Government Issue vehicles

RantWoman is somewhat observing 12 days of Christmas with attention to various and sundry as who have showed up over the holidays, at least by phone, email...

Today is observation with attention to RantBrother lately in MT and indoors during subzero weather albeit under different circumstances than he told RantMom earlier in the month.

The bad news: whatever blessings in the realm of previous ways to live indoors RantBrother told RantMom about had dissolved by the time of RantBro's holiday call to RantWoman.

The good news: at least RantBrother had the sense to find a way in out of the cold.

The good news: RantBro is motivated to seek work.

The bad news: RantBro is interested in more mysterious law enforcement, the kind of job that comes with "a government issue 4x4 and a government issue .45.

Is this:

--redneck trashtalk that any red-blooded Monanan should just know to blow off?

--still yet more unrealistic 'bro thinking about employment

--yet another job possibility that we all get to be thankful has SCANT probability of actually turning into actual paychecks? Hallelujah! Praise Jesus. Amen!

--simply what RantBrother presence means today...?

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Peculiar Gifts Lucia

RantWoman is peculiarly still in Thanksgivingukkah Be grateful Stand up and Say who you are even if... Mode. RantWoman may or may not get around to elaborating by blog. The exact formulation that keeps coming to RantWoman is more than incendiary enough for RantWoman but every corner of RantWoman's life, including the Rant WaitingBasket, is overloaded to bursting. If RantWoman somehow does not get around to lobbing ONE of her many curve balls, it might not be a total calamity.

Call that sequence Peculiar Gratitude #1. RantWoman appreciates energy sometimes even when it is too much.

Peculiar Gratitude #2. RantWoman has bedbugs to thank for NOT having RantBrother crashing on her couch and instead learning that RantBrother is in MT and living indoors in exchange for part-time work. The temptation to offer RantBrother time on RantWoman's couch and  prospect of needing to tell RantBrother "No" were what finally motivated RantWoman to speak to her management of the bedbug issue. Praise the Lord and take care of That of God in ME!

Peculiar Gratitude #3. The reading group still wandering through writings related to John Woolman talked at a recent session about "superfluities." RantWoman is kind of a Bad Friend in terms of attachment to sundry superfluities. However, bedbugs are one REALLY dynamic way to help chase superfluities such as phone bills from 2002 out the door. Sayonara superfluities, or some of them anyway!

Peculiar Gratitude #4 Irrepressible Nephew is also too happy to offer suggestions about bedbugs. Irrepressible Nephew and his mother suggest...COCKROACHES, something called Dubia cockroaches also fed to Irrepressible Nephew's many lizards.

http://www.nyworms.com/dubiacare.htm

http://bedbugger.com/2007/03/19/faq-is-there-an-insect-that-will-eat-bed-bugs/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bed_bug


Peculiar Gratitude #5 Supposedly, according to Little Sister and irrepressible Nephew, one does not even need cockroaches. Supposedly cockroach urine is enough to deter bedbugs from coming back. Supposedly. RantWoman is SO relieved. RantWoman was trying to imagine how to explain to her building management, "Look, these are PET cockroaches to protect against the bedbugs." Now all RantWoman has to do is come up with discrete ways to have cockroach urine present without inviting cockroaches....

Peculiar Gratitude: Lucia. RantWoma n started cataloguing these particular gratitudies on Lucia. Need we say more?

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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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Day 8 Gratitudes and

Gratitude for current struggle
http://nbclatino.com/2013/12/04/film-justice-for-my-sister-becomes-movement-for-eradicating-violence-against-women/

Gratitude: The anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott
http://www.montgomeryboycott.com/overview/

Gratitude for struggle: Nelson Mandela, July 18, 1918-December 5 2013.
RantWoman will write minutes today that begin:
"The meeting (conference call) opened with a period of silence and particular appreciation for the life of Nelson Mandela."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-25249520

"I was not a messiah but an ordinary man who had become a leadedr because of
extraordinary circumstances."
For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.
"education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world."




Josh Groban and Aretha Franklin at mandela Day 2009, You  raise Me up.
http://youtu.be/OqUBHTy0PRM

Brenda Fassie, Vuli Ndela with Mandela
http://youtu.be/wFBGeQL6Gzk


Seems the Biblical sins of our fathers visted on the seventh generation may apply among mice exposed to bad smells too. RantWoman apologizes for not having acitation, but since the point is thematic resonance, perhaps her readers and bear with the problem.

