verbal-engagement-sex-offenders-and-quakers-part-iii/

RantWoman has been reading other blog threads and holding Nearby Meeting in the Light for awhile. RantWoman is also more than morbidly curious enough to be interested in details of key moments, but RantWoman feels it's sort of unseemly to pry and is inclined just to have ears open.

And in the meantime, one actual motivator behind this post: in Meeting for Business Friends learned that QUEST, our single-congregation leading to operate an Americorps program will now post the text of our Meeting's bulletin announcement about sex offenders along with the text about our SHARE ministry and something else on its website.

This reflects one Friend's wish that potential program participants who find the topic restimulating might have the option of choosing  other Americorps programs. Computer Hacker Barbie, aka RantWoman, was already tripping over too many words in Business Meeting but when RantWoman first heard of the concern she blurted out something along the lines of "What? like there wouldn't be sex offenders somewhere else. At least here we try to talk appropriately about it!"

Maybe RantWoman will suggest, when a certain yellow sheet gets wordsmithed to everyone's satisfaction that the text on the web also includ a link to the text of the Yellow sheet, but so far all that is available is RantWoman's whacking at a draft.
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2012/09/evolution-draftily.html

Go tell it on a Mountain!

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Carbonated Holiness

WARNING: if you would rather not read about suicide right now, please accept a prayer in your direction and feel free to click away immediately and consider whether you also need to call your local crisis line, assuming you have a  local crisis line.

SECOND WARNING: if you cannot imagine laughter ever co-existing in the same conversation, with suicide, probably it will also be simplest if you click away.

The rest of you, please do not say RantWoman did not warn you; see if God also shows up too.


RantWoman is doing her best to offer holiday levity but today the RantWoman Metaphor Manglement Service, the God of Grab the Blind Person and Bless Them, the Computer hacker Barbie School  of Spiritual Nurture, and RantWoman's blog roll are serving up a peculiar brew:

The basic prayers, per Anne Lamott, help, thanks, wow, with a garnish of "laughter is carbonated holiness!"


A blog entry book review for a book that sounds delightful--even though there is also a suicide.

http://young.anabaptistradicals.org/2012/12/10/laughter-is-sacred-space-memoir-of-an-anabaptist-comedian/


RantWoman's latest Grab the Blind Person and Bless Them moment technically was not a Grab the Blind Person moment but still. The Blessing Individual plonked his bicycle in front of RantWoman while RantWoman was sitting on a bus bench awaiting transport in such a way that it would have been awkward for RantWoman to move. He then proceeded to tell RantWoman she is blessed for ...RantWoman is not quite sure what. Next he needed to tell RantWoman that he expected shortly to be in less modest straits because his rock band "Susie Loves Suicide" has suppposedly signed a contract and is about to go on tour.

RantWoman apologizes to survivors of suicide and suicide prevention resources everywhere, but it was all RantWoman could do not to burst out laughing about the band's name. WHAT kind of prayer can one offer for that?

A Humorless soreheaded prayer perhaps?

RantWoman is reflecting on a moment from Business Meeting. A memorial was being Read  for Rice Bucket Friend. Rice Bucket Friend was the son of Baptist missionaries to China. He grew up wiht a lifelong attention to Daoism and passionate peace commitment. He acquired his Nom de Blog from his Chinese Amahs commenting on the child's capacity and enthusiasm for food. RantWoman  was called to ask whether Rice Bucket Friend's middle daughter's death could be labelled for what it was, suicide. 

No, apparently. The label did not get used at the memorial but RantWoman was reminded of the issue conversationally after the memorial. RantWoman was also reminded that someone she herself met a similar end about the same time. Then the Computer Hacker Barbie School of Spiritual Nurture summoned peculiarly consoling advice from Mathematics Friend  for anyone who finds suicides maddening that...,well...: "If you think your life is worth less than 0 then 0 is an improvement."

RantWoman's final moment of ipossibly inappropriate levity came in the form of the phrase "double mastectomy." Little Sister, after obsessed in every way  search enginesmakepossible earlier in the testsequences is now over the weekend suspended in her current phase of medical recommendation between lumpectomy and double mastectomy. RantWoman considers it a GREAT blessing that, when the possibility of a whole library of different prosthetic bosoms for different days of the week stumbled out of RantWoman's mouth, Little Sister LAUGHED.

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