No, No, DON'T expect the Faith Community to do it all!

This Friend speaks my mind:

http://emergingquaker.blogspot.com/2013/12/christmas-wish-if-only-we-could-rely-on.html

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Johan Maurer on Discipline, Meeting for Business

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

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

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

Whole conversation with Johan Maurer posted on Youtube

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Fresh Pond Minute on Corporate Support of Individual Ministries

Blog as filing cabinet item, stored here for ease of finding again even if interesting discussion ensues elsewhere.

Fresh Pond Monthly Meeting Minute on Corporate Support of Individual Ministries

http://nefriend.neym.org/FreshPond-SupportingMinistries.html

In the comments stream further detail from New England Yearly Meeting
http://www.nyym.org/leadings/PYM.htm

You, dear readers, were hoping to get by without a trademarkRantWoman tirade????

Sorry!

Not that sorry.

Cope!

First gratitudes at least:
1. RantWoman is rabidly, madly deeply grateful that these items are available in forms accessible to RantWoman.

2. RantWoman's experience is that God is bountiful, sometimes more bountiful than Friends know what to do with. RantWoman wonders whether some people find the labor-intensive aspects of Quaker mutual support sort of draining sometimes.

3. RantWoman is very interested to know what practices Fresh Pond Monthly Meeting uses to ensure a good pool of people for clearness and support committees.

The rest of these comments need to be held in the Light so that SOMEHOW the message will fall where it needs to. Those of fragile, easily rattled sensibilities are invited to stop reading and hold things in the Light.

What if the number of well seasoned leadings is larger than the capacity of the topical committees?

What if RantWoman is seasoning Leadings on others' behalf: just because some or another Friend cannot  do... does not mean ... does not need to be done.

What if (RantWoman means to write a generalized Live on Planet Earth item for her transit and transportation and eldercare ramblings on her other blog and maybe possibily has in mind not only for instance people who came up in a discussion at a local transit commission but also some Weighty Friends in her own Meeting)?

Hold that thought in the Light, PLEASE

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Claremont Friends Meeting statement on Friends and Email

RantWoman's closet full of half-prepared Christmas presents includes this item and permission from a Friend at Claremont Friends Meeting to repost.

 

RantWoman has a tangle of thoughts derived from an email exchange related to this policy. It's on the shelf of half-sewn, not ready for the Christmas tree items and may or may not emerge timely.

 

In the meantime....

FRIENDS AND EMAIL:

Guidelines, Concerns and Reflections

Offered by the Committee on Ministry and Counsel of Claremont Friends Meeting

The rapidly-evolving realms of electronic communication—from email, websites and listserves to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, My Space, Friendster and beyond—pose both great opportunities and challenging issues for Friends. The complexity of these issues is compounded by generational differences: while most older Friends make regular use of email and websites, Quaker youth live in a new universe of additional electronic media. Concern for good Quaker process struggles to keep pace with this unfolding and multifaceted revolution. Most Friends understand that the revolution is irreversible. We need a collaborative effort to address it. For the foreseeable future, youth will be pioneers and teachers of the new technologies; the wisdom of older, seasoned Friends can bring the technologies into harmony with good Quaker practice. These “Guidelines, Concerns and Reflections” are provisional. Like The Elders at Balby, we offer them not “as a rule or form to walk by, but that all with the measure of light which is pure and holy may be guided . . . for the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.” (1656)

The following is adapted from the “Milwaukee Friends Meeting Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on E-mail Communications,” by Kay Augustine, Elizabeth Evans, Tom Fritz, and Susan Perkins, June 10, 2010.
On the Positive Aspects of Email:

• Email allows for convenient and rapid exchange of information.
• Sending and reading emails may occur at the convenience of the sender and receiver.
• Emails also provide a written record of communication.
• Attachments to emails allow easy sharing of documents.
• When responding to an email, one may take time and care to compose a reply.
• When emailing multiple parties, a sender can ensure that all receive identical content.
• Email can be enlarged for those with difficulty seeing.
• Joint emails can be a convenient way to arrange meeting times and places, and to circulate agendas, minutes, and informational notes.

