Galina Evgeevna Orlova 10 May 1937 - 23 December 2013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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I Want a Hippopotamus For Christmas. Only a Hippopotamus will do

It's fourth Sunday of Advent or God present amidst all the messiness of life and family members are gathering 'round with all their giant Personalities and Issues and Holy-day Expectations and Clamor and Fuss and Frazzle and sundry other attractions that RantWoman is more than Bad Friend enough not so secretly to really enjoy, along with some FRUITCAKE. Uh, the fruitcake has not arrived yet.

Sensible Auntie would like to speak of a spirit of giving, of generosity, of thinking of the delights of others.

Sensible Auntie has gotten distracted from such centered efforts by "O Quaker Auntie." O Quaker Auntie is very relieved. Recently on one of the Rant Sister's Sunday parallel journeys to our respective houses of worship Little Sister thrilled the likes of O Quaker Auntie. Little Sister is not actually as charmed by the thought of middle school Nerf War at her house of worship as RantWoman might have suspected.

Okay, and...?

Little Sister further confessed another moment in the world of middle schooler and Nerf weaponry: Irrepressible Nephew knows how to modify the Nerf Blaster,  something RantWoman suspects looks even more like a weapon than ordinary Nerf Ware. In particular, Irrepressible Nephew knows how to modify his Nerf Blaster so that it fires better or something. Bad Auntie, inadvertant setter of less than perfect examples just wants to hide under the bed and really does not want to know more details of this armament modification.

Unfortunately for RantWoman's desire to live in denial, O Quaker Auntie got summoned to a confession that Irrepressible Nephew's school peers greatly esteem this skill. Irrepressible Nephew goes to school in another neighborhood so inorder for Nephew to realize his prowess, a teacher signs off on kids making the exchange at school under the teacher's supervision.

O quaker Auntie is stuck inventorying reasons possibly to hyperventilate. O Quaker Auntie is also meditating upon a number of youngish men she knows who have grown up in the bosom of Quakerdom who have gone off to join the military because they "needed structure." SO FAR O Quaker Auntie is managing to let Irrepressible Nephew and his parents find their own paths about the modified Nerf Weaponry. So far...

Remember Worse Auntie? Bad Auntie sets bad examples unintentionally. Worse Auntie says things like "you're darn right I did that. So?" or "You;re complaining of some or another RantWoman excess. What if RantWoman fears the world actually needs MORE of that very Behavior?"
--put Azalea into the search bar to find one piquant Worse Auntie Moment.

--RantWoman actually thinks maybe the world needs MORE of "Grab the Blind Person and Bless them." This happens all the time to RantWoman; RantWoman can attest that it also happens worse to other blind people. RantWoman thinks that every time this occurs on the way to a Quaker event she should remember to complain and exclaim LOUDLY.  RantWoman thinks she should do this for three reasons:

1. RantWoman has perhaps been remiss in taking really a VERY long time to start complaining of this in her life. Ask RantWoman if you really want timeline.

2. Maybe other people who hear RantWoman ranting will learn that this behavior is insane and even more optimistically that they too could speak up when they observe someone doing this or other behavioral cousins such as Grab the Blind Person and Drag them into traffic, Grab the Blind Person and Argue with them about walking route in traffic, or worst of all Grab the Blind Person and Impose someone else's physical needs on the Blind Person's choices.

3. MAYBE if RantWoman talks enough about her range of experiences, people will figure out which just have to be held in the Light and which really, really need more intervention and even immediate  intervention.

Well, maybe

--RantWoman thinks maybe service dogs is another area the world needs MORE, not less of. For LOTS of conversations, a service dog is a service dog is a service dog and the human handler is the embodiment of responsible animal stewardship. In reality:

1. Not every blind person takes appropriate care of their companions; RantWoman has been dreading the possibility of meeting one such challenged blind person.

2.  LOTS of people get their doctors to certify that it will be beneficial to live with an animal and then drag the animal everywhere, whether or not the dog gives even faint impression of finding this enjoyable. O Quaker Auntie is spending a good bit of time being pet furniture around one such creature!

