Continuous Quaker Improvement

RantWoman promises this excursion into blogdom will sooner or later get to points about her conflict with Dear Friend and her quest to identify the specific points where additional Light from her Meeting are needed both for the matter in Meeting and for matters between RantWoman and Dear Friend.

In our Meeting Nominating Committee generally does a lot of work in March April May. Ours is a large urban Meeting with much to do. There is not usually a stampede of people leaping forward even for important ministries. This would be one reason we are currently having a Year of Discernment even if we are not doing a lot of discernment in the blog. (RantWoman here will park a question she posed in her evaluation after one of the YoD retreats: do we ever as a meeting look at the question of whether what we think we are doing is turning out as intended? The corollary question of course is "Friend, what is thee led to do in support of this thought?")

On the other hand if even a fraction of nominations require as much labor as the perfect storm of personal and organizational threads tied up in the subject of RantWoman's reverie, it could be no wonder Friends hesitate RantWoman is in no position to do anything but wonder about NomComm experience in this light; RantWoman is trying to decide whether historical perspective would be helpful to her own or meeting's further discernment.

Members and attenders are of all ages and levels of experience with Friends. Our community tends toward the grey-headed, to the point that anyone under about 40 who shows any inclination to respond is almost instantly glommed onto. This, along with a Talmudical reading of Faith and Practice and our bylaws is how RantWoman, pretty new to Friends, a long time ago became Recording Clerk before getting around to finalizing her membership. RantWoman herself recently invoked this concern for new energy as a way of drawing someone younger into a role she previously held. And RantWoman wavered at one point when new energy from Nom Comm was one part of her own awkward reaction in the seasoning process.

Nominating Committee begins by distributing a sheet asking Friends to seriously consider which roles and committees they might feel led to serve. Committee processes seem to vary. Generally Nominating Committee does a certain amount of matchmaking, linking people's responses to community needs.

When RantWoman was clerk of Peace and Social Concerns, she remembers Nominating Committee asking her once about two different Friends with specific challenges. Those challenges make it entirely appropriate that they be connected specifically to that committee even if it can also be a challenge for others to interact with That of God in their specific states. RantWoman assented to both Friends joining at once whereas she imagines other clerks might have declined such ministries. RantWoman once or twice found herself grateful for whatever Divine mercy seldom brought both to committee meeting in the same month, and the press of other events also kept the whole committee focused in ways that accommodated these Friends' gifts without excessive distraction. In the case of one Friend's gifts, it took Meeting several more years and other zigs and zags to be able to act on what has turned out to be a perfectly sensible and reasonable concern even if acting on it from RantWoman's committee was beyond our Light at the time. RantWoman has been thinking about these experiences as her conflict with Dear Friend has unfolded.

At one point Dear Friend's efforts to communicate his concerns to RantWoman also addressed RantWoman's service as clerk of Peace and Social Concerns. This occurred during a time when the streets of Seattle were in the news worldwide and the reasons why were of great interest to our Meeting. Dear Friend reminded RantWoman that her personal life at the time was fraught with incredible difficulties involving Ferrener Husband, 4 kinds of lawyers whose different dialects of legalese were not always mutually intelligible, communications in three languages, a house fire, a veritable support group of people seeking restraining orders against one person and numerous other circuses. RantWoman remembers Meeting being sort of a sanctuary of relative sanity and stability. RantWoman remembers profound gratitude for the ways other forces aligned to work at matters related to the events in the streets even when RantWoman was too overwhelmed herself. And RantWoman found Dear Friend's assertion that somehow RantWoman should have added more Quaker process to her personal situation and that of Ferrener husband decidedly beside the point in that instance at least and arguable in the general case.

But RantWoman is getting ahead of herself. RantWoman agreed with enthusiasm to Nominating Committee's request that she serve on the committee at issue. RantWoman basically thinks serving on that committee at some point or another is the responsibility of all members of the Meeting who remotely are able. Then controversy arose and Nominating Committee began further seasoning.

When RantWoman initially learned of the controversy, she admits thoughts went only slightly to the needs of the community. Thoughts more turned in the direction of "bleeping popularity contest" and a lot of grade school experience being the last person picked for kickball. RantWoman is peevish about her own vision difficulties, lifelong though dramatically worse in recent years. On one hand it makes her more determined to make sure she is included; on the other hand RantWoman is frequently vexed by the press of time and material to absorb and the limitations because of being able to read orders of magnitude less than previously. This is not to mention difficulty recognizing people, impatience about frequently needing to identify and then educate about needed accommodations and other irritations, inconveniences and aggravations she has been less than generous about sharing with her Meeting. (Dear Friend is also bus dependent so RantWoman guarantees he experiences some of the same inconveniences and aggravations RantWoman does, but that is a different problem.)

