Middling level deadly sins

Today's Our Daily Bread Bible item is from the gospel of John:

"You now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you." —John 16:22

RantWoman is having the sort of spell where even such a passage comes across as the God as Stalker mode of divine presence. This may have a great deal to do with RantWoman's occasional life experiences of feeling the divine close even in the presence of, um, abusive jerks or more diplomatically people who can come across as such even if that is not what they, giving more benefit of the doubt than RantWoman is capable of on her own right now, do not mean such or worse yet are not even conscious of doing or seem not to be able to stop. Okay, just because this represents kind of familiar emotional territory for RantWoman most assuredly does not mean RantWoman WANTS to be here.

This is a longwinded way of saying RantWoman is still processing material from her Compost melodrama. Subtracting for the time being one question and annoying monthly proddings from people still missing the point definitely does not mean all the matter's complexities have worked themselves out.

--Right now, RantWoman feels need of further conversation, and hopefully shared conversation with several people in the room. RantWoman thinks rather than a Clearness Committee, she just wants prayerful threshing, with space for many people to speak honestly, supervised by one or more people with credible mediation experience and she knows who she has in mind. Beyond agreeing to show up and general interest in knowing more about the topics of mediation and conflict resolution though, RantWoman is going to go on strike about any more of a specifying role than that.

--One of these days RantWoman will post separately about all the aggravations of RantWoman's different reading options. RantWoman knows perfectly well she has much to be grateful for and is suffering severe "spoiled American syndrome" about many things to do with the topic. Again this is the RantWoman we've got though and RantWoman does not even feel called to spell out much of how this is tangled with the Compost melodrama.

--Taking one set of questions off the table has given RantWoman emotional space to go back to a different point, a point that RantWoman has previously written about, a point which so enrages RantWoman that, every time she starts to doubt her leadings around this topic, causes her backbone to quiver and straighten, a point which RantWoman cannot even vent about in every venue it might occur to her to vent because it involved RantWoman's intervention in a situation where Dear Friend was causing problems with Meeting personnel. RantWoman is not even going to connect the dots about exactly what she is thinking, at least not in personalized terms. However, RantWoman is going tofire some questions off to someone(s) whose workshop at Ben Lomond just came to RantWoman's attention on the assumption that the exact problem on RantWoman's mind might not be exactly unique.

But back to RantWoman's morning reading.The text accompanying the Bible passage, , for no reason apparent to RantWoman mentions the seven deadly sins.

"You may be familiar with the list of seven deadly sins that was formulated during the sixth century: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, vengeance, envy, and pride. But you may not know that the original list compiled during the fourth century also included the sin of sadness."

In other words, in addition to God as Stalker, there are plenty of traps on the road!

RantWoman regrets to inform her public that, although she is doing really, really embarrassingly well about some of the seven deadly sins, she does not really expect to be able to provide full service in the sins department this week. RantWoman further acknowledges that this blog might be much more fun to read if she would detail exactly which sins she is excelling in. Let us just say, RantWoman may tell a little too much of the truth a lot of the time, but even she has her limits. Plus, RantWoman's current sins of choice would do well as country western song as well as telenovela, but RantWoman is sure her readers have febrile imaginations of their own, not to mention their own favorite temptations.

RantWoman has been digging:

The Conflict section of Chapter 20, Living Faithfully Today from Britain Yearly Meeting Faith and Practice.

http://www.quakerweb.org.uk/qfp/qfpchapter20.html

PS if you read it online, it's nicely hyperlinked to related passages in other chapters.

The Blind Boys of Alabama clip, in case she needs tips about sinning, here:

http://sillypoorgospel.blogspot.com/2010/01/blind-boys-of-alabama.html

(RantWoman was so taken by this clip she went to look for others. This is definitely the best of the ones she looked at!)

Patti Smith on the radio: "Jesus died for somebody's sins--but not mine!" Oh Yeah? And oh, boy the conversations that starts in Quaker land!

And from last week:


RantWoman really needed the following messages:
http://earofthesoul.blogspot.com/2010/01/great-expectations.html



http://qqqqanda.blogspot.com/2010/01/responding-to-accusations.html

http://sillypoorgospel.blogspot.com/2010/01/patrick-stewart-hero-of-faith.html