3, Another RantWoman pet peeve, no matter how many certifications an animal has: feeding the dog human food and worse feeding the dog at the table.

4. And this is not even to mention intercultural issues and problems for people expected to help service dogs and their handlers get around even if the people themselves have dog-related PTSD.

Anyway, rather than go on about service chickens a service lizard, and the occasional service python, service emu or service gecko, even Worse Auntie is TRYING to get into the holiday spirit. In fact, Worse Auntie is just thinking about this fabulous hit:

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas. Only a hippopotamus will do.
http://youtu.be/7oOzszFIBcE
warning: closing trailer contains just SCANDALOUS language.

Worse Auntie also notes this historical example of communication from RantMom, should RantWoman ever have wandered near the idea of asking for a hippopotamus for Christmas:
RantWoman this is your mother. You will be getting a sweater. And you will write your grandmother a thank you letter!

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Unpacking one's knapsacks: Maine Wabanaki Reach

Blog as filing cabinet item about a project in Maine with Native Americans that RantWoman is fascinated to hear of.

http://mainewabanakireach.org/volunteer/

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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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Remembering / Preventing the Sandy Hook Shooting

RantWoman thinks some readers will be grateful only to look at the two items here as a memorial to the Sandy Hook Shootings.

First, a father of one of the murdered boys at a retreat with Thich Nhat Khan



Next, " Love all the Children" writing from Lucy Duncan
http://www.afsc.org/friends/love-all-children-disarming-our-hearts-after-shootings-sandy-hook-school

RantWoman readers who read the above and wonder where the hell the real RantWoman has gone will have another opportunity to find out shortly.

RantWoman is deeply moved by Lucy Duncan's words here. RantWoman is also happy to hold the cares of grieving parents who might not be anywhere near ready to think about all the other grief beyond them.

RantWoman does not hold these parents because she is Wonder Quaker. In fact, RantWoman alternates between "too much Buddhism makes me want to punch people" and "okay, may we sit with that.  RantWoman holds these parents in particular care because RantWoman remembers a time when she was deeply grieving the passing of RantDad. Somewhere along the way, someone said something that RantWoman now remembers as something like "What? You think you are the first person who has ever grieverd or the only person grieving?"

RantWoman remembers being TERRIBLY affronted and thinking that was just RUDE.

Rude?

And also incredibly helpful.  Uhhh ...

For now just hold this community in theLight.

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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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Hanukkah Day 5: Gratitudes. Light. Arrest Anniversary

In the category of clear Light and call to public witness, RantWoman is grateful to receive a link for this wonderful post about today being the anniversary of Rosa Parks' most famous bus ride.
http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-29-spring-2006/department/remembering-rosa-parks

RantWoman admits to a certain schandefreude and sense of rebbellion against current holiday BUYING imperatives. RantWoman remembers reading somewhere that starting the Montgomery bus boycott during the Christmas shopping season was one reason for its impact.

RantWoman is also grateful for the woman, whose name RantWoman apologizes for not recalling, who had gotten arrested a few days or weeks earlier also for refusing to yield her seat on a bus. RantWoman feels called to mention this woman's role as a pathbreaker, a goad to people to look for a more "respectable" figure to be the public face of the issue of segregation on public transit in Montgomery.

RantWoman is happy to take a break from cataloguing at least some of the more presentable seething in her head during and after Meeting for worship and to reflect on Hanukkah-themed messages in worship, including Please hold in the Light moments.

One Friend spoke of lighting candles locally, of inviting Friends over one night and having one of her visitors get his driver's side car window smashed.

RantWoman has a Friend who lives in "The South" who expresses reservations about who she invites over because of judaica in her house.

RantWoman has a former housemate who now observes Hanukkah in Hong Kong. Housemate who now lives in Hong Kong participated with RantWoman in many moments of outspoken presence in college. RantWoman and Housemate were in college at a time when self-righteous college students could always be on the side of angels by talking about South Africa.