On the Negative Aspects of Email:

• Email is a poor medium for corporate discernment. Lines on a computer screen or down-loaded page cannot convey the full range of communication—facial expression, tone of voice, body language, etc. Thus emails can easily be misunderstood.
• Conveying delicate or sensitive information by email is especially challenging.
• The ease of email increases the likelihood that a message intended only for one person or group are inadvertently sent to others.
• Heavy reliance upon email contributes to information overload—and both the writing and the reading of email messages are labor intensive.
• The sender of an email may not be aware that the recipient is out of town (or checks his/her email rarely) and thus may falsely assume that a message has been received.

Please turn over.

Access issues: Those who do not have computers or whose computer skills are minimal may be left out of the loop. Even when recipients are computer literate, emails—and especially attachments—sometimes cannot be opened. Spam blockers often bury email communications in junk mail files, where they may never be read.
Recommendations:

• Whenever possible, corporate discernment should be conducted face-to-face, or when that is not possible, by means of sensitively-managed telephone conference calls.
• Access issues should be handled sensitively—for example, by arranging for an email buddy who agrees to communicate with persons who lack email access.
• Because computers do not always talk to one another, it may be helpful to send attachments in more than one format (for example, in both “pdf” and “.doc” formats). Pasting an attachment into the body of the email message avoids the “I can’t open your attachment” problem.
• When emailing time-sensitive materials, consider following up with a phone call to ensure that the intended recipient has indeed received the message.
• Sensitive email communications should not be forwarded without the author’s consent, and should be carefully stored or archived to preserve privacy.
• Read written communication carefully and take time before responding. Write clearly, reflecting on how one’s words may be read by others.
• Exercise discretion about the use of names, remembering that your message may be read by those for whom it is not intended.
• Remember that in all communications, we are asked to cherish one another. If in doubt, let love be your guide.

Revised and approved in CFM Meeting for Business on 27 January 2013

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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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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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Spooky, HIPAA Meets the Prayer Chain

RantWoman celebrates the season of Halloween and all Saints day and Samhain and numerous topics muddling back and forth between conscious and subconscious.




RantWoman has been jumping up and down intermittently with questions and reflections about what is desirable as far as shared understanding of confidentiality for members of pastoral care committees, members of care committees, RantWoman KNOWS this topic is complex. ONE problem is that when RantWoman has tried to speak and hear what others understand, RantWoman keeps hearing in response only "shut up" and "we don't have time." RantWoman is unclear whether that is all that is being said but is VERY clear that is what she is hearing.

Please hold that problem in the Light and feel free to stop here.



RantWoman is WAY overachieving about questions and concerns and means to start here with some elementary medical confidentiality. RantWoman needs readers' prayers in advance.



First RantWoman HOPES to convey that it IS possible to share meaningful information with more than enough cover phrases HOPEFULLY to convey the meaningful part without compromising confidentiality. In particular, the issue from RantWoman's perspective is either facts already known from a patient's relative or information from a public Meeting for Worship. Rantwoman is TRYING to hear a concern but is hyperventilating from her own life experience.



Second, RantWoman is going to find it REALLY difficult to have a sensible conversation about the topic if there cannot FIRST be room for RantWoman to ask Friends prayers specifically over one soap operaesque story and one long ago but still intermittently throbbing awful story from one of RantWoman's particularly frequent flyer spells of eye care.



Let's start with RantWoman's vast frequent flyer experiences.

The soap opera item: RantWoman spent the prep period for one of her hospital eye experiences listening to her doctor and the nurse from the hospital gossip about an office romance at the doctor's office. The office romance led to an unintended pregnancy and a wedding; RantWoman never quite knows what to do with the thought of medical practitioners experiencing unplanned pregnancy but found herself grateful for an update a few months later when opportunity finally presented itself to ask her own doctor how the situation turned out. RantWoman really did NOT need to know of the soap opera, but as long as she did....





Now the throbbing, RantWoman has trouble talking rationally about the item she means to season event. Warning: medical trauma details.



Once upon a time RantWoman had to have surgery for a detached retina. There are various ways to treat a detached retina. RantWoman wound up needing the most invasive wrap a band around the eyeball, fill the eyeball with a gas bubble and then keep one's head face down for a couple weeks while the gas bubble pastes the retina back where it belongs. The procedure is invasive; swelling can happen for LOTS of reasons.



