Hot Compost Turned

This entry has been seasoning for a LONG while in RantWoman's drafts. It is anachronistic in terms of where the Compost thread is now, as of January, but if RantWoman posts it, it will be because of thoughts about leadings, leadings about integrity and Truth, leadings about practicality, leadings to sit with complex situations and let different pieces be revealed each in turn.

It is not unfortunately about leadings to pick up the phone or some other big, big interpersonal basics and RantWoman is sitting painfully with that as well.

RantWoman REALLY is not having a good time about quite a bit of this.

If RantWoman still does not post this, the reason may be that Rantwoman is having very very strong pangs about maybe telling a little too much of the truth and being careful of the reputations of others. Well, there is being careful... and there is also the liberating value of Truth in all its messy reality. RantWoman thinks good centered process can handle multiple considerations. RantWoman thinks that because she has seen it work. However, there is a new cast. If some of the old characters are not, for whatever reason necessarily going to change, then laboring over problems in a spirit of love and truth means starting with what is and learning to work from there.

RantWoman is also reflecting on what has stopped her so far about posting what unquestionably are her own reactions to situations, though a subsequent "don't tell me what I am or am not experiencing" comment in a communication with Dear friend seems topical.

RantWoman, as of October / November, is making progress about trying to articulate what is bothering her to such an extreme degree that she halfway does not mind spiritual nuclear war with Dear Friend. Despite RantWoman's notable capacity for logorrhea, articulating the problems is turning out to be surprisingly difficult, in spite of the fact that RantWoman's leadings in this realm become firmer and firmer the longer the matter goes along.

Perhaps it is a very good thing RantWoman summoned the affectionate compost references. For one thing, RantWoman reread one of the documents sent her by Dear Friend and had the same "How DARE you?" reaction she has had several times in response to communications from Dear Friend: "How dare you?" The gist of RantWoman's point: the fact that Dear Friend does not detect a leading or does not detect one in terms he understands is not, in RantWoman's estimation an indication that the leading does not exist.

Dear Friend is, let us just say, not always the best listener. Sometimes he is a genius with profound gifts; RantWoman alas has considerable accumulated experience when something less occurs. RantWoman further has numerous points of experience where the fact that Dear Friend does not grasp the importance of a topic or matter does not at all diminish the importance of said matter.

Try as RantWoman might, one of her full stops about Dear Friend's interventions has been the stifling sense that Dear Friend has appointed himself custodian of RantWoman's spiritual journey and in fact sole arbiter of what her Meeting needs as well. The basis of this thinking starts with Dear Friend's comments early in the process to the effect more or less that RantWoman had not talked to him about any leading and to RantWoman's ears had not asked his permission to serve on the committee in question. RantWoman finds this atrocious personal boundaries and even worse theology.

To begin with, RantWoman is allergic to anyone, Dear Friend, her whole Meeting for Business, the Worst President ever, even herself playing God. It occurs to RantWoman that she may need to articulate more about what she means by playing God. Sometimes she has this sense that some Friends assume all conflict and everyone's personal matters will absolutely automatically be handled appropriately just because we are all Friends. There are GOOD REASONS people have private counselors, seek confidential conversations, or just want to preserve zones of safety and sanity in their lives.

(Looking back, RantWoman certainly called that correctly and will also further season thoughts about people even knowing how to do basic Quaker forms.)

RantWoman is also reflecting on quite pronounced differences between men's and women's strategies in conversation in general and about conflict in particular. There is a kind of ability to go on and on for a long time in discussions that RantWoman, frankly, sometimes becomes impatient with. It is not necessarily that RantWoman wants to close conversation, but RantWoman's experience is that she herself sometimes needs to walk away from something or move large muscles and come back to a problem. RantWoman here also notes that there are different forms of ministry: if RantWoman struggles with some forms, she feels quite blessed in other areas.

(RantWoman's internal editor is now wondering exactly which circumstances motivated these comments. This point gets to remain a mystery.)

Dear Friend spoke not only of RantWoman not discussing her leading with him, but also of questions about whether the leading even exists or is genuine. To say the least "persuade Dear Friend that a leading he has not detected is genuine" could be neither necessary nor sufficient for effective service on this committee.

RantWoman was not aware that asking Dear Friend for permission was part of her Meeting's discernment. RantWoman was a little unclear for a time about whether or not Nominating Committee gets the point about this experience. Thanks to the October Business Meeting, RantWoman feels considerably more confident that others around her get enough of the issues that she feels more able to work on the points that are harder.

RantWoman has been trying VERY hard to sort out which of her reactions really need Meeting's attention and which are related to personal friendship and some hard points about Dear Friend's life. Dear Friend has some very traumatic elements in his personal history. RantWoman is so clear that these traumas are beyond her capacity to fix that she delegated them to the Divine ages ago and decided to do what she could in terms of accompaniment, prayerfully going where she can on Dear Friend's spiritual path.

( January Ewww. Bad boundaries on RantWoman's part. More to the point, RantWoman thinks some situations where she has found herself eldering Dear Friend about this and that also play into the matter.)

