One of Dear Friend's gifts is his persistence, including his present insistence that RantWoman answer some questions which RantWoman concedes may be reasonable; RantWoman is unclear that all of Dear Friend's questions reflect the full requirements of Meeting for Business. However, RantWoman is humble about the extreme degree to which she is far beyond tired of Dear Friend getting in her face. If RantWoman were to continue the dialogue with Dear Friend alone, and he were to ask one of his "why won't you answer?" questions, RantWoman, might be tempted to say "because thee is being an ass." RantWoman is pretty sure that assertion should not be put up to a vote. Nevertheless, plainspoken though such a thought may be, it of course is entirely unhelpful. More to the point, there is indeed coherent reasoning behind each person's position; it's just that the first question in the conversation appears to be how to create space for these things to be heard and properly seasoned.
But first we set the scene.
Sometime before the most recent change in Presidential administrations RantWoman found herself one day listening to a radio interview with the US ambassador to the UN appointed by the Worst President Ever (said while still holding The Worst President Ever and said ambassador firmly in the Light.) Considering who appointed that ambassador, RantWoman should not have been surprised by the tone of bellicosity and bullheadedness he exuded. What happened instead is that a few weeks later, RantWoman heard an interview by his counterpart from China. From the tone of the two interviews RantWoman concluded they were well matched. Add overweaning sincerity to bullheadedness. Any resemblance between the people mentioned above and the protagonists of the drama RantWoman is about to narrate are purely accidental.
RantWoman once quite unintentionally started nuclear war. RantWoman was not yet a Quaker so there is no need to be embarrased on that ground. However, since RantWoman had just returned to college after an interval among the movers and shakers of our nation's capital advocating for things like a nuclear freeze, there was still ample room for embarrassment.
To everyone's great relief, the putative nuclear war was in a college classroom and only an exercise. RantWoman has from time to time thought of that episode when some or another of her efforts has blown up in some spectacular dramatic way. RantWoman is not sure that her abortive nuclear war is the best metaphor, but it seems to be where RantWoman will start.
As noted above, RantWoman has for several months had a dispute with Dear Friend. RantWoman is very clear that the matter needs further Light than herself and Dear Friend. Specifically, Dear Friend is following a process approved by Meeting for Business. RantWoman has found herself both experiencing problems with the dynamics enshrined in that process and wanting to check whether the criteria Dear Friend wants to impose in a situation actually reflect what Meeting for Business intends.
Meanwhile, Dear Friend is to RantWoman's ear unduly fixated on his own preferred modes of conflict resolution. RantWoman THINKS she has made a couple points clear to Dear Friend: for whatever reason, her own obtuseness, Divine ommission in failing to install the right receptors in RantWoman's brain, sunspots undetectable anywhere else in the universe besides this conflict, or perhaps just perhaps something to do with Dear Friend, RantWoman is missing quite a lot in Dear Friend's approach. RantWoman realizes at some point she likely will need to become very specific in laying out how theological differences enable RantWoman not even to be phased by points that loom enormous to Dear Friend. However, the nature of the conflict so far has not collected the right words in the right conversations or other settings to elaborate on that.
More to the point, RantWoman is reacting to Dear Friend's insistence on his view as the only way to solve the problem much the same way some mothers do when a child is being unreasonable: Time out! Go away, calm down, and we can talk!
RantWoman has a further confession. RantWoman is sometimes sort of phlegmatic about responding to people's suffering. Some people in RantWoman's orbit find this slowness steadying and reassuring. Others may think RantWoman is totally dismissive of the tortures they are experiencing. RantWoman has lately been spending a lot of time around firemen, people who have to triage lots of challenging situations. Will something blow up? Is everyone breating? Is anyone hemhorraging? RantWoman will at some point meditate about whether or not she has correctly assessed several phases of this and will perhaps further knit into her thoughts terms such as testimony on simplicity. Suffice it say, Dear Friend apparently feels something is on fire; RantWoman is not discerning anything more critical than average. RantWoman THINKS she has put the matter in queue accordingly though she concedes deep impatience as well.
RantWoman also acknowledges that she is alternating between schedule overload and deer in headlights reactions to some interrogatories from Dear Friend, interrogatories of course also freighted with all the baggage already alluded to.
Here it would be appropriate to note that the conflict has been seasoned and tended to live in meetings, in emails, among various combinations of people for as long as it has been operative. The question before RantWoman last week was whether to go forward to Business Meeting or to do something else. No clear "something else" was emerging for a few different reasons. For instance, Dear Friend is sometimes a very gifted listener, mediator, promoter of shared encounter with spiritual realities. Other times, he is something less. In addition to the other wearing points above, RantWoman humbly acknowledges that thinking of the possibility of "something less" just makes RantWoman TIRED, more tired than she already is because of the conflict.
Next add in evidence of various kinds of malfunction on the interwebs. RantWoman looked over a queue of email from about the last week and concluded that she has not received several things she was expecting. Moreover, for that or other reasons, Dear Friend, the other protagonist to this drama also has not received some key email. RantWoman would thus acknowledge that it is no wonder Dear Friend is irate on communications grounds. RantWoman recognizes the technical fallibility of the internet as one more variable in the situation and possibly one more area where shared discernment might yield helpful guidance; however, this likely would have blown up some other way anyway.
Finally, RantWoman needs to acknowledge a serious lapse: RantWoman could certainly and very possibly should have picked up the phone and asked more questions before hitting send and zinging off one key reply.
In other words, upon only a small amount of consideration after the fact, RantWoman is not entirely sure that bringing the matter to Business Meeting in the way it happened was the most preferable way for it to come to Business Meeting. Now that it has come that way, RantWoman however is in one sense deeply relieved that it will be laid before others' eyes. RantWoman is doing the best she can to take a deep breath, pray a thousand prayers for guidance, clarity, compassion on all sides. Unfortunately, despite some understandable howls of pain, RantWoman is also appreciating some points from how things flowed.
The first thing that happened was that it became clear that some assembled lacked enough information about the parts of the process that have been problems in this conflict even to speak to the questions at hand. RantWoman finds this a HUGELY important insight especially since it speaks to a dimension of community need and shared responsibility completely independent of matters between Dear Friend and RantWoman.
Despite or perhaps because of the questions about background, those present found the discussion gripping. They stayed and even returned at a point where they could have left or even run screaming from the room. RantWoman needs to check this visual impression. RantWoman's Meeting wound up having what RantWoman takes from the little information she has gleaned from parts neither she nor Dear Friend were present for essentially what turned out to be a threshing session about some of the very questions exercising RantWoman. Accounts are that people were tender both toward Dear Friend and toward RantWoman which would definitely be RantWoman's preference. RantWoman also found herself deeply admiring our Clerk's preparations and guidance of the process.
RantWoman ruefully congratulated one first-time business meeting attender for sitting all the way through it.
Next step: RantWoman supposes she needs to check that she and others have overlapping understanding of the matters at issue. There is discernment to be done about how best to use the community's time, how next to proceed. RantWoman HOPES she has time to spend on the phone about this soon. Meanwhile....
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