Local, Unresolved

Memorializing our loved ones who have passed on is part of our gratitude for their lives and continued presence among us. This is what the worship-sharing group RantWoman was called to at our Meeting's workshop on Death and Dying wanted the large closing worship to hold. RantWoman was very grateful to be able to help with that, but getting there had some, um, zigs and zags.

RantWoman is also trying to figure out how much space she needs in her Meeting to memorialize loved ones no one in her Meeting has ever met. RantWoman is tender as an anniversary draws out moments of affection for someone from Meeting that RantWoman never knew. RantWoman is separately working on a post weaving the life of Blind Roommate into several important strands of history and current RantWoman fixation. For now RantWoman gets to be tender with the topic's importance to herself and to let its importance to others work itself out or not in the fullness of time. Meanwhile...,

No, No, No, God, No! RantWoman actually did NOT necessarily want to lead a session at the Death and Dying Workshop. RantWoman wanted there to be space explicitly in the text of the announcement and the program to acknowledge that death sometimes comes in sudden and traumatic ways and that our loved ones sometimes linger especially close at anniversaries or other moments. RantWoman was willing to put her name on this thought but definitely not attached to being the one to do so .

The first draft of the program attached RantWoman's name to "unresolved grief," which RantWoman really, really did not want to promise anything meaninful about. In fact, RantWoman really wanted one of the other presenting Friends, perhaps someone with actual counseling credentials to highlight her sudden death and anniversaries concerns in a session title.

After words about the announcement and more words after the first draft of the program in email, RantWoman had felt more strongly led to restate the item in the program. RantWoman is going to have to inquire carefully why her point about possible help was missed; a different topic had also formed: The members of Oversight committee who planned to attend wanted to attend sessions, not for instance to lead something on planning memorials at our Meeting. RantWoman, being sometimes a fidgety, socially awkward, not to mention twitchy, idiosyncratically reflective and irreverent sort, thought perhaps it would be helpful to do something alliterative about Managing Memorial minutia and What to feed the Mourning Masses, but Unresolved Grief is still what wound up in the program.

Apparently Unresolved Grief had more traction that RantWoman anticipated. Two Friends besides RantWoman showed up. Everyone shared the moments of sudden death, our anniversary months, and the absence / presences that brought us together. Words flowed back and forth of each person's individual concerns. RantWoman feels VERY tender to have gotten to know newcomers to her Meeting in dramatic new dimensions. Still, God / Goddess / some Divine presence bigger than Rantwoman alone is just going to have to help RantWoman tend the revelations she received and the walking with these Friends!


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RantWoman's sense of being rightly led solidified as a need to move large muscles and bang things found form during event cleanup. RantWoman also declined two different rides home. RantWoman walked out of Meeting into much more cold than usual and immediately got a bus, a local well-heated to hold RantWoman in extra moments of blessed warmth while RantWoman discerned whether or not to attempt yet another meeting. The answer turned out to be No, according to RantWoman's rule about choosing sometimes among destinations based on which bus arrives first. Blessed!