What the heck do we mean by elders

One of many points of departure for RantWoman's Compost melodrama is the question of what the heck we mean by elders.


RantWoman is HIGHLY amused. RantWoman has been reading the NPYM Faith and Practice, looking for concise statements of what we, this Yearly Meeting mean by elders. This would not be the only area where RantWoman thinks our Faith and Practice could use some more careful grounding, but solving that is, um, a matter for the horizon.


RantWoman notes a couple fast references in passing and then the following from the glossary:

Eldering - Encouraging diffident or timid Friends to share their gifts with a Meeting, or discouraging and/or questioning an individual’s inappropriate behavior and expression of concerns. Historically--and in some Yearly Meetings still—"Elders" have been appointed to constitute the Committee on Ministry and Counsel or Ministry and Oversight.

That's it. All. RantWoman has been poking around at other Yearly Meetings' Faith and Practice. She has not done an exhaustive study of what is said, but every single one she looks at has at least a little more about elders. When RantWoman wants to get carried away she can go poke around at www.fgcquaker.org or repair to her Meeting's library for sneezing and severe squinting with dusty pamphlets.

By contrast RantWoman happened on an item over at http://gatheringinlight.com/ pointing to the NWYM handbook for elders. http://gatheringinlight.com/2010/01/12/2419/ There is a whole book! It's in PDF so RantWoman and Mr. JAWS can go to town! There is actual support and accountability!

RantWoman has since asked another Weighty Friend about what is meant in our Yearly Meeting by elders in the context of another activity. For once, it was not Dear Friend saying, "well it's self-evident and there are a whole bunch of articles in Friends Journal!" RantWoman inwardly repeated her thoughts about sneezing and severe squinting in the Meeting's library.

Friends' Journal is a darn fine publication. RantWoman used to enjoy reading it quite a lot. Friends' Journal has severely constrained internet presence and very limited electronic edition that RantWoman is aware of. In other words, even if RantWoman WANTS to read this stuff, preferably to read it on her own without the traumas of scraping her eyeballs over a lot of print, she has no practical way of doing so. Then RantWoman went back to exhorting Weighty Friend to speak of her knowledge in another context.

Below RantWoman is simply going to collect some links she has looked at recently. She means to go back, sooooon....

The following post speaks to my condition and makes me want to read more.
http://thegoodraisedup.blogspot.com/2010/01/marty-grundys-pamphlet-early-friends.html

Check here for links / search results about elders
http://sheffieldquakers.blogspot.com/2010/01/threshing-our-meeting.html

http://sheffieldquakers.blogspot.com/search?q=elder

Today, while RantWoman was braiding her hair, Mr. JAWS was screaming past some stuff RantWoman has not previously looked at

http://thegoodraisedup.blogspot.com/search/label/elders%20and%20eldering

RantWoman read those entries and noted a whole cascade of other links she will now at least put on her go back to list.

Finally, RantWoman hereby offers another tirade related to elders, possibly to the question of who is eldering whom, and general ferment on the Compost thread.

RantWoman is sometime going to recheck the minute she considers an abomination to concise expression. RantWoman THINKS said minutes involve Dear Friend saying in public something insulting and clueless related to the topic of what we, our Meeting, our Yearly Meeting, even just our nominating committee mean by elders.

Here RantWoman must say clearly, this topic is very important. RantWoman has no objection to and even great interest in further dialogue about the topic. RantWoman thinks for both persoanl and Quaker reasons that it is completely inappropriate and unreasonable to try to dialogue only with Dear Friend and only on Dear Friend's terms about this, and RantWoman remains quite peeved, even increasingly so about the difficulties of bringing about such community dialogue RantWoman is pretty sure, if she does not understand key concepts very well, there are a lot of other people who probably do not either.

RantWoman would characterize Dear Friend's remark as clueless based on the fact that Dear Friend took over 9 months to get a point RantWoman has been very polite but firm, possibly just too polite, about almost from the beginning. The fact that this point was so completely lost on Dear Friend most assuredly causes RantWoman to question his capacity even to detect points in the area of his clueless comment.
Of course, the fact that Dear Friend was not detecting this point does not mean a surprising number of other people were terribly articulate about the matter either, and RantWoman has now had months to explore the breadth and depth of cluelessness in multiple directions.

RantWoman supposes the first thing she must do is purge her language and reframe the concept of cluelessness in proper Quakerese, perhaps "in need of serious discernment" or "seeking yet to be done" or more "laboring in a spirit of love and truth."

If RantWoman does not stay reformed very long, PLEASE bear with her!