And from Johan Maurer
http://johanpdx.blogspot.com/2013/12/myths.html
withs riffs on fathers and sons, peace in the middle east...
The last of 8 nights of Light: RantWoman needs to declare time warp and inner blowtorch blazing in order to come back and riff on the interfaith psychodynamics behind why RantWoman does not have the most positive associations ever with dreidls. It's one of those circumstances that could have come together MANY ways. It just happens that in the realm of the RantFamily dreidls are a fine shorthand. But What's on RantWoman's mind deserves its own space and RantWoman does not want to try to compete with Nelson Mandela.

But in the realm of peculiar gratitudes and love managing gnarly realities, RantWoman is REALLY grateful both for various abuse prevention educational events around her Meeting and grateful that parents show up and interact in much more centerd and informed ways than the Rant Parents ever could. And.....

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Day 7 Lucid Email

RantWoman's peculiar gratitudes for the seventh night of Hanukkah this year:

SO FAR, RantWoman has resisted the temptation both to send Care and Counsel Committee one of RantBrother's less than lucid emails and then to ask which members of the Still Didn't Get the Memo Committee on Email Immoderation Care and Counsel might find helpful to invite to the discussion.

RantWoman supposes that others might be grateful that RantWoman herself has to contend with some people and tendencies that fully qualify for service on the Still Didn't Get the Memo committee. In particular:

  --RantWoman keeps trying to do projects with people whose first language is not English and who definitely prefer that RantWoman figure out how to talk to them rather than write email. Can you say Growing Edge?

  --RantWoman has benefitted greatly from the services from Obsessive Compulsive Receptionst, OCR for short. OCR is TERRIBLY competent, as in so competent and diligent that she sends RantWoman emails that are even more oppressive than some of RantWoman's and sends them even later at night. Besides the issue of how to work with several issues arising from these traits, one of RantWoman's peculiar gratitudes is that MAYBE she will be able at some point to cite these interactions as part of the diversity on steroids experiences of the Friendly Neighborhood Center for Extreme Computing. Maybe.

--RantWoman has another colleague at the Friendly Neighborhood Center who RantWoman might nominate for service on the Still Didn't get the Memo Committee. Put Attack Receptionist into the search bar. This is Mr. Attack Receptionist. His first concern: he definitely still wants to be involved and contribute. One of the main things he is involved with is sending email about how he is not available due to illness or dialysis. The second thing he gets involved with is the kind of intemperate emails that cause one's colleagues never ever to want Mr. Attack Receptionist to speak on their behalf in any kind of a visible communications role. But he likes baseball. Run with that?


Anyway, RantWoman appreciates:

--Recent, comparatively LUCID email from RantBrother

(RantBrother seems to have quit drinking several months ago. SOMETIMES he can now talk about how probably it was not a good idea as shift manager at his job to come to work plastered. )

--Awhile back, RantBrother's email themes made an interesting progression. For a long time RantBrother would from time to time send RantWoman email detailing a long enemies list. One interesting point was the starting date of the enemies list; another was that at a certain point, it did not seem like he was adding new enemies. RantWoman was not able to evaluate any action items in the enemies list but Literature Brain was interested to note a shift at one point to a "They're trying to kill me" list and a list attached to different events and geography.

RantWoman has inner blowtorch blazing for a whole bunch of reasons. Maybe RantWoman will spell out enough of what is one her mind to fit into 8 days of Hanukkah. Maybe RantWoman will declare a time warp in order to hold the whole story. Hold the thought in the Light.

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Hanukkah Day 6. Fire Photon Torpedoes

Again in the zone of peculiar gratitudes and ferocious Light, a  couple weeks ago Meeting for Worship featured two "please hold me in the Light" messages, one with an implicit request and one more explicit.

The more explicit request: a Friend was facing surgery for breast cancer. RantWoman found herself thinking of RantMom and a blind friend both of whom suffer miserably from neuropathy after their cancer treatment. RantWoman is terribly glad to have both still among us and terribly glad RantMom is finally admitting she finds neuropathy a giant nuisance in the kitchen. Blind Friend would quite like still to be able to read Braille and no longer can.:The words that did not make it out of RantWoman's mouth: "well, of course I must hold you in the Light...and we will still love you even if all the treatments give you neuropathy."

