DRAFT, not the bedbugs this time

RantWoman thanks those drafting this year's State of the meeting report for NOT sending out a draft ahead of Business Meeting and for NOT making xeroxed copies to distribute during Business Meeting. For one thingcutting back on the photocopying is very ecological. RantWoman also thanks everyone for sharing her frequent experience of not having access to documents and feeling somewhat at sea during oral presentation. RantWoman would so not mind having something more cheerful to share. No, scratch that: RantWoman is perhaps inappropriately delighted that someone else so generously provided the community this form of blindness tourism.

RantWoman realizes that time was when EVERYONE coped with such. RantWoman is not nostalgic. RantWoman quite used to LIKE being able to read the text along with someone reading it aloud. RantWoman sometimes becomes QUITE cranky when everyone else in a meeting is rifling through paper, scanning and skimming for forgotten nuggets. RantWoman would mind less if other people also found the nuggets she considers important, but the Holy Spirit has not been serving up such insights nearly as much as RantWoman is certain should occur.

RantWoman notes, the bedbugs only promise to publish on Leap Days. RantWoman does not expect further transmissions until next leap day. This does NOT mean RantWoman can restrain herself from a generous contribution of suggested edits for the draft read in Business Meeting. Except for contributions about one topic, RantWoman REALLY wants to leave wordsmithing in the able hands of this years drafting team. RantWoman SAYS this! Will she manage it?

RantWoman seeded the process with the items below. A new draft has been emitted by email and RantWoman REALLY likes that a concern about good Quaker laundry lists devoid of spiritual content has been well heard. RantWoman likes many other aspects of the proposed draft. It deviates from RantWoman's thoughts below. RantWoman promises to publish the version which comes to Business Meeting in April. A few topics RantWoman is trying to convince herself she is FINE, just FINE about others editing:

Remodeling was a very big theme in RantWoman's meeting. First was financing, and fundraising. Then there were bids and construction plans. Then there was lots of moving things to and fro, stashing things in corners of the meetinghouse, other upheavals during the actual construction. There were delays. People got cranky. It was kind of a summer of discontent followed by much delight. We are especially pleased by two new public
bathrooms including one that is wheelchair accessible on the main
level with our worship room and social hall. Alas, after all this work we are still vexed about temperature control with our thermostats and about the
sound system.


Friends from our Meeting also bring our Light to other Quaker
organizations including the Friends Committee for WA Public Policy,
the regional executive committee of the AFSC, FCNL, the FWCC Section of the Americas, as well as our Quarterly and Yearly Meetings and a large number of other service and public witness activities.


RantWoman remembers her remonstrances about statements made on her behalf about email last year and offers this item this year:

We find ourselves challenged about discernment, information flow, and movements of Spirit through email, an up-to-date website, blog posts, and social networking. Some among us find these new means of communication
greatly simplify communications even at great distance; others find
these tools tiresome and overwhelming. Sometimes the groups of fans
and grumblers overlap.


The part that RantWoman is really picky about, even though the phrasing reflects places RantWoman WISHES were the sense of the Meeting, moments where RantWoman's instinct is to tell more of the Truth than others necessarily care to, and moments well endorsed in a round of email about the "How's your sex offender?" questions that come up when Friends from RantWoman's Meeting go abroad into the world of Friends:

We are in our second decade as a worship community that openly includes our Meeting children and families, survivors of sexual abuse, and past sexual offenders.

We use a number of standard safety practices related to our children. A trained sexuality educator offered a session in our adult education
hour on talking with our children and each other about difficult
topics, including abuse. Meeting for Worship immediately following this session was especially rich in honest and therefore complicated vocal ministry on themes arising from Friends' earlier discussions. We strive to make space to hear the widely varying needs expressed by individual abuse survivors. Sometimes we find even the process of speaking about and listening, of learning how to hear very difficult.

Another conversation thread is about a formal Support and Accountability Committee and other changes for an offender who is nearing the end of his Department of Corrections supervision.

A member of our Meeting and her husband held a striking Q & A session. The husband was a longtime inmate facilitator in Alternatives to Violence programs and member of a former prison worship
group under care of our Quarterly Meeting. He was released after a long prison term and has also become part of our community. Each new step walking with all these Friends offers our Meeting opportunities to grow and to deepen our spiritual community.


RantWoman has extensive tirades about the whys of her preferred phrasing; RantWoman is PROBABLY just going to have to let go of her proclivity toward tirades. Probably! Please hold all efforts about the State of RantWoman's Meeting in the Light.

Last year's version for reference:
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2011/04/state-of-meeting-2011.html