Been There, Done That / River of Peace

RantWoman is going to cut to the chase for Friends short on time or patience with peregrinations about RantWoman's spiritual compost heap:

Problematic Mentor Figure, known to many RantWoman readers needs to be held in the Light. He needs all the healing energy the universe can send him in whatever languages Friends deliver it. Last week he had two detached retinas, one that could easily be repaired with a laser pulse and one that sent him to the hospital overnight for the kind of treatment that mashes all the tissues around the eye, inserts a silicone band, blows in a gas bubble and will require him to keep his face down as much as possible for a couple weeks so the gas bubble will paste the retina back where it goes.

Mentor Figure can already read out of the lasered eye, and the gas bubble eye is doing about what is expected at this point. Mentor Figure definitely does not have the lifetime of eyevexations RantWoman has accumulated. RantWoman thanks a Friend she emailed with a separate question about service animals for pointing out that for the unitiated, this sort of experience is probably terrifying; RantWoman admits her own terrify-o-meter may be seriously out of kilter compared to others and some of the time manages to sit respectfually with this point in terms of what she expects of others. Some of the time, at least. RantWoman knows several people who have had very positive experiences with the gas bubble. Mentor Figure got help immediately instead of cluelessly walking around for weeks as RantWoman did and much looks positive, but in the meantime ....

RantWoman has been struggling some about how much elaborate detail to write of others' medical issues. Here, although RantWoman seriously means it about holding said Friend in prayers, RantWoman is basically self-centered and means quickly to resume examination of her own spiritual state with hopes that greater clarity for herself or something of value to others might emerge.

RantWoman has been there and done that, TWICE, once in each eye with the gas bubble thing. RantWoman has had a "Fire Photon Torpedoes" experience with opthalmological laser beams for soemthing else. All RantWoman wants to say is "OWWWWW!" or :Yuuuuccccck!" Unfortunately, the Owwwww comes freighted with a whole bunch of "can you top this?" narrative elements such as temporal juxtaposition with key roles in Quaker events, caregiving for ailing relatives, and assorted other familial and interpersonal super dork moments.

Even thinking about these past events makes RantWoman tired and they are really, really probably not what someone else wants to think about in the midst of a very bruised up face and vertigo from a gas bubble bouncing all over the place. This would be one reason to dump such in a blog to share with such as might interact and not necessarily drop them in the lap of any specific person. RantWoman supposes she might also be expected to summon gratitude for having come THROUGH all of these events. RantWoman is definitely not overdoing it on the Quakerly centeredness and gratitude front, though readers may be forgiven for stopping here and skipping the rest of RantWoman's excursion. It's not that RantWoman thinks the excursion is unimportant, but RantWoman will definitely find more occasions to get in people's faces.



RantWoman is going to take a slight break from digesting generalized Imago Dei thoughts over at http://walkingthesea.blogspot.com/ RantWoman is still banging at the peanut M&M metaphor where the peanut is the kernel of God within all of us. RantWoman's experience is that peanuts send some people she knows into anaphalactic shock. RantWoman means at some point to cavil elsewhere about the chocolate in this metaphor. In fact RantWoman is giving herself the option eventually of ditching the peanut M&M metaphor like a pair of rejected shoes at the shoe store. For now, RantWoman has decided she can go with the peanut thing for a bit: RantWoman is aware of many studies showing that blindness and vision loss are the most feared form of disability for many, many people. For instance RantWoman recently read an item noting that people in the US fear vision loss more than heart disease.

RantWoman has decided that she, speaking only for herself has no choice but to embrace this inner peanut, this nugget of god delivered in the form of realities fearsome enough to terrify many around her. For RantWoman's trouble she is getting to have lots of conversations of the form "This conversation is not about (a certain problematic mentor Figure). It's about RantWoman and RantWoman's realities. LISTEN TO ME!" Lonnnnng stupefied, very occasionally worshipful silence. "Ohhhh!"

Sometimes this is followed further by some other form of cluelessness or other circumstance sufficient to try the souls of much better Quakers than RantWoman. Sometimes RantWoman suspects she may have been doing too good a job a faking it about some or another problem or hiding the trial and error nature of her quest for the role of "well-adjusted blind person." Sometimes RantWoman gets to be grateful for direct unmediated cluelessness rather than third parties' patronizing speculations and pronouncements. Sometimes RantWoman would so like a different basket of gratitudes!

RantWoman is also still sitting on some opinions for which she has not come up with adequate English to Quakerese blogworthy formulations.
There remains a whole festering stewpot of personal and community life ISSUES RantWoman is poking through with due deliberation, definitely choosing to stay in the game which is probably incomprehensible to some observers.

But for now, there is the River of Peace. The river of peace in the title is from this entry http://forusa.org/blogs/leila-zand/river-peace remember the 30th anniversary of the Iran / Iraq war with a boatload of schoolkids full of hope for something better and in any case borne forward by a Spirit stronger than any single person's inner peanut alone.