The implicit request to be held in the Light came from a Friend needing to monitor vision for signs of a detached retina. Friend REALLY likes to read and RantWoman has to assume the phrase "detached retina" sounds absolutely terrifying.  RantWoman GUESSES she gets to be grateful to have resisted slight nudgings toward "attack of the trauma all stars" comments. RantWoman definitely qualifies for opthalomology frequent flyer points and has plenty of opportunity to get in touch with joys of repeatedly being Exhibit A for newly minted opthamological technicians and having to remind them of long history.

RantWoman's history includes the term detached retina, twice, in 3 languages just to explain to key groupies. RantWoman's detached retinas did not qualify for simple laser beams tacking things back in place. RantWoman's option was MUCH more invasive including a band around each eye and a gas bubble inside for weeks. On the bus, one on one, RantWoman in other medical situations has found herself hearing some version of "been there. Done That.Got the T-shirt and a bunch of hardware and some more frequent flier miles besides. RantWoman has not felt called to spell things out in Meeting for worship for the whole community to hold either. Instead RantWoman gets to be grateful for Star Trek.
The one time RantWoman had to have something ophthalmological done with a laser beam,all RantWoman could think of was "Fire Photon torpedoes!" RantWoman does not want to speculate whether that comment would be helpful for the Friend who spoke. It certainly covered RantWoman's experience with a shock wave and a precise enough quantumof energy to remind RantWoman of some laser-themed mad scientist moments in summer science programs in high school.

Fire photon torpedoes indeed. Light up the blog screen.

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Hanukkah Day 4 Do you hear what I hear?

A popular Christmas Carol, interpreted....



RantWoman dedicates this post and the video clip to

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

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

Tender? This is RantWoman!?!?!?


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

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

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Hanukkah Day 3. The Maccabeats, Fire

RantWoman might expect "we got the fire.." from certain flavorsof Christians. RantWoman would not at all have expected to hear it for Hanukkah. Yet here it is.





RantWoman might expect "we got the fire.." from certain flavorsof Christians. RantWoman would not at all have expected to hear it for Hanukkah. Yet here it is.

--In the spirit of not expecting... RantWoman needs, gratefully, to grab the Hanukkah theme of what seems completely inadequate to a need lasting and lasting and lasting 8 days or a whole feast of loaves and fishes. The bakery where the loaves will come from seems still to have many wacky things going on so let's not get TOO carried away, but...

--RantWoman is very grateful for Blow Things Up software which enables her to appreciate the visuals of this video. Video description is beyond RantWoman's Light so in terms of sowing interdependence, please ask someone nearby for this if you need it.

--In terms of "we got the fire," RantWomanhas a certain amount of nuclear power plant themed academentia (a master's thesis, to be precise) in her past. So RantWoman has felt like a spectator with an odd view of Iran's civilian nuclear energy and uranium enrichment saga. That was before an Israeli's social media comment, secondhand, a couple weeks ago while everyone RantWoman knows who works for the federal government was subjected to unintended paid vacation: "You don't have a government and the government you don't have is talking to Iran."
    The important thing for the moment: RantWoman is grateful that parties to talks about uranium enrichment have recognized that a bunch of UN resolutions cannot just rewrite the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. RantWoman sees the recently concluded multiparty agreement about this issue as HUGE steps forward. RantWoman would not mind if it were within her Light to write this thought in more polished terms but let us start where we are.

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Email: The Gospel According to, oops well, Care and Counsel.

RantWoman, God, and the Still Didn't Get the Memo Committee on Email Immoderation are feeling called to hold worship sharing with the, oops well, Care and Counsel Committee at RantWoman's Meeting about the subject of email. RantWoman proposes to serve as Recording clerk and to record minutes of much exercise in a separate entry. RantWoman is still seasoning the matter of what queries to begin with.

 

RantWoman hopes that God shows up in words, but notes a peculiar God historical tendency to show up in burning bushes, pillars of cloud, commandments etched in stone tablets, plagues, pestilence, planetary inundations, and sundry other difficult to parse manifestations.

 

RantWoman is not sure which members of the Still Didn't Get the Memo Committee... are going to show up, but the committee includes a particularly large membership with a number of different qualifications:

--Generic Customer Service Friend

--Veteran Tech Support "Users always Lie; They don't know they lie; they don't mean to lie but they Lie. Now what was that symptom again?" Friend.