(RantWoman is also aware that swelling can happen over issues not paid attention to because of not being appropriately documented in a medical chart or not acted on if it was there. RantWoman mentions this point because the possibility that it is on point. RantWoman also mentions this point with reference to a paper medical chart approximately the thickness of War and Peace. For better or worse, in spite of one "not appropriately documented" probability, RantWoman remains with the same medical group. One reason is that even as the office struggles with electronic medical records, RantWoman's current doctor gets out the entire three volumes of "War and Peace" a couple times / year and reviews some historical information available only in the paper chart. But RantWoman is getting ahead of herself and muddling time frames again.)



At the time of RantWoman's surgery one of the staff at RantWoman's eye care practice was the daughter of someone in RantMom's church in MT, someone who more than once transported RantMom when she herself was planning a trip to Seattle. RantMom was on the church prayer chain. RantWoman assumes that the other mother was too. As soon as RantMom heard that RantWoman needed surgery, there was probably a call to the prayer chain. Also afoot, a trip to Seattle with the Motoring Mothers due in Seattle the day after RantWoman's surgery, exactly at the hour that RantWoman expected to be at her one-day followup appointment.



RantWoman TOLD RantMom that she fully expected to be at her appointment and that the motoring mothers should just go to the other daughter's workplace. RantWoman assured RantMom that the other mother SHOULD know how to get to her daughter's workplace; RantWoman assumes she had been there many times.



RantMom INSISTED on stopping by RantWoman's apartment. RantWoman of course was not there. Then there was some further communications fiasco with Little Sister. Then daughter staffperson came to see RantWoman mid-appointment wanting to know where our mothers were.



Mid appointment meant that RantWoman was in the middle of some consent process needed to stick a needle in RantWoman's eye to drain fluid and reduce pressure. And somehow daughter staffperson also needed to reassure RantWoman that she had told her mother nothing! Of course not! It was the prayer chain. It had not even occurred to RantWoman to worry about the daughter sharing info inappropriately--UNTIL the daughter staffperson was fretting about it while RantWoman was trying to cope with the consent form and the probably should not happen need to stick a needle in the eye issue!



Somehow cellphone calls elicited the info that RantMom and the other Motoring Mother were using a payphone and a fast food place RantWoman would never have taken either of them to. FINALLY RantMom absorbed the point that she should just come to RantWoman's eye care provider.



Lately, literature Brain keeps telling RantWoman there are elements of this story in common with what RantWoman has come to see is probably a BIG "hold in the Light" issue from a recent series of conversations. Probably, but RantWoman does not apologize: she is completely incapable of working with the other conversation because she keeps tripping over her own needle in the eye issues before she can even TRY to talk rationally.



The other story: a while ago for a couple weeks a death / obituary / memorial announcement about a new attender's spouse ran in the weekly Bulletin at RantWoman's meeting. The announcement also evoked appreciative ministry in our second Meeting for worship from a medical provider who spoke in worship of getting to know the deceased over time. Ministering medical provider would not, from Meeting life, know the spouse but RantWoman does.



RantWoman has learned from the spouse the circumstances of the deceased passing. They involve the medical specialty and organization where the ministering medical provider works. IF RANTWOMAN HAD TO GUESS, RantWoman assumes that ministering medical provider knows the deceased through work though of course RantWoman would never ever expect the ministering medical provider to say as much.



RantWoman attended a memorial and met one of the deceased's children who also happens to be a medical provider. RantWoman was given the words to say: IF RantWoman had to guess.... expressed great admiration. The other medical provider thanked RantWoman for her words.

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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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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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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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Condolences; Thunderous Braille

Worse Auntie offers condolences of the sort needed a few months after death when the grieving are sometimes assumed to have returned to normal. These condolences occured in the context of Worse Auntie doing something, getting eldered, and offering one of her trademark "You're darn right and here's my side." responses. One of these millenia RantWoman / Worse Auntie MAY yet evolve into a more consistently presentable human being. Or the worship angel woven into our community's worship experiences MIGHT become more precisely verbal and less persistently vexed by throbbing non-verbal resonances.



