Evolution

RantWoman presents the following change in her Meeting's weekly bullletin announcement about The Safest Sex Offender on the Planet.

Friendly REMINDERS:
• Since 2002 our worshipping community has included an individual who is a convicted, non-predatory sex offender. He has graduated from the treatment portion of the alternative sentencing program, continues treatment voluntarily, and remains under supervision by the Department of Corrections. We are a community working to provide a welcoming spiritual home for survivors of abuse as well as this offender. We are a safer place for both children and adults because of the awareness and education that this ministry has produced. He is with a chaperone at all times while on our grounds. He may be worshipping with us at 9:30 on 2nd and 4th Sundays and at 11:00 on 1st and 3rd Sundays. Beginning in February 2011 he may attend adult discussion at 9:30 on 1st and 3rd Sundays. When he is here at other times, the office will be informed 24 hours in advance and signs will be posted on doors to the meeting house. For more information about recent and possible future changes to these conditions see the minutes of Meeting for Business in October 2010 and January 2011. If you have questions we encourage you to ask a member of either the Oversight or Worship & Ministry Committee. For more information see yellow informational flyer on information table outside office.
• Survivors of sexual abuse working to support each other spiritually may meet in the Quaker House living room on 2nd and 4th Sundays following the rise of 11:00 meeting. To confirm schedule, call ....
• Contributions for support of this Meeting and its ministries are gratefully received in the office door.
• Need a footstool to worship more comfortably? Footstools can be found behind the side door of the cabinet next to the UFM office. Please return your footstool to the cabinet after worship.


RantWoman, being RantWoman has much else to say.

Every time our Meeting's walk with this individual comes up in public conversation with decisionmaking attached, RantWoman is DEEPLY grateful for all the different kinds of work particular individuals including The Safest Sex Offender... himself and our whole community have done, for deep sharing, for spiritual walks RantWoman probably has no basis even to imagine.

RantWoman does NOT want to say all the walks have been anything like a bed of roses. RantWoman for instance gets plunged deep into various Family Issues at some point during almost every Meeting conversation. Some of the Family Issues have specifically to do with bad communications, denial, and a whole spectrum of abuse issues. In other words, the themes are highly important and benefit from very thoughtful intentional communications. Unfortunately, the themes are also highly difficult AND it's even worse if one has abuse-related challenges about communications in the first place.

RantWoman has been dealing with a number of issues by email, sometimes lengthy and impassioned email. RantWoman is meditating about the suitablility of some puddles of her own purple prose for the blogosphere.

RantWoman is sparklingly clear that the personal journey aspects of what RantWoman's inner blowtorch has come up with about the various things our community has conversation about because of walking with The Safest Sex Offender... are perfectly fine grist for her blog; RantWoman is conscious of the need not to invest all her efforts in her blog at the expense of actual conversation

RantWoman thinks her readers should probably be grateful that RantWoman is reluctant to do a total emotional strip tease all over the internet. RantWoman is unclear whether more information about her personal emotional fire alarms would be helpful to the Meeting conversation. In fact, RantWoman is having all she can do to stay centered and find the right pieces to frame conversation.

RantWoman is so busy with her own fire alarms that she cannot necessarily detect and interact with the ways others have difficulty talking about this topic too. RantWoman thinks this is a little bit of a problem because she is currently wearing a certain "responsible adult" pastoral care hat in connection with service on a certain committee. On the other hand, RantWoman is pretty aware that some of her life experiences, while almost certainly informative, might turn out to be overwhelming if dumped into others' laps.

RantWoman's public is probably to be thankful that RantWoman is unlikely to have time to write down every lurch and shudder of what's on her mind.

RantWoman is exactly the sort of language geek who may try to walk some bridges between material on the King County Sexual Assault Resource Center website and the terms used in her Meeting.

RantWoman tends toward tasteless irreverence and is meditating about the suitability of a riff along these lines for one organizational artifact of our Meeting's walk so far with The Safest Sex Offender....

RantWoman is also clear that lurches which occur in public at Meeting for Business or other public events at Meeting have a place on this blog. RantWoman is seeking the right Light about which of these will best serve as breadcrumbs along the path of other Meetings that might be called to attend to this topic.

RantWoman thinks the conversation is probably owed some more explicitly spiritual content. RantWoman does not want to rush anyone's recovery, spiritual transformation, reconciliation, or simple presence. RantWoman even initially got annoyed about the juxtaposition of the word Forgiveness with something about the larger conversation. Upon reflection though, RantWoman thought of plenty of instances, for example when she is interpreting when she gets to apologize in advance that something might not be perfect. RantWoman has also been reading Barcly on Perfection and is happy for now just to hold all that.

But for now it is enough that we have a new announcement and if RantWoman thinks of it, she will try to check that the promised yellow flyers are where the announcement says they should be.