--Mental Health Triage Friend

--Out of Control Spiritual Accompaniment Friend

--Data Nerd / What is trending over time Friend

--Lots of ways to agree about measures to make email manageable but not sending is not an option Friend.

--Language Nerd and Literature Scholar Friend

--Magical Realism So what if the timelines are non-linear Friend

--You're always asleep when I'm awake Friend

--You barely know me and I barely know you but I am supposed to know you are a resource Friend

--It takes days and days of phone tag to reach you Friend

--I actually think sort of slowly and LIKE being able to use my search engine to think over bits of the conversation again Friend

--If you don't understand something, have you considered asking for clarification? Friend

--If you don't understand something, who might you refer the problem to Friend?

--Look, really sorry the message is not coming in palatable form but have you considered that it might be your job either to figure it out or to connect the sender withsomeone who can Friend

--I talk about Service Dogs all the time. You think I don't know when to quit aboutservice DOGS. How about we talk about service CHICKENS? Friend

--Really sorry God is not showing up on your schedule Friend.

--You say you dislike email but you actually do much better by email sometimesFriend.

--Sometimes I get so upset I cannot talk Friend.

--You like to talk; I need to send email Friend

--Have you considered the possibility that what I am talking about applies to your day job too Friend.

 

RantWoman acknowledges that The Still Didn't Get the Memo Committee... could perhaps get things off on better footing by losing references to the "Oops Well" part of the Care and Counsel Committee moniker. RantWoman acknowledges this, but she showed up warts and all and the worship sharing needs to happen regardless.

Plus, RantWoman recently stumbled across the most interesting reference to the word "oversight" not in sense overburdened with the historical weight of enslavement but in a more egalitarian, shared oversight "we all take care of each other" sense. RantWoman WISHES she could remember which blog roll item she saw this in. RantWoman also would not mind some umbra of a penumbra of a sense that anyone else on Care and Counsel committee cares about RantWoman's inquiry. RantWoman is aware of needing to hold someone in theLight about medical matters as well. Finally, if someone calling Dial a Tirade gets a busy signal about this topic, oh well, there are plenty more tirades available. Please hold that point in the Light along with the entire gigantic Still Didn't Get the Memo Committee on Email Immoderation.

The following item appeared recently in the monthly newsletter at RantWoman's Meeting.

 

CARE AND COUNSELCOMMITTEE

Thoughts on UFM Email

While email is a tremendous benefit to us, at times it can be a burden. Care and Counsel Committee put together the following document to help fellow members. It is common when in the midst of an email problem that we feel the need to help the other person understand our position or make our points more firmly. In these guidelines below, we suggest another tack: Whenever you feel the need to set things right, instead wait calmly. If after due consideration it is still necessary, briefly state your position once and move on.

Too Long: One strategy for long emails is to skim them looking for questions or requests. Limit your response to answering the questions or requests directly and briefly. This will greatly reduce how much must be read and understood, but still gives the other person a specific response. It represents a midpoint between ignoring an email and taking on the burden of reading and responding to an overly long missive.

Too Numerous: If you are receiving too may emails from another member, consider taking a break and filing for future perusal. Once your good feelings return you can limit the amount of mail you read from the other person by setting aside a period of time, say 10 minutes every Monday, to read and respond to their emails. Take the rest and file them for later.

Confusing: If the email is confusing and there are no requests or questions in it, then take whatever understanding you may

have from it and move on. If there are requests or questions in it that you cannot understand, simply respond by letting the

writer know that.

Unkind: A good rule of thumb is to read the first few sentences and ask yourself if you feel good about reading further. If continuing to read is digging a hole of bad feelings, then stop digging and move on. If you want, let the writer know that for you to read the email, he or she will need to rewrite it with kindness.

Writing Email: The other side of reading email is writing email. Kind, compassionate, and thoughtful emails that come quickly to the point and put any requests in the first sentence are the mostly (sic—RantWoman) likely to receive an audience. Put aside longer or heated emails until you have the chance to revise them to a paragraph or two of kind, compassionate, and thoughtful words.

Care and Counsel Committee,

 

RantWoman, this is God. If the entire Still Didn't Get the Memo committee shows up  and everyone talks one blop at a time, this one worship sharing is going to take millenia.

