Grace and Tottery Friends

Query to all event planners everywhere: Most Quaker events RantWoman has ever attended rely on the gifts and energy of all the participants for tasks from mundane. When planning events do we think of Friends with a range of gifts and abilities? Do we make it easy for Friends both to feel connected and included and to decline particular tasks which might be beyond their Light in general, beyond their Light in specific circumstances?

At the Pacific Northwest Quaker Women's Theology Conference some of the mundane, keep the conference running tasks included:

Music before plenaries

Mic runner

Server at meals

RantWoman heard an exhortation early in the conference to sign up to serve beverages and bring the food, served family style, to the tables. We were told everyone needed to sign up 1.5 times RantWoman long ago had to admit that she finds dining areas at gatherings frighteningly noisy; RantWoman has also been known to quip around her own Meeting that "Hospitality Committee equals pastoral care plus knives and hot liquids." Nevertheless, RantWoman dutifully wandered toward the signup sheets.

Waiting in line, RantWoman confessed her trepidations. RantWoman was rewarded by Absolution Friend. Absolution Friend knows of RantWomans midlife vision meltdown issues. Absolution Friend told RantWoman she had signed up twice and someone else had signed up four times and suggested that RantWoman should consider her duty discharged. THANK YOU.

But RantWoman DOES NOT KNOW WHEN TO QUIT.

RantWoman was enjoying sitting calmly in the dining room and doing her best to be gracious while servers fetched her beverages. Sitting calmly? RantWoman? RantWoman managed to stay seated at the beginning of the meal but nearly always found her way clear to go fetch something or other herself after everyone else was seated and not just fogging around as blurry blobs.

Even worse, RantWoman SHOULD have contented herself tending her own situation.  Who? RantWoman?

RantWoman's attention wandered to a number of Tottery Friends, Friends who are decades older than RantWoman, Friends who are generally active and vigorous but a teensy wee little bit Tottery. RantWoman was indeed relieved not to fear clobbering any of a number of seriously Weighty but also TOTTERY Friends. And then it dawned on RantWoman: the Tottery Friends had as many reasons or more to decline beverage server duty as RantWoman. RantWoman functions perfectly fine alone in her own kitchen; RantWoman expect the same is true of Tottery Friends. In noise and crowds and large pitchers and chairs and people bobbing and weaving every which way, um....  But Tottery Friends are GOOD Souls! And Tottery Friends are just as interested in staying active and vital as RantWoman is in keeping her own large muscles in good working order. So why on Earth would RantWoman expect that Tottery Friends will decline beverage server duty?

RantWoman will resume efforts to sit graciously, hopefully long enough to eat but not so long she gets a headache from all the noise. And Tottery Friends can SOLVE THEIR OWN PROBLEMS.