RantWoman laughs very hard sometimes with Dear Friend, but she long ago decided that in many instances, she not only has no need to agree completely with Dear Friend about something or other, RantWoman does not even feel a need to go on at length. RantWoman is debating her sense of whether Dear Friend somehow assumes that going on at length is a requirement for service on this committee. RantWoman also freely admits she is deficient in many other scholarly and otherwise hyper detail-oriented attributes Dear Friend excels at. RantWoman could not possibly be Dear Friend though she respectfully insists that people contribute in many ways with different combinations of gifts.

In any case, this feeling of spiritual suffocation is made worse by another dynamic from RantWoman's childhood that Dear Friend had no way of knowing he was walking into. Dear Friend in some important ways reminds RantWoman of her own deceased father, though in many instances a much more emotionally developed version.
RantWoman's father was a brilliant music teacher for everyone's children except his own. RantWoman's emotional landscape is littered with attempts to delight her father musically that ended either in great emotional upheavals or in RantWoman just shutting down emotionally. RantWoman somehow expects herself to summon the kind of pluck generated when former Green Berets stage all kinds of disasters while musicians practice in order to teach them to control their nerves. RantWoman does not say this is a reasonable expectation, but Dear Friend is plowing right into RantWoman's sore points around this theme.

Dear Friend asked RantWoman some questions about time commitment. Again, NOT really Dear Friend's to discern, especially if Nominating Committee has already done so. RantWoman has observed this committee in operation and acknowledges that it can take a lot of time tending to the spiritual life of the Meeting. RantWoman acknowledges this but also thinks simplicity requires that important roles be accessible not only to the retired and underemployed but to people who must balance many practical matters. In fact, sometimes the discipline of the practical can be a more reliable limiter of useless conflict than the most earnest rounds of laboring and logorrhea. RantWoman is unclear how this balance would be achieved in her case but resolutely trusts in Divine guidance that it will be possible.

Indeed RantWoman's decade-old experience clerking Peace and Social Concerns during both topical civic upheavals and gnarly personal issues is that the most important points got duly sorted out and tended to. In conversation with Dear Friend, RantWoman has found herself so stifled by the suffocating dynamics above that she has really been unable even to discuss this point intelligently.

RantWoman also reread the draft of the Business Meeting minutes for the part of the meeting neither she nor Dear Friend were present for. This turned out to be a bit of a threshing session. People said both honest and very kind things about RantWoman. In some cases RantWoman was quite touched that others get at least a good deal of what has been exercising her. RantWoman, though, is uncomfortable with how the minutes wound up being worded in terms RantWoman finds one-sidedly favorable to RantWoman as distinct from about what the committee requires or what the Meeting needs.

RantWoman is finding the minutes tremendously helpful in identifying matters which affect the whole meeting, which have gotten lost in interpersonal clashes and which RantWoman has been unable to pull out of Dear Friend's communications to her alone. RantWoman is debating whether the exact nature of these points belongs in her blog, except for one point. Dear Friend is consistently vigilant about matters of process. Whether or not RantWoman--or previous minutes--always exactly concur with Dear Friend's interpretations, he is vigilant about some matters in ways that others can and, to RantWoman's thinking should step up and shoulder shared responsibility.

One interesting thing about shared responsibility: even when teamwork is desparately needed, effecting it, having different members of a team struggle to grow into the position is, in RantWoman's experience sometimes easier said than done. RantWoman is simply going to note this, give the thought to God's care in the matter at hand, and avoid some other fairly belligerent ways it might occur to some to characterize dynamics in this situation.

Dear Friend complains of RantWoman rambling, getting distracted by side issues; RantWoman time and time again listens and concludes that from her perspective not only is not a side issue but is important in some way Dear Friend is missing completely.

RantWoman finds herself returning to Dear Friend's many gifts. Dear Friend has had a longstanding leading to help ensure that Friends from outside the US be able to be fully present in linguistic terms. Dear Friend has been a key participant in the evolution of many, many practices in this area. Dear Friend is a committed and very attentive linguist and has labored heroically about getting Quakers to behave well on average toward their interpreters.

RantWoman does a bit of interpreting herself and knows lots of other interpreters and translators. To say the professions are chock full of poets, primadonnas, artistes would be an understatement. Considering RantWoman's culture-themed childhood, perhaps that is why she is at home there. In any case, this appreciation for poets, as well RantWoman supposes as a whole lot of unseen Divine guidance is what has kept RantWoman plodding along through this seasoning process and RantWoman desparately hopes Friends can extend this grace to Dear Friend as well. (Looking back, RantWoman wonders whether this sentence just indicates that RantWoman is a lunatic. Dear Friend and God between them have been holding Dear Friend's life together for more than long enough to reassure RantWoman that she needs to keep herself centered and fret a whole lot less on behalf of someone else.)

RantWoman has decided just to post this as part of faith journey. It is muddled. It has many dangling threads. And it is part of data over time.