RantWoman , musing: ...could just forward to Care and Counsel one of Rant Brother's "I'ms still mentally ill and I still want firearms" emails, perhaps seasoned with more "I didn't tell you about my day" details than anyone wants to interact with about why it's IMPORTANT that people like RantBrother have places like the Friendly Neighborhood Center for Extreme Computing  they can come to read and send email.

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Peace? Tantrums. Hammer Strokes.

RantWoman apologizes. This item is from a recent issue of her Meeting's newsletter. RantWoman finds the passage evokes an entirely unseemly desire just to have a temper tantrum or even ...

PLEASE hold that urge in the Light and remind RantWoman "use your words...."

ON PEACE

Advice

Peace is the state in which we are in accord with God, the earth,  others, and ourselves. We know that true, lasting peace among us can finally be attained only through unity in the life of the spirit. We work to create the conditions of peace, such as freedom, justice, cooperation, and the right sharing of the world’s resources. As we work for peace in the world, we search out the seeds of war in ourselves and in our way of life. We refuse to join in actions which lead to destruction and death. We seek ways to cooperate to save life and strengthen the bonds of unity among all people.

 Queries

Do we live in the virtue of that life  and power which takes away the  occasion of all war?

 Do we refrain from taking part in war as inconsistent with the  spirit of Christ?

 What are we doing to remove the causes of war and to bring about the conditions of peace?

 Where there are hatred, division, and strife, how are we instruments of reconciliation and love?

 How do we communicate to others an understanding of the basis of our peace testimony?

 As we work for peace in the world, are we nourished by peace within ourselves?

 On the other hand, two really different items that speak greatly to RantWoman's condition in spite of sundry controversies and conversations needed.

First from Russia
http://johanpdx.blogspot.com/2013/11/prophets-cynics-and-tricksters.html

Next closer to home:
http://robinmsf.blogspot.com/2013/11/cups-of-tea-and-hammer-strokes.html
 

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What does George Fox say video

Partly a blog as filing cabinet item so RantWoman has some chance of finding this again. Partly a confession: RantWoman would a WHOLE lot rather watch a video than read George Fox's journal, though the video does mke RantWoman think harder about sometime POSSIBLY reading his journal.

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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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Adult children; abusive parents

Adult Children and relationships to abusive parents wit h lots of links on the Mean to read list.

http://www.slate.com/articles/life/family/2013/02/abusive_parents_what_do_grown_children_owe_the_mothers_and_fathers_who_made.single.html

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One at a Time PLEASE

Dear Parents,

RantWoman LOVES your children, really she does. RantWoman loves having a community that includes kids, parents, crusty curmudgeons, and people with all kinds of life experiences that might not be obvious just sitting in Meeting for Worship.

RantWoman is Auntie, not a parent. RantWoman REALLY digs being Auntie, for one thing because she gets to Give the Kid Back. RantWoman considers it her holy duty to cheerlead parents doing the fulltime job. In other words, RantWoman means well! And sometimes RantWoman's good intentions work; sometimes they do not.

RantWoman also considers it the community's job to cheerlead parents and to nurture our children's growth and development. RantWoman sees no reason growth and development are incompatible with that glorious time at the end of worship when children come, meeting shortly closes, and thenthere are ANNOUNCEMENTS, love 'em or hate  'em. RantWoman personally really appreciates announcements--when she can hear them.

RantWoman has been trying to have a community conversation about the principle that one person talks at a time during announcements. RantWoman's Meeting includes a whole bunch of people who hear badly. The worship room is covered with sound muffling carpet all over the walls. RantWoman's Meeting is not any more blessed with people who find it easy to SPEAK UP than anywhere else. And RantWoman thinks there are lots and lots of people who will appreciate it if children and adults can learn to talk ONE AT A TIME. This does not have to be perfect and there is plenty of time for people to grow into this, but RantWoman has become clearer and clearer that this is reasonable.

The first time need to speak to this issue came to RantWoman there were MANY new families with LOTS of children in worship and RantWoman was more than willing to make allowance for "new" and very young children. Meeting for Worship featured the next in a series of "hold it in the Light" messages about a youth struggling with more teenage challenges than average. RantWoman does not remember what all came up during announcements except for an announcement of a death of another challenged youngish person who few people in the room knew. Announcements ran long and the many children were exuberant, vocal and understandably not on topic.