Dear Friend seated near RantWoman during the same Meeting for Worship after which RantWoman was called to elder....
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2013/06/ministry-not-ministry.html


Thank you for bearing with thunderously loud braille Sunday in Meeting for Worship. I think I am supposed to be contrite; I am not and I do not even apologize but I do promise to TRY to keep some kind of grip on the behavior. As I said,

1. I got a new stylus that I really like. It works! So it is loud. Sigh.

2. I WAS scrawling tasteless comments wildly inappropriate in their raw form but which did in fact make it through RantWoman's spiritual taffy pull to a blog post.,
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2013/07/free-nelson-mandela-free-nelson-mandela.html

3. The theme of suicide turned out in undercurrents to touch even more people than RantWoman had initially noted. That theme needs continual holding in the Light.

4. Considering all the people around with hearing loss, Worse Auntie SEASONING a desire to tell anyone who complains that they should be glad they have enough hearing to be bothered--AND glad if that's the worst problem of their day. But you were sitting right next to me and RantWOman thinks it's good that neither of us so far has yet clobbered our hearing, for instance with loud music.

But seriously, It took me all meeting to get most of the way to a message about how we never stop loving someone even long after they died. I don't know how things are going for you about (your recent loss) but if that death is weighing too heavily, please feel free to stop.

Now the simple possibly more than you want to know request: my condolences on your loss. Please hold me in the Light about losses in the same month: RantDad, a friend who died in a comical fizzle of nearby fireworks, and another friend, all different years, someone killed in an awful bicycle vs dump truck death from 4 years ago, the mother of someone who suddenly spoke very differently about her after her death than while she was alive...

And when I Am Not Interested in Your Thought Processes Friend opens his mouth, I sometimes find myself less confident that God is speaking than that Friend himself is; I was definitely having that problem in principle about his ministry; I am aware that might be MY problem. Sigh.

And how does thunderously loud braille help? I am right handed. I slate left-handed. I still have to think about contractions and freaky braille contraction orthography rules. AND expending all that physical and psychic energy is ONE way to keep a handle on all the definitely not appropriate for Meeting for Worship language sloshing around in my head. If being in Meeting for Worship really helps but I cannot be there without... sometimes I just need to do that.

Anyway, if you have made it this far, thank you for reading and consider yourself still held in the Light about your recent loss.

(RantWoman)

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Editors: wish to thank, wish to elder

RantWoman reminds her readers of previous commentary about one would-be editor in her vicinity.
http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2013/04/edited.html

Were RantWoman to elder this Friend, she is grateful to trip over this item which does the job MUCH more nicely that RantWoman has found words to do:
http://www.lambswar.com/beyond-my-experience/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LambsWar+%28The+Lamb%27s+War%29


RantWoman's inner editor insists RantWoman omit a blog link for a particularly vivid shut-up message. RantWoman notes that one issue would be use of the phrase "season yourself." Another issue would be the former title attached to the erstwhile editor. A third issue: said Friend has the specific accessibility-related   job the Friend has because of a lot of blind people agitating and making people think outside their boxes! This does not guarantee the Friend is required instantly to know how to deal with every insufferable blind person who comes along, but it does make RantWoman feel entitled to ask the Friend to try.  In any case, RantWoman requests her readers hold in the Light the existence of such shut-up messages along with a tangle of other stresses of community. Now back to Editors!

RantWoman is thrilled, thrilled to report that recently she has had two different extremely positive experiences with editors, editors who were enthusiastic about RantWoman's initial offerings, editors whose suggestions made lots of sense or who could handle RantWoman needing to undo some of the proposed changes and tweak them herself.

In the first case, the WA Council for the Blind newsletter, the editor wanted RantWoman to interact about 6 more times with the article than RantWoman planned to. The editor let slip "usually we do not work this hard with articles, but yours is so GOOD." Did RantWoman mention that flattery will get you EVERYWHERE?

RantWoman notes that the newsletter does not overflow with visual interest. It's a newsletter by and mainly for blind people. RantWoman's article appears under her own name but it is a ways down the page under a heading something like Stars from Yesterday, Stars for today, Stars for tomorrow.

