Discernment Rocks

RantWoman is temporizing about anything to do with Compost. To assist in this procrastination and as a way of upholding the efforts of the people writing the actual Year of Discernment committee's report, here is RantWoman's two kopecks for the day on the topic:

What to call it.
The Year of Discernment began life as a year of respite or some darn thing. At the timeRantWoman was co-clerk of Hospitality committee and a year of respite did not in the least sound like it would mean respite for the dish cleaners and child care and floor sweepers among us. As soon as the phrase Year of Discernment came up, RantWoman was all over it. There was a little while where people planning the retreats were trying too hard about food to the point of asking people to sign up in advance. To RantWoman's view, just doing potluck is so much easier because needed increments of food tend to come with additional clumps of people. Looking back, RantWoman's one regret is that she did not insert some sort of statement about renewed energy for coffeemaking into the goals of the Year of Discernment. Well, PERHAPS that would have been overspecifying something that is supposed to be automatic. Well, it's supposed to....

MiniClearness Committees
Before launching into the Year of Discernment, someone on Oversight committee had the bright idea that Friends should all be offered the chance for a mini-Clearness Committee that would meet once and introduce anyone who had one to the miracles of Quaker care. A whole bunch of people went through training about this concept.

RantWoman does not remember really being asked whether she would be interested in being a facilitator. RantWoman also remembers that even if she had been asked, her life was full. RantWoman already had sufficient experience with simple questions turning emotionally complex. A one-time event sounded really prefunctory and RantWoman would certainly have begged off for fear of wading into more than she could handle. Now, thinking about her own Clearness Committee as well as all the things RantWoman manages to wade into without any guidelines, RantWoman thinks begging off was a stupid idea.

RantWoman briefly thought of having such a clearness committee as well. RantWoman thought about it and even talked to a Weighty Friend about it but never went further. RantWoman confesses she was sufficiently clear about some questions and sort of dubious about the concept for other reasons.

RantWoman has been thinking about this lately for two reasons. One was her quest for guidelines and guidance while organizing a clearness process for herself and Dear Friend and the Compost matter. RantWoman at last, multiple weeks after her first inquiry got copies of the guidelines and another article. RantWoman had asked for them in electronic format but got print, print of a form that suggests that someone somewhere has them in electronic format. The guidelines actually to RantWoman's ear had very nice tone, but also had nothing helpful about RantWoman and Dear Friend being clear to try to deal in a Quakerly way with Conflict.

The second reason RantWoman has been thinking about the mini-clearness committees is that RantWoman did actually have a very positive experience participating in a different project with someone very skilled and centered about Compassionate Listening. The guidelines were very nicely done; other things were done with plenty of attention to depth and emotional safety. The scope of the themes to be listened about was definitely not boundless. When RantWoman participated as a listener, she found the experience VERY powerful and rewarding. For now she will park that thought and see what to do with it at some point soon.

Generational shifts:
Many of our community have retired or passed away. A large clump of working age adults and youngish families mainly participate in a preparatory meeting under our care. There are many Friends who have been about for a long time but have not been as visible and who might, at least based on things RantWoman heard be called to greater commitment. There are also different age cohorts of newcomers: university students and young recent graduates, people who come to Friends as adults, retirees. All of these different cohorts have different needs and levels of experience with Friends. Some of the Year of Discernment exercises elicited info about these groups' different needs; RantWoman will be curious to see what makes it into the final report in this vein.