RantWoman found her stomach churning and had to sit with a whole bunch of personal issues before being clear to go home and do a customary RantWoman email. When RantWoman brought up her concern and the suggestion about talking one at a time, she received return email suggesting she just go worship somewhere else where there are no children. Fortunately for the future of quakerdom, there are no such options within RantWoman's one bus on First Days travel constraints. RantWoman has not heard back about any other ideas but RantWoman is PRETTY sure kids AND grownups can work this out.

If you would like to hold this topic in the Light, focus on growth in shared worship, and stop here, please feel free.




If you are game for another ride at the RantWoman spiritual amusement park, thank you and read on.
Warning: it's a spiritual amusement park. RantWoman reminds readers of her past as a Russian literature major and throbbing literature brain symbolism habits. Think parallelism between different scenes with common elements. Think long complex novels whose authors got paid by the cuarto. Think long complex novels where the characters are all referred to by multiple names. RantWoman has also dabbled in Latin American magical realism; one feature of that genre is that timelines are sometimes, to say the least not linear.

In other words, RantWoman pointedly does not guarantee easily digested nibbles. In fact, if people insist that God show up only in easily digested nibbles, Worse Auntie is likely to show up and foam at the mouth about who the heck are any of us to argue with God and why does anyone feel entitled to God as personal Butler, God perfectly sculpted in dainty easily digestible bites? Nor unfortunately can RantWoman guarantee there is anything to be fixed though Holding in the Light nearly always improves the experience.

RantWoman recently had a conversation with a Weighty Friend about a Famous Founding member of our Meeting. Famous Founding Member expected his children who came to Meeting to sit through worship from day one. Famous Founding Member claimed that this practice is why all of those children remained Quakers as adults. RantWoman notes this without further comment.

RantWoman is an oldest child. Especially with a young RantWoman, the RantParents did not necessarily have a great grasp on the concept of "age appropriate. RantWoman learned early that Mommy was a better person all week if she had a good experience at church, and RantWoman learned that the church service was usually a whole lot more interesting that whatever childcare options were available. RantDad as choir director usually could keep an eye on the Rant children from the front of the church 

RantWoman was also on the learn to sit still side of the sit still or get spanked when we get home norm of parental behavior expectations. RantWoman is not sure she is grateful to Little Sister for reminding her recently of this divide, but it does partly explain some of RantWoman's twitches around uncorralled children in worship: a stew of "someone is going to get spanked," "where ARE their parents?" "How come they get to run around and I don't?"

RantWoman reminds herself that she is a Quaker not a Presbyterian anymore and children are SUPPOSED to be allowed to breathe. Than RantDad shows up with his bad vision and unacknowledged frustration shrieking at young children who do the bobble around thing all young children do. RantWoman remembers being terrified about RantDad yelling; now unfortunately RantWoman can relate to the frustration but she considers it her holy duty to TRY to keep a handle on the shrieking.

Next come RantWoman's bus nerves. RantWoman has written extensively of the vast realms of rich spiritual experience and spiritual challenge available aboard the average public transportation system. Today's topic is children, small people who need to stay connected to the big people they get on the bus with while everyone quickly and safely gets stowed, small people who sometimes speak better English than the big people they get on the bus with, all kinds of situations where it helps if everyone pays attention to safety and courtesy.

But RantWoman, someone will say, it's Meeting for Worship, not the bus. Um, RantWoman's bus nerves have a single standard of Truth. They cannot tell the difference between the bus and Meeting for Worship. Sometimes on the bus that is a GOOD thing.

But RantWoman that's YOUR mental health issue. Can't you just go talk to your counselor (times 2 with a theme and variations motif)?


WARNING: TRIGGER ALERT for additional trauma!
Very Funny. RantWoman has a new mental health provider. About the second time RantWoman had an appointment with new mental health provider, there was ...ta-da...massive disruption in bus service all over the city for several hours because one of the humble public servants who drives buses got shot in the face by, please excuse RantWoman speaking plainly and HOLD THE GUY IN THE LIGHT --posthumously because of police action, an idiot with a gun who could not pay his bus fare.

RantWoman of course was affected by the massive schedule disruptions but had no idea initially what bus route was affected.

RantWoman managed an alternative routing that at least got RantWoman to her appointment but got her there very late. Not late enough to cancel, but late enough to exchange info: new mental health professional rides the route affected by the shooting all the time. RantWoman rides that route sometimes too. And when RantWoman's bus nerves want to flare into hypervigilance mode, RantWoman needs only to think about shooter on a bus at rush hour on a bus with lots of family destinations on the route.