The WCB newsletter.
http://www.wcbinfo.org/newsline_june2013.html


Then there is Quaker print:
In the July August 2013 Western Friend. Sorry, though, looks like you either get to pay to get the electronic copy or find a print copy.
http://westernfriend.org/

Digression, of course having nothing to do with Disability: Understand RantWoman is naturally thrifty and not disposed to having paper clutter up her apartment. RantWoman's Meeting has a LOVELY library. All else being equal, RantWoman would read her Quaker publications at her Meeting's library. Except of course that RantWoman as a practical matter CANNOT read the print editions and is not charmed by the thought of paying for an electronic subscription so that RantWoman can read with one of her forms of electronic reading.

Remind RantWoman to bring up with Quaker publications some sort of library distribution option for the electronic version. OR offer a discount for electronic only versions. Look, RantWoman GETS that the more full-price subscriptions a publication can spread costs over, the better as far as staff and editing and other desirable standards. And RantWoman needs ways to share resources. And RantWoman is not clear of a path through this, which of course is why RantWoman gets to labor some more with Friends,. SIGH.

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Submission--on deadline

RantWoman is submitting the following item for her monthly newsletter. RantWoman notes that the deadline for her Meeting's monthly newsletter is the 20th of the month for the next month. RantWoman notes this with an eye toward Friends wanting to publicize events and activities on schedules that work both for the electronically au courant and for Freinds whose Weighy one frequently wants in the conversaion even when those Friends never go near that electronic stuff.


*******
First, the VERY boiled down version of what RantWoman will submit along with a couple comments about what might be cut if, as RantWoman suspects, this is still too long for our monthly newsletter:


Thank you to UFM’s Spiritual Enrichment fund for money to attend NPYM’s Annual Session.


I love Annual Sesssion. I get credit just for showing up. Friends from small Meetings and Worship Groups in MT, ID, OR, WA feel a spiritual liftjust to be among large numbers of Friends and all I have to do is show up!

At Annual Session Interest Groups provide time for education and discussion about specific topics. I went to a fun one about “The Quaker Language Barrier.” Friends shared all kinds of words used among Friends and talked some about the questions they raise. Among the words Friends mentioned: clerk, seasoning, programmed and unprogrammed. Friends comments wandered quickly to broader communications themes: how does Spirit move across different approaches to electronic communication? How do Friends of different generations feel Divine presence in the midst of challenges of travel and distance? The best part of that discussion for me was hearing that other Meetings are having some of the same conversations I am a part of.

Another rich experience: I served as a worship group leader for the daily small group meetings where Friends meet to reflect on the Annual Session theme, a common set of readings and queries, and events as they unfold at Annual Session. Being a group leader is fairly new for me. I was especially grateful for the email reflections other worship group leaders offered over a couple weeks. I was grateful for the content of the reflections. I was grateful the worship group leaders were willing to have the discussion by email and I was glad other leaders took time as it fit into their schedules to share their thoughts.

I got to meet Mary Klein, the new editor of Western Friend. I also got to thank her very much for help editing my recent article about the White Privilege Conference which may be found in the UFM library or online here as a link on http://westernfriend.org  

Finally, a note about my dorm: My very favorite thing about the suite I shared was that the shower had ferocious, wonderful, wake me up and remind me how glad I am to be alive and living in a first world country water pressure.

To read more about my evolving reflections Friends are invited to visit my blog at http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/search/label/NPYM%202013

  ******* The WAY too long version, minus some tweaks as RantWoman was boiling down     Thank you to UFM’s Spiritual Enrichment fund for money to attend NPYM’s Annual Session. When I request money from UFM’s spiritual enrichment fund to attend an event I always hold two queries no matter what else might come too:

What do I take with me? What of my own spiritual compost heap, what concerns for the community are on my heart, what needs weeding, what needs tending?

What do I bring back? What experiences do I need to share? What new Light has come to me? What do I carry from renewing new ties or from stretching to make new ones? What am I especially grateful for?

