Gospel order?

RantWoman was doing her morning stretches, still digesting some reflections about profession as ministry and right livelihood and how one's faith interacts with the norms and vocabulary of different professions. RantWoman promises to say more of what she is talking about, but along comes daily blog roll with other imperatives:

http://www.fum.org/QL/issues/1003/GospelOrderandAccountability.htm

RantWoman has been spending too much time over the last year having conversations about Gospel Order crammed down her throat. It's not that RantWoman has no interest in the topic. Quite the contrary. The problems would be:

1. RantWoman very quickly discerned that the conversations should be bigger than herself and a certain personality alone. This still has not led to clarity about suitable ways to have community conversations. RantWoman wonders in passing whether this thought speaks to the same issues behind a certain personality's recent comment on a certain social networking site about sweeping conflict under the rug.

RantWoman admits she could easily ascribe other motivations as well, but RantWoman is STRIVING to remain respectful. Okay, RantWoman could easily go off about ego and male privilege and even more objectionable terms. RantWoman here is stopped by an anecdote she read once about a new manager at a certain local software monstrosity. New Manager presented something to the CEO; CEO immediately pronounced it the worst idea he had ever heard. One of young manager's colleagues consoled him by saying "Don't worry, you won't hold the title long." In that spirit, RantWoman is NOT taking a great deal personally, except with some question marks about safety and spiritual development.

2. RantWoman slammed hard into a wall of personal reasons (on both sides) and very necessary personal boundaries impeding her capacity to dialogue with said personality. Nothing of what has unfolded has changed RantWoman's mind about the necessity of such boundaries, but again that does not solve the problem of how to talk about what needs to be talked about.

3. RantWoman's Meeting is large and theologically diverse, ranging across Christian, Buddhist, and scientific and other orientations. Some of the time this dynamic is a profound strength, but it has practical consequences like difficulty finding unity about our motivations to oppose torture. This point sticks in RantWoman's mind because lately our Clerk's readings before Meeting for Business have included quite a bit about Gospel Order. (If RantWoman tags this post Compost, perhaps her readers will understand a certain personality is connected with these selections.) RantWoman suspects that many others besides herself really have not internalized a good working definition of Gospel Order. RantWoman is further going all Anabaptist, broadly understood, on the problem and insisting that Gospel Order cannot be assumed simply because people have passed over our threshold and sat down in Meeting for Business. Gospel Order must be freely embraced, joyously, sincerely engaged in, learned and relearned in an ongoing process of continuing revelation every day.

RantWoman means to say more about some challenges of Friends' business process if a Meeting is doing its work and drawing a steady flow of new seekers into its midst and themes on her mind. But that must await time for RantWoman to breathe and other demands of her profession.

(RantWoman is meditating about her timorous heart. RantWoman reread this post one night after it was published, thought it too frank and personalized, and saved it to Drafts. This morning, RantWoman has more data which she will separately digest. In the meantime, RantWoman is goind to seed reverie with the phrase "playing God" and go back to publishing this! RantWoman apologizes in advance for too much esoterica and hopes to have time at some point to pull out bullet points.)