RantWoman also here notes that she sometimes relies on her network of literate and very well-read groupies, including Dear Friend to read and digest for RantWoman's benefit the nuggets of this or that popular book or Quaker exercise. Sometimes this works well; sometimes less so.

Anyway Dear Friend took it upon himself to be the one to speak to RantWoman of the controversy involving her nomination. RantWoman here finds herself with another irritated thought: RantWoman is perfectly aware that people do in fact have trouble working with each other . Or a person's gifts do not emerge until one has made the effort to get to know and work with him or her. RantWoman further thinks that one's burden is different if one is actually going to be working with a person than if one is going off the very committee the person has offered time to as was the case with Dear Friend.

RantWoman became very clear very fast that she needed the Light of others. RantWoman was having trouble based on previous experience with gaps between the Good Order of Dear Friend and the good Order of Friends. RantWoman further found brick wall collisions between some of her personal trauma issues and some of Dear Friend's. This topic may be grist for a whole entry of its own. At this point RantWoman is finding herself with an inclination to say fairly acid things about the course of Dear Friend's intervention as well perhaps as some other conflict avoidance lurking in the picture. Suffice it to say that RantWoman has gotten more helpful feedback from others.

One Friend eventually said she had concern because RantWoman rambles and mumbles. As far as rambling, case in point RantWoman's blogs. RantWomans experience in blogdom is that quite a lot of them, certainly including her own, would benefit from editing. RantWoman has life experience is a few areas dissimilar to many friends. Sometimes the rambling is an effort to explain enough of a metaphor to make a point. Nevertheless RantWoman finds this issue at least one she might be able to interact with.

Then there is mumbling. RantWoman is assuredly not the only person in Meeting who mumbles. More to the point RantWoman is not necessarily likely to detect that she is mumbling unless someone brings it to her attention. Other Friends have indeed brought this to her attention and RantWoman struggles not to mumble.

Here we come to two RantWoman screwups. At some point in late summer, Dear Friend sent RantWoman email with documents about his concerns. RantWoman remembers telling Dear Friend that if she did not get around to responding that MIGHT be taken as indication that RantWoman had discerned that her schedule might be too full to take on this committee at this time. Upon rereading the documents resent last week, RantWoman remembers having an attack of conflict avoidance of her own. RantWoman LOST the email and the documents. RantWoman also became even clearer though not automatically more articulate about her point that she cannot interact further with Dear Friend's concerns without input from others. The resent documents have caused RantWoman to waver not specifically because of the content of the documents but because RantWoman thinks she has hit some big issues that need to be seasoned in bites and she herself is unclear about Meeting's goals and priorities and which pieces could even manageably be addressed right away. RantWoman is also unclear about whether, much as Meeting is central to her life, she wants to prioritize every baroque elaboration of seasoning this specific issue over many other concerns competing for her time and energy.

RantWoman already wrote about the phone email screwup

Now, alas, RantWoman has to confess to some very Bad Friend moments. To wit:

--If RantWoman is wavering in her clarity and leading about this particular committee at this particular time, she is also forgiving herself the thought that "oh good, now Meeting gets to wrestle with some topics exercising RantWoman and RantWoman does not even have to go to as many meetings as if her nomination had been approved without blinking. This would be regardless of whether RantWoman thinks as she indeed does that she has a great deal possibly to contribute to the conversation.

--Dear Friend wrote in one of his emails that our Meeting is not very good at handling conflict. RantWoman finds herself thinking, "Oh good then, let's have some conflict and practice." In reality conflicts seldom come all nicely packaged with everyone on the same page or with the same kinds of Light or the same default thoughts about process pathways. RantWoman supposes this is why we are all supposed to worship and seek together. RantWoman wishes she could knit instead of doing Sudoku because this may take awhile and she would not mind having more tangible results.

--One Friend remarked that he is sorry RantWoman is having to go through this. Some of the time so is RantWoman; some of the time however it is a great relief and RantWoman hopes it will be rich, educational and practical for all who participate. RantWoman also especially wants to remind others of tenderness toward Dear Friend.

In the Light