Nasturtiums in Salad

RantWoman gets giddy when it's very cold and dry and SUNNY. This goes back to RantWoman's childhood in really cold climates, climates where there might be more than one wintry spell where the daytime high never rose above zero. Today's cold and dry and sunny in Seattle is nowhere near that cold, but it's cold enough that clouds of heating system steam just hang over their spouts. RantWoman also notes weather reports of blizzards and deep freeze across the rest of the country and is very grateful for SUN.

Okay, so RantWoman is also still stuck putting into bloggable words her latest struggles on her Compost drama and is going to come at this very indirectly by writing of summer potlucks and nasturtiums in salad. When RantWoman first started attending summer potlucks, worldly gourmand that she is, she had never encountered nasturtiums in salad. In fact, RantWoman thought nasturtiums in salad were really weird. RantWoman thought this even when she met the cheerful generous gardening soul who most frequently put nasturtiums in salad.

Things went back to weird for a spell when Nasturtiums in Salad Friend was clerk of a committee and would regularly bring the committee's overflowing load of incoming fundraising solicitations from outside to Meeting for Business and ask the community for guidance about which ones to summarily roundfile. Sorry, world, it's TRUE. All those well-crafted letters and solicitations thinly disguised as newsletters, especially the non-Quaker ones, the overwhelming percentage our Meeting just roundfiles. By the time RantWoman was clerk of the same committee our Meeting had evolved a practice of dumping such correspondence into a box and having a special short-term committee winnow once a year. Perhaps the painful collective efforts requested by Nasturtiums in Salad Friend were a big factor in the later evolution.

RantWoman is writing of Nasturtiums in Salad Friend both for some further vexation and for appreciation. First a vexation: RantWoman frequently finds the vocal ministry Nasturtiums in Salad Friend offers in Meeting for Worship, well, not to put too fine a gloss on it, DIPPY. In fact, these ministries are part of a vague and to RantWoman's ear overly gushy contentment stream that nearly always causes RantWoman to start seasoning contrarian messages about how an awful lot really SUCKS and gosh dang it we need to talk about that stuff too, not just the fine okayness. Okay, RantWoman is used to living in her own skin and how her faith language talks about this stuff; it is probably an act of Divine mercy that the messages RantWoman channeling Eyore starts seasoning like this seldom make it out of her mouth.

Today as RantWoman thinks about many kinds of listening and being listened to, she suddenly uncovered another blessing. RantWoman like many less-than-schooled orators who offer verbal ministry among unprogrammed Friends will sometimes drop the tone of voice or start to mumble part way through. RantWoman thinks she should count it as a blessing that whatever she starts to say is interesting enough that Nasturtiums in Salad Friend very frequently comes over after worship and asks RantWoman about the end of a message. RantWoman finds this question a cognitive challenge because sometimes messages are terribly ephemeral, in the moment rather than in longterm memory, but she finds herself so grateful to see a smiling Friend up close that she always manages to recover at least some small distillation.

RantWoman also deeply admires Nasturtiums in Salad Friend for:

--a very sweet 50+year marriage to Mr. Nasturtiums in Salad.

--multi-year persistance in a project RantWoman learned of outside meeting about helping the community garden near where she lives build a composting toilet.

--long and faithful support of our QUEST program, the small Americorps program that ensures a steady flow of new faces and new energy who always enrich our Meeting's community life whether or not they linger after the end of ther internships.

--a wonderful arts and crafts ministry that Mr. and Mrs. Nasturtiums in Salad always bring ample supplies for to Quaker gatherings. RantWoman used to be the sort of grumbler who would not even have thought to do such things. Now she is always just in AWE about this Friend's patience in explaining things to total novices and about how the simple act of creating space and activity also creates amazing openings and connections.

Here RantWoman might consider an excursion about language for transformation, especially among those who talk about faith so may different ways in her Meeting. RantWoman might consider this, but she has a better idea: all these reflections sound like the kinds of things people say at a memorial and RantWoman realizes it would be much nicer to say all of this to Nasturtiums in Salad Friend while she is still alive.