Slug Rut / vulnerable to God and others.

RantWoman's Meeting is currently grappling with concepts such as Truth and Integrity.

Meaning or not meaning commentary, here is a topicla piece by Emily Dickinson:
http://nongae.gsnu.ac.kr/~songmu/Poetry/TellAllTheTruthButTEllItSlant.htm
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant
---Success in Cirrcuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
The Truth must dazzle gradually
or every man be blind.

RantWoman's Sunday worship discussion experience began with queries as to what we mean by "Honest to God." RantWoman when asked was seasoning one of her trademark metaphor manglement messages. RantWoman suspected her message was too much for the moment. RantWoman does not actually think, as one responder suggested, that this reticence reflects her own fears of being unlovable. RantWoman is quite certain God can handle matters; If anything, RantWoman's reticence reflects cavils and quibbles and possibly patronizing thoughts of protecting those around her.

RantWoman's metaphor manglement also was not fully assembled at that moment: RantWoman's experience is that God sometimes shows up, craps all over her floor, presents indications that there is no HazMat / Biohazard team any more adept than RantWoman available, and demands that RantWoman figure out how to make compost--Safely. RantWoman feels no obligation to explain how a non-personified / post personified God / vague and nebulous Divine presence with or without sandals and robes can crap all over anyone's floor. RantWoman simply gets to be true to her experience that such occurs--and not even necessarily to sugarcoat it in treacly Quakerese. Furthermore, RantWoman is sure enough of the God presence part that she has given up even trying to filter the muddle of what at first frequently looks like incompatible or outright noxious components, RantWoman is not quite to total surrender to circumstances but at least some of the time manages to let herself just be guided even when she herself cannot see where the heck something is going.

RantWoman found a few nuggets among others' messages but RantWoman's suspicions about the topicality of others' self-protection took spectacular shape in reactions to a pair of quite self-declaratory messages from Friend Poet. Friend Poet lives considerably closer to even more challenging circumstances than does RantWoman. Friend Poet struggles with more poetic excess than needed for his poetry; Friend Poet also has life themes, living close to homelessness, that he regularly and faithfully summons Meeting closer to God about.

Friend Poet's first dollop of Truth for Sunday's community conversation was something in passing anyone who listened closely to might think both "oh my God," and "I would like to ask more in private but if I ask more, how likely am I to collide fast with more than should be tried without the right letters behind one's name?" This just got cut off and bounced past, which may or may not have been reasonable in that large a group.

Friend Poet's second dollop of Truth arrived in the form of an Honest to God busborne interpersonal meltdown with fisticuffs and flailing limbs and falling underwear and 3 cop cars. This dollop of Truth was getting told in a way that was making RantWoman nod repeatedly in recognition of the story's versimilitude. Were it public radio, laughter would be occurring in spite of the theme. RantWoman expects that many of those assembled might have found the story just TOO MUCH and it abruptly got cut off cliff-hanger-style without any information about events after three cop cars!

RantWoman, thinking of a God who surely already knows of the fisticuffs aboard the bus, found herself wondering what Flailing Friend / Friend Poet needed of those who heard his tale. RantWoman's life aboard the bus has never taken her close to fisticuffs but she can definitely understand the concept of "anger management moment." RantWoman also knows that sometimes people lose it around the edges when some or another aspect of their lives comes under stress and has made mental notes to probe further about Friend Poet. RantWoman has no idea what even to wish of others assembled who also heard the tale.

BusBorne Flailing Friend left quickly after Adult Ed, before we heard the whole story. RantWoman can imagine that the most topical question she can ask is something along the lines of "How can I walk alongside?" or "How can I help you carry what you are carrying?" RantWoman means to, HAS TO ask.

But at the time, RantWoman just headed off to Worship, and to Truth in other channels.

RantWoman notes that Eye Roller Friend was more prescient than usual this week: RantWoman detected audible eye rolling as soon as anyone got up to speak, before they even spoke. RantWoman means to inquire of Eye Roller Friend exactly what constitutes good Meeting for Worship for Eye Roller Friend and how he knows in advance a reaction to the message, and RantWoman means beyond reacting to the fact of the message. RantWoman is vexed to remember only the eye-rolling and not the essence of most messages, except that RantWoman remembers the overall flow as meaningful, connected variously to Truth. homelessness, integrity, and to calls to service outside our walls.

RantWoman is proud actually that some in our Meeting feel called to help churches near us discern about participation in local efforts to support the homeless. RantWoman is further pleased that, though Friend Poet frequently summons us to interact with the topic, this time the call came from more than one other direction and RantWoman herself has even offered to attend topical meetings and uphold the discernment.


Here we come to more theological hiccups. The title of this message has nothing to do with the fisticuffs on the bus. Instead it is from one of those endearing gardeners' messages Inveterate Gardener Friend offers about divine dirt therapy. On Sunday, Inveterate Gardener Friend had been out tending to something fall-related and her mind wandered to rutting season among such as moose and elk in places such as Alaska or Montana. This is a peculiar excursion for RantWoman because mention of such animals and reproduction sometimes summons for RantWoman images of shotguns and their role in respectable wildlife management, not particularly what RantWoman expects out of Meeting for Worship. Mercifully Inveterate Gardener Friend did not linger long with rutting among large animals; she merely announced that for anyone who cares, it's also rutting season among slugs and snails.

RantWoman will come back to our sex-crazed slimy things; the message stream flowed from there to the discernment previously mentioned and then to a wonderful message from a young Friend speaking of how she talks to her friends of silent worship: a time when she feels / lets herself be vulnerable both to God and to others.

RantWoman would have been very happy to leave things therel God had other ideas. Shortly a Friend rose to speak of his struggles with homelessness and of camp, "the lie that tells the Truth" and then a Meeting closer elected himself. RantWoman actually thinks that is fine: her thoughts wandered, categorically NOT to any messages for Meeting but to two women who used to live in RantWoman's building and all the ways they can try RantWoman's sense of integrity.

The two women are both deaf-blind enough to need interpreters in large group situations but they sometimes came over to RantWoman's to drink tea and gossip. If we all arranged our seating and lighting very precisely to maximize visibility and minimize glare and an outside observer did not notice one of them signing to the other, the observer would hardly notice anything unusual. That means RantWoman got to collect lots of their nightmare stories about trying to get medical care without appropriate interpretation.

RantWoman a time or two had occasion to get services from the same organizations who serve her former neighbors. RantWoman's former neighbors have some spectacular dyysfunctions, but as with the fisticuffs on the bus, sometimes the story can be really, really funny, wrapped in the tenderest most respectful cheer one can summon. RantWoman of course knows that other service providers will not even be able to acknowledge that specific spectacularly recognizeable people are clients and has evolved a whole bouquet of pseudonyms and circumlocutions so that topics can enter conversations without violating anyone's confidentiality.

RantWoman has no idea what to do with an even more earthshaking fact of her former neighbors' lives: one of RantWoman's former neighbors is transgendered. Being transgendered and poor means that all kinds of facts most of us take for granted are stuck permanently in forms the transgendered person knows do not reflect her truth. However, the fact that some of these details are stuck in undesirable states ALSO means that sometimes one can finesse rules about services available to opposite sex couples but not to same sex ones. RantWoman has surmised all of these points from conversations over time. RantWoman's biggest problem with all this experience is that she has no idea what her former neighbors want to be called when we run into each other on the bus.

Perhaps it is just as well that so far all of this has not yet collected itself clearly enough for messages in worship! Perhaps given all the conversations RantWoman also gets to have about relationships and sex not happening among people definitely interested, we should all just have a wild full moon celebration of rutting season among slugs.