Maybe other people can bear with RantWoman and her multiple time sequences and all the joy and tragedy and scarieness and love sitting in worship and can join RantWoman in holding THE BUS in the Light too.

And maybe we all get to count our blessings that Meeting for Worship usually is not as scary as the bus.

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Brother Blessings; NOT firearms

RantWoman has been trying to practice gratitude.




WARNING: RantWoman has been trying to practice gratitude around topics that absolutely are NOT FUN.





As far as absolutely gorgeous red and orange leaves this year, it's easy. The absolutely exquisite leaf palatte is getting mixed up in way too much fog and real actually existing fog, not just the peculiarities of RantWoman's vision, but practicing gratitude about leaves is a piece of cake.



By way of further gratitudes, RantWoman spent 15 minutes one morning this week trying to figure out why there was no connecting to the internet. It took RantWoman all that time to figure out that The Queen of Spades had somehow disconnected the cable between modem and wall. RantWoman is grateful not only to have solved the mystery but also that The Queen of Spades seems to have cut back on her tech support efforts.



But RantWoman is a VERY Bad Friend sometimes. For instance, RantBrother appears to have come to town for good. His common sense seems not to have arrived, but RantWoman is celebrating his absolutely amazing capacity to enlighten her. RantBrother is just top of the line, on par with the best of the best entertainment aboard Metro when it comes to little known facts of demography, sociology, history, political economy, and RantFamily tree.



RantWoman deeply appreciates learning of alleged cousins RantWoman had no idea existed, RantWoman is amused that these alleged cousins all seem to have either worked in law enforcement or been involved in cocaine dealing, and RantWoman devoutly hopes not both.



RantWoman has been tending to matters of gun violence and I 594 proposals to require universal backgroun checks for gun purchases. RantWoman has been reflecting on moments where she HOPES universal background checks would prevent tragedy: a friend who managed to buy the gun he shot himself with despite multiple hospitalizations the previous year for suicidality.



RantWoman's gratitude in this area in the realm of RantBrother: among many allegedly on target facts RantBrother keeps asserting about himself that he has passed the next of whatever test he needs to be able to carry a gun for some mysterious law enforcement purposes. RantWoman thinks that whatever mysterious law enforcement connections are about to hire RantBrother have already been stringing him along for years; RantWoman is grateful they do not appear any more forthcoming on the paid work front than they have been for multiple decades.



Plus RantWoman finds herself deeply grateful that RantBrother has trouble coming up with bus fare because that means he also is probably unlikely on his own to come up with money for any kind of firearms. But RantBrother is one of hundreds, maybe thousands of people with mental illness filling conversations with chatter about firearms, so RantWoman enthusiastically recommends signing the I 594 Universal Background Checks for gun purchases petition anyway!

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Hah! Found them, or some of them

RantWoman has meant to collect some blog items in some way or another about children in worship. RantWoman meant to pen meditations on the topic and has been called to go a different direction. However, RantWoman does not want to lose track of the links.


A new thing
http://transitionquaker.blogspot.com/2013/09/see-i-am-doing-new-thing.html
A community that does not exist
http://gatheringinlight.com/2013/09/04/a-community-that-does-not-yet-exist-luke-14/


Rituals and Children

http://aquakerwitch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/ritual-outline-for-meeting-for-worship.html


Mindful Parenting
http://www.communityofmindfulparents.com/practicing-meditation-changes-you/

Gil George Resisting Security
http://extrovertedquaker.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/resisting-security/


Suzanne Kromberg Quakers and Emotions: reflections on climbing high
http://quakersusanne.wordpress.com/2013/08/10/quakers-and-emotions-reflections-on-climbing-high/
Interesting reflections; interesting queries

Kathleen Carmack Williams in Friends Journal
http://www.friendsjournal.org/bringing-children-to-worship/

Wonderful Meeting is a muscle guest post from SF MM on Gathering in Light
http://gatheringinlight.com/2013/09/03/meeting-is-a-muscle-teaching-worship-to-children/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GatheringInLight+%28gathering+in+light%29

Wes Daniels about Listening.
http://gatheringinlight.com/2013/08/14/listening-as-an-act-of-faith-hebrews-11/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GatheringInLight+%28gathering+in+light%29