Friends interested in what Friends in Residence Becca and Paul Molally Renk brought on the theme “Not by my Strength Alone” can hear for ourselves at an upcoming Adult Education session.

Here are a few personal reflections.

At Annual Session Interest Groups provide time for education and discussion about specific topics. I went to a fun one about “The Quaker Language Barrier.” Friends shared all kinds of words used among Friends and talked some about the questions they raise. Among the words Friends mentioned: clerk, seasoning, programmed and unprogrammed. Friends comments wandered quickly to broader communications themes: how do different Friends view electronic communication? How do Friends of different generations view challenges of travel and distance. The best part of that discussion for me was hearing that other Meetings are having some of the same conversations I am a part of.

Another part of the experience I really valued: I served as a worship group leader for the daily small group meetings where Friends meet to reflect on the Annual Session theme, a common set of readings and queries, and events as they unfold at Annual Session. Being a group leader is fairly new for me. I was especially grateful for the email reflections other worship group leaders offered over a couple weeks. I was grateful for the content of the reflections. I was grateful the worship group leaders were willing to have the discussion by email and I was glad other leaders took time as it fit into their schedules to share their thoughts.

I got to meet Mary Klein, the new editor of Western Friend. I also got to thank her very much for help editing my recent article about the White Privilege Conference which may be found in the UFM library or online here as a link on http://westernfriend.org

Finally, a note about my dorm: I shared a suite with 3 other women. My very favorite thing about our suite was that the shower had ferocious, wonderful, wake me up and remind me how glad I am to be alive and living in a first world country water pressure. Others found the water pressure a bit much and I am sorry for that but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I am still digesting this year’s experiences. To read more about my thoughts Friends are invited to visit my blog at http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/search/label/NPYM%202013

Warning: it’s a blog. My personal model of blogging falls somewhere between historical Quaker journal and permanent clearness committee. Historical Quaker journals in their raw state make a good case for the existence of editors. Enough said?

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Spank Spitzer?

RantWoman presents the following seriously BAD Friend digression from her usual moral stewpot.

[Full disclosure (well, maybe not that full) RantWoman was a student at a certain Ivy League University during part of the time Eliot Spitzer was also a student. RantWoman has never met Eliot Spitzer but can attest that he was very active in the student government. RantWoman's only interaction with student government was to help student groups she was involved with panhandle the student government for money to support different speakers knowledgeable about issues and causes RantWoman was much more passionate about than the student government. RantWoman many times made successful pleas; other than that RantWoman has no opinion that she remembers of the student government.]

RantWoman learned recently that Eliot Spitzer used the name George Fox to book his room for the famous tryst that got him skadillions of dollars worth of free publicity. Okay, this was not particularly free publicity he might have WANTED, but it was free publicity.

Here  is the problem (one of RantWoman's many?): RantWoman has no idea whether Eliot Spitzer's choice of pseudonym was a conscious reference to one of the leading lights of Quakerdom or a CONSCIOUS desire to clothe himself in the mantle of Quaker integrity, but RantWoman would just like to spank Spitzer for making her have to think about the issue,even once, never mind over and over while he runs for office AGAIN.

Much as RantWoman could easily find righteous basis to spank Spitzer, she instead firmly, clearly directs her readers toward an item about double standards and the voice of women:

http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/07/we-pardon-spitzer-not-ex-sex-workers-like-me.html

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Free Nelson Mandela?

Free Nelson Mandela

Free Nelson Mandela

Free Nelson Mandela

RantWoman notes that Nelson Mandela is set to turn 95 next week. Regular Mandela medical bulletins are reminding RantWoman of Mandela's 26 years on Robben island, of the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, of other sorded details of South Africa today. RantWoman does not think all of that is why the message above was echoing in RantWoman's head during Meeting for worship recently after several Friends who attended WPC13 facilitated a discussion in Adult Education about themes from the White Privilege Conference.

RantWoman approached the session certain that she had lots more on her mind than might comfortably emerge during a one-hour session; even so, RantWoman felt Friends' efforts were well held, well led.