One time RantWoman and Housemate and several others were making signs for a Divestment protest and someone mused aloud about what to write on a sign.

RantWoman: "How about "Divest Now, Pinheads"?

RantWoman proceeded to write "Divest Now" on the sign; Housemate was happy to take over and turn the sign into "Divest Now Pinheads." Guess which sign made the front page of the paper. Do angelic troublemakers really get to say "Divest Now Pinheads?"

The pinheads issue did not make it out of RantWoman's mouth during Meeting for worship.
More's the pity.

But someone's hope always to be on the side of angels did. Hold that point in the Light.

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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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Hanukkah Day 2 Worship Aids

Thanksgiving; RantMom
RantWoman apologizes. She remembers generalized gratitude during Thanksgiving Meeting for Worship; she does not remember gratitude as precisely wrought as some years. Or maybe RantWoman was also too busy being tender toward RantMom. RantMom is recovering from pneumonia. She is recovering slowly. Hold her in the Light.

RantWoman is grateful too so far to have resisted several rounds of temptation toward SERIOUS Bad Friend behavior during Meeting for Worship, and not just on Thanksgiving when RantMom could probably still elbow an ill-behaved RantWoman in the ribs if the occasion required it.

--RantWoman continues to have all sorts of issues with certain printed worship aids but so far RantWoman has managed to resist any thoughts of a braille marathon on the offending documents explaining her point of view. RantWoman is seasoning a rather different suggestion. Please hold in the Light RantWoman's seasoning of what to do with these thoughts.

--Remember that clip of Shout to the Lord sung to Led Zeppelin?
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2013/11/angry-birds-led-zeppelin-samson-delilah.html
SO FAR, RantWoman and probably other worshipers are grateful that urges to play the clip in Meeting for Worship have yielded to the prospect of utterly pathetic performance as squeaked out by one of RantWoman's new auditorily underpowered Android devices

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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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Psychology Today on Vicarious Trauma

RantWoman spends a certain amount of time reflecting about the needs for spiritual care of people in many different work circumstances. Here is an item about professional interpreters that RantWoman can especially relate to.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/talking-about-trauma/201308/vicarious-trauma-and-the-professional-interpreter

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Coffee Strong Fifthe Anniversary Party Nov. 10

Join Coffee Strong’s Fifth  Anniversary Dinner and Silent Auction

November 10th,

4:30pm – 8:00pm 

Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center in Seattle.

CIA whistleblower  Ray McGovern will speak.

This will be a gathering of over two hundred  peace and justice activists and supporters of service member and  veteran rights from around the Puget Sound region.

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Workshop on Christian Hegemony and Privilege November 9

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

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

A Workshop by Paul Kivel

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

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

Please join the event on Facebook.

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

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

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


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

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

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

About CARW: http://carw.org 


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

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

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

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

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Watercolor Show and Silent Auction to Beneffit Indigenous project in Suriname

An invitation from watercolor artist Ruth Yarrow:

To raise funds for a wonderful project led by  indigenous people in Suriname and our Mennonite friends Sarah Augustine and Dan Peplow, I am putting up an exhibit of my watercolors at the 

Seattle Mennonite Church,

3120 NE 125th St., 98125, just east of Lake City Way.

The opening will be on Sunday,November 3, from 11:15 am to 1:00 pm.

I am donating the paintings, new frames, mats and work of  cutting the mats.

The total income from this silent auction goes to the Suriname Indigenous Health Fund.

Minimum bids will be $100.

The exhibit will be up from November 1 to December 15, and bidding will close promptly on Sunday December 15 at 12:00 Noon. I hope you can make it!

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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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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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Malala speaks

RantWoman needed to hear Malala Ysufzai. Really.


http://www.businessinsider.com/malala-yousafzai-left-jon-stewart-speechless-2013-10#ixzz2hHGi70sn

Yo, um, God(dess), without AT ALL taking anythingaway from the power of  Malala's words, RantWoman really, really, really would not mind being blessed with fewer reasons to need to hear this, ya know, really!

BLESSINGS to Malala!

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