Explicit: "Should"

RantWoman started out to post about Full Moon Meeting for worship and whether holding Full Moon Meeting for Worship instantly qualifies one for status as a Bad Friend. RantWoman started this before one full moon nad it has lingered in Drafts just past another full moon.

RantWoman regrets to announce that MERELY holding Full Moon Meeting for Worship, in RantWoman's estimation, is NOT enough to qualify one for status as a Bad Friend. RantWoman is acutely aware however that in proclaiming this point she is deviating seriously from the New Testament primitive Christianity Revived world of early Friends. Tough!

RantWoman is perfectly well aware that penning her comment in that tone might most definitely lead others to proclaim exactly that comment qualification for membership in the Association of Bad Friends. Tough.

Rantwoman is more than legalistic enough to point out that one is ONLY allowed to nominate oneself to the Association of Bad Friends.

RantWoman has to be true to movements of Spirit in her life and heart. RantWoman keeps finding herself rebelling against all that New Testament stuff about the God depicted there being enough and people having no need of anything else or anything from previous generations. New Testament characters may have bought the concept that Christ alone is enough. RantWoman for her part is fond of the book of Eccliastes and, horrors, RantWoman hears things in full moon worshuip and tending to the seasons and cycles of time that she really needs to stay oriented. RantWoman also already has a rather long list of ways to qualify for the Association of Bad Friends even without this sort of heterodoxy about observance of ways to mark time.

For instance, RantWoman is relieved to learn via Facebook that at the Association of Bad Friends one can get eldered even if the main occasion for eldering over at AssBadFriends is insufficient silliness! RantWoman will do the best she can to get back to this point. But first...

RantWoman is reflecting on two "once a generation", the World Gathering of Friends in Kenya and revision of the NPYM Faith and Practice.

RantWoman is mentally composing queries for a Friend from her Meeting who plans to attend the world Gathering to pose for our Meeting:

From Really Good Questions Friend, given all our diversity, what holds us together? RantWoman would not QUITE go so far as to characterize her Yearly Meeting as a den of Goddess-friendly, queer-marrying, Buddha-citing heterodoxy, but RantWoman is pretty sure other Friends might and RantWoman wants to uphold the Light of Friends from our Yearly Meeting venturing into the wider maelstrom.

What do we want our Friend to take with her? What might we put into a "briefing book" to help her prepare or give her something to fus with on the plane over? Are there specific Bible passages that speak to Salt and Light meets Full Moon Worship or to that Jewish Buddhist universalist listen with respect to everyone's spiritual language thing?

What do we want the Open Places Friend from our Meeting to bring back? RantWoman is pretty sure there will be much to hear in terms of living with climate change, global challenges, and being a Friend in hostile environments. RantWoman is all ears.

The other once a generation exercise on RantWoman's mind is revising our Book of Discipline. This is proving less straightforward than simply coming up with queries.

For one thing the task of structuring how the chapter on the Monthly Meeting gets seasoned has been delegated to our Worship and Ministry committee. RantWoman is pointedly AGAIN NOT COMMENTING on Worship and Ministry committee NOT INCLUDING RantWoman in its work. RantWoman guesses she is supposed to feel heard because the discussion resulted in articulation again of a request to bring a write-up of our discussion to Meeting for Business where there are likely to be at least SOME Friends younger than RantWoman.

RantWoman has a continuing concern in discussions of the Faith and Practice chapter on The Monthly Meeting: RantWoman continues to be the youngest person in the room (Today, the youngest person from her Meeting because Ashley W of Freedom Friends was also present) in discussions at Adult Education about this chapter. RantWoman thought the discussion might invite itself to a couple places known to be full of younger Friends. RantWoman was dumb enough to mention the idea to someone first; if RantWoman were a teensy bit surer of her Light about this topic, it might have been smoother just to do it.. Bad Friend.

RantWoman was interested to hear one voice known for thoughtful considerations also express concern in this generational shift direction. RantWoman notes that this concern was more about who is going to take care of aging Friends than about a sense of mission and something to share with the world. RantWoman apologizes if the following mental excursion is telling too much of the Truth, but perhaps God can carry RantWoman's intent. Yeah, sure, there are a lot of aging people who are going to need more care than RantWoman at least is happy about acknowledging. But RantWoman is unsure that being young in our age is entirely a picnic. RantWoman continues to listen to God and to what we all have to say to one another. But that is RantWoman and talking into what RantWoman hears is, um, no slam dunk.

RantWoman further notes a reference to the council of Nicea at one point when discussion in Adult Ed grew too Talmudical so RantWoman at least holds out hope for a sense of God alive in the actions of Friends.

The most Talmudical part of the session in Adult Education was about the sentence "Friends should come to Meeting for Business expecting that their minds will be changed." Some Friends felt it sufficient to say should come to Meeting for Business expecting that their minds MIGHT be changed. Either way, will or might are matters of faith; what is the matter of practice if one starts with the "Friends should come to Meeting for Business?"

RantWoman has a lingering thought about what gets written being sufficient for this time and what might be needed forever being a different thing.

In the multigeneration, march of time and difference vein, the question of disability wandered into the conversation. Unfortunately it wandered in as "Everyone has a disability" which is true but trivializes our differences. RantWoman thinks SOMETHING needs to get written into Faith and Practice about this, but RantWoman is unclear that it needs to get written in the chapter on the monthly meeting.

Drat. Now RantWoman gets to season what she herself feels further called to do and what there might be other hands for as well. Uhhhh....

At the time this was originally drafted, RantWoman was led to include the link for The 2011 Swarthmore Lecture

http://woodbrookegoodlives.blogspot.com/2011/10/swarthmore-lecture-2011.html

RantWoman apologizes but at this second she is not led either to re-read the item to figure out why she was led to include it here or to write any kind of abstract.