Before we get back to Mandela, perhaps the most concise takeaways from this Adult Education Session:

Friends spoke of all sorts of intersections:
  --family connections to the deportation of the Japanese during WWII
  --an interracial same-sex relationship
  --a Hispanic family in a community on Long Island
  --whether the conference encompassed mainly white-black issues or whether hispanics', muslims', Asians' experiences were reflected
   --A sense that problems for one generation look very different to other generations who have grown up in different environments.
  --Recognition by others besides RantWoman that our country is becoming increasingly multiethnic and multicultural. Instead of a White Privilege Conference at some point what might be needed is more of a White People Adjustment Conference.

RantWoman WISHES the session had gotten to:
   --more about what is equity and how issues look to different people
   --more about the call out / call into dialogue spiritual center / how to sweat with our different personal challenges dynamics of the conference.
   --More about "I didn't tell you about my day," micro aggressions, and macro effects of micro annoyances.

Even without the "would be nice to get to" issues above, RantWoman came away from that session with thoughts about two whole months more of topics that Adult Ed might invite people to speak to. RantWoman gets to take that up with Adult Religious Education.

But back to "Free Nelson Mandela." RantWoman was in college and graduate school during the era when it was fashionable for young caring students everywhere to demand that their institutions divest from firms doing business in South Africa. RantWoman thinks advocating for the cause was valuable on many grounds, and RantWoman understands why one might call people out: a friend of RantWoman's once remarked that one reason white liberals from the US love to talk about South Africa is that at least people there are bigger racists than in the US.

RantWoman has similar opinions about the sudden renewed impetus to rename our Unmentionable / Oops Well committee. RantWoman WANTS to honor the faithfulness of the person who raised the issue. RantWoman thinks the idea is kind of a nice "Thank you for coming to town" gesture in honor of the White Privilege Conference. AND...

RantWoman  thinks the exact proposal is badly seasoned. RantWoman thinks the badly seasoned proposal has now come to Business Meeting twice and the Unmentionable / Oops Well committee has gotten clear feedback from more people than just RantWoman that more work is needed.

RantWoman began with a simple information request about historical usage. RantWoman has NO interest in some internet vote of how many Meetings use which of several alternatives proposed. RantWoman is interested in an articualte sense of WHY different variants have been chosen. What canst thou say, indeed? Harrumph!

RantWoman further repeats her point about hopes that renaming the Unmentionable committee and dealing with one small associated cleanup in our meeting's bylaws is not all our Meeting needs to do to think about privilege.

But why "Free Nelson Mandela. RantWoman will certainly be among those celebrating Mandela's life and mourning his passing whenever it occurs. But his work continues near and far. RantWoman hopes that her Meeting will not be in such a hurry to be loudly visible allergic to a few words to forget the Spirit behind the point of thinking about a change and what all we might need to include..Even worse, RantWoman does not apologize for going all Word Nerd on the situation, trusting that there is Light to be had during the quest for a new committee name..

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Ministry? Not Ministry?

WARNING: This post contains references to someone coming upon the scene of a suicide, a parental anxiety theme, and RantWoman's usual subtle, sensitive, and nuanced treatment of many topics. RantWoman is grateful for a sense of God unquestionably showing up as well. This is from Meeting for Worship a few weeks ago. How many times might one say something here is / is not ministry at the same time?

Dear [Never mind who]

RantWoman was speaking recently of sparkling clarity: her Meeting gets three years of her attention to Worship and Ministry whether it knows what to do with it or not. Then along came a comment, never mind from whom in a recent Adult Education about rabbis not even considering people who want to convert to judaism until they have asked and been turned down three times.RantWoman is trying to decide whether to take that as a sign: Okay God, now what?

RantWoman writes: The following would fall under Quality of Worship. Maybe it was because I was sitting close to you at Meeting for Worship ... but during the first message you seemed to be rolling your eyes ALMOST as loudly as the World Champion of Audible Eyerolling sometimes does. Honestly, I have the same view of you doing audible eyerooling as of him: it's a nice accessibility feature, and I am unclear whether it is centered worship. It usually is not as high on my personal irritation list as other things, and sometimes...

What was bothering you the message accompanied by your audible eye rolling?

--The long exegesis about the circumstances of the Friend's fears of dropping her younest daughter off the catwalk at work?