Wes Daniels about Children in Worship with a link to the Friends Journal article
http://gatheringinlight.com/2013/08/19/thoughts-on-bringing-children-to-worship/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GatheringInLight+%28gathering+in+light%29

Chris Mohr
http://chrismsf.blogspot.com/2013/08/approaches-to-having-children-in-quaker.html

Nancy Thomas about dysfunctional families in the Bible
http://nancyjthomas.blogspot.com/2013/08/dysfunctional-families-in-mission.html


And Robin Mohr about hopes for First Day School
http://robinmsf.blogspot.com/2013/08/my-hopes-for-first-day-school.html

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Queer Syncroblog: We're Here, We're Queer. Some of us Even got Marriage licenses.

Big Thank yous to Peterson Toscano and his post about http://petersontoscano.wordpress.com/2013/09/30/eunuch-inclusive-esther-queer-theology-101/  for calling out this year's Queer Theology Synchroblog http://www.queertheology.com/synchroblog2013  .


RantWoman unabashedly notes the following points:

--RantWoman is running behind; her post will be dated October 2. It will be experiential theology, which is to say also full of conflictive thoughts, moments from practice as defined by the recent life of her Quaker Meeting, and exclamations of "See, See!"

--The Synchroblog link includes links to a number of other posts. Except for Peterson's post, the rest of the synchroblog links are presently on RantWoman's Mean to read list. RantWoman would enjoy hearing that others have read some of the other posts and what spoke to any readers.

In the realm of "See, See," RantWoman gives you:

--Vocal ministry from Meeting for Worship awhile ago by a Weighty Friend long married, for the second time, under the care of Meeting to another Weighty Friend of the same gender. Vocal ministry was about an organization of professional counselors including visible figures who are LGBT or just Q but who completely omitted mention of Queer relationships from discussion of some important topic where it would have been entirely appropriate explicitly to include such relationships. See, See, unfortunately STILL, nothing can be taken for granted.

--Two women from RantWoman's Meeting were among the first ever to ask their Meeting for marriage under the care of Meeting. That was almost 30 years ago. Over time views of and practices about marriage have evolved. There have been periods of great contentiousness. There have been periods when RantWoman's Meeting was not marrying anyone or when couples refused to interact with the issue of marriage licenses insolidarity with same-gender couples who did not have the option. There have been couples with marriage licenses whose actual relationships can be summarized as "It's complicated."

Most recently WA voters approved full legal marriage equality and a few months later the Supreme Court ruled the federal Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional the same week and partly under the same reasoning that it struck down key parts of the Voting Rights Act.

--The State of the Meeting report, written by a lovely heterosexual couple married under care of RantWoman's Meeting. The State of the Meeting report as first drafted contained nary a word about WA voters historic approval of Referendum 74, providing full legal marriage equality for same-gender couples. One excuse offered, by a member of a same-gender couple, for the whole Meeting countenancing ommission of this moment of history is that no one from RantWoman's Meeting was very active in this year's pro-Referendum campaign. Our Monthly Meeting helped ensure that our Yearly Meeting has been on record for 15 years calling for full legal marriage equality. The Friends Committee for WA Public Policy, which some of us ARE active in, endorsed the Referendum 74 campaign. But why mention the rest of WA catching up with us in our State of the Meeting?


Another, possibly more understandable reason for delayed rejoicing: the Friend in question still faced barriers to appreciation of this newly won right because of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, another wall which as since fallen.

--At least four couples connected in some way to RantWoman's Meeting who have taken advantage of newly won rights to full marriage equality for same-gender couples, scheduled a celebration, gotten a license, and gotten fully legally hitched. The RantWoman approach to theology yncroblog would be to say a special blessing upon all these weddings.

Meanwhile RantWoman herself is:

--challenged in the area of respecting pronoun gender preference and appreciating changes in voice for someone in her circles now taking hormones. RantWoman wishes this person the best. RantWoman suspects her own challenges about the transitions implied: RantWoman does not get just to take hormones to make her body do things it cannot do right now and RantWoman has given herself permission to be a LITTLE crabby about the issue.



--dawdling about the question of getting dis-married from Ferrener Husband. There are plenty of reasons to dissolve the "it's complicated" legalities; RantWoman still cannot put her fingers on why she is not clear to do so but is quite clear to bless the weddings of people who have recently gone and had weddings!

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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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