--The throwing up several times as the image came over and over during the day?

--The driving home and coming upon the scene of someone having jumped off a bridge and then having to scour her neighborhood blog to find anyone willing to name the situation?

--something the message evoked from your personal experience or about someone close to you? Personally, I heard you sigh several times. I tease friends of mine that legally blind guests overlook a lot of housekeeping sins; I am wondering whether hearing loss also insulates some sitting nearby or not so nearby from distress about at least some audible eye-rolling. In any case, I am glad for a sense that after every one of your sighs, the message continued. I am glad of this particularly in light of:

--multiple other voices who seem to want ministry in easily digestible 30-second soundbites instead of the shared process of winnowing.

--multiple voices who howl about not understanding and seem to want the challenging just to go away rather than to sit with.

--multiple voices besides you who in general want messages to arrive perfectly formed and never ever by email rather than buffed into shape by community support of the birthing.

--another reviewer who said "well, it wasn't ministry. It was something unprocessed..." This reviewer at least got that one success of worship was how the community as a whole drew the message into worshipful fabric.We further talked about another recent Meeting for Worship where the whole community together held a number of difficulties very lovingly.

Have you considered the possibility if some message distresses you or does not seem obvious that you are to wait in faith for meaning to arrive?

Have you considered the possibility that you serve by being present, and even sighing repeatedly while a message arrives more directly to / through others?

RantWoman also was touched by the message and Literature Brain found much to work with:

--a Friend's anxiety about in a split second unintentionally doing something horrible that cannot be undone to a loved one.

--a Friend needing to be tender with the part of herself who knows to be horrified by what she kept seeing

--a Friend working with something weird that God has dropped into her lap.

--the power of shared observation of an actual event.

I found myself seasoning several messages, clear that the messages did not belong in the whole room, and clear that they are intended for someone though I am not sure for whom.

--After worship I told the Friend with the message, in my experience sometimes one just has to trust and pray, trust that one has what is needed when God drops something like that and that and that and maybe something else into one's lap and, more or less, that prayer is always a reasonable first way to deal and all the more if there is room to share

I did not tell the Friend of riding places with Tall Weighty Friend in the name of dialogue with "those other Quakers." I love riding with Tall Weighty Friend first because she is tall and, fuel economy be damned, her car has legroom in the back seat. Second, Tall Weighty Friend's default behavior when coming upon something horrible such as an accident is just to offer a prayer and a blessing.

--My radio last week was full of anniversary chatter about mass shootings at a local cafe and better mental health services as one way to cut down on gun violence. I was GLAD the message about the dream images supplanted possible anniversary ministry about the mass shootings.

I found myself thinking uncharitable thoughts of one person I remember offering ministry last year after the event. I sort of heard the ministry as "well I went by to bless the scene with my presence and yup it was real." Maybe my "I hear a lot of that Friend and have trouble hearing God around him" reflex is getting in the way of something I also remember about visiting the scene in the light of a new day. I remember seasoning a message myself about the same mass shooting events: My sister has moved to a new church. The organist there was driving by the woman who as shot on Capitol Hill. The organist stopped to help the woman and when it was clear that the woman would not make it, the organist stayed with her so she would not die alone. I consider that an act of profound spiritual accompaniment. ., a concept I do not hear very much but that could be applied a few different ways including perhaps simply to holding in worship.

BUT

Was there something in your audible eyerolling for the whole room OR was there someone the audible eyerolling was supposed to be a message for?

In the Light.

RantWoman

If you have made it this far whether or not meaning has arrived, perhaps you will enjoy one of these items. A very sweet one from Cherice Bock http://quakeroatslive.blogspot.com/2013/06/mama-does-god-hate-cars.html

Steven Davison on a gathered meeting. http://throughtheflamingsword.wordpress.com/2013/06/05/seeking-the-gathered-meeting/

Guy from Britain YM on trusting one's Meeting http://jollyquaker.com/2013/05/26/trust-in-the-spirit/ 

Confession the stuff in here about unity is making me really clear that maybe I just need to keep speaking about some threads BECAUSE I am out of unity with the prevailing understanding. Please hold that point in the Light.

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