Cat Ministry, Physicists, What Canst thou say?

The after action report from Meeting for Worship last First Day, wherein God again stumbles over something sheparding a message from Eye Roller Friend and the Holy Spirit still herds multiple messages into a single mosaic:




Warm sun



RantWoman's brain and perhaps others' also well watered from Adult Religious Education as to considerations of Christ, Love, Authority, Experience...



long interval of blessed silence



Nasturtiums in Salad Friend: "...experience (movements of the Holy Spirit) without needing to understand...."



(apparently ministry of audible eye rolling from Eye Roller Friend.)



eruption from Eye Roller Friend about asking questions the right way along with words which sounded to RantWoman's admittedly muddled ears like dismissiveness of Nasturtiums in salad Friend.



a message or two



Eye Roller Friend leaves worship



kids enter



3-4 more messages

(RantWoman seasoning one untidy one that gets its own post and one shown below..



Close of worship



The part of RantWoman's spiritual compost heap that resonated with Nasturtiums in Salad Friend's message but never emerged as ministry, from the gospel according to Facebook infostreams:



This week some an item about Schodinger and Heisenberg and a cat drifted through RantWoman's gaze on Facebook.



RantWoman found herself delivered of peculiar Light: RantWoman could not care less how famous Schodinger and Heisenberg are as physicists; RantWoman would not leave any cat she cared about around either one of them.



Schodinger is the guy for whom the cat in the box is either dead or alive when one opens the box. RantWoman understands the point of thought experiments but does not need an either / or binary state cat. RantWoman needs to welcome a cat into her life, put up with a certain cat's wacky psycho kitty brain wiring, care for and be cared for by her, mourn her when she passes away. This is way more complicated that the binary state cat in the box.



Heisenberg is behind the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: is the cat a wave or a particle? If one measures things one way she is a wave; if one measures another way, she is a particle, never both at once. (Try explaining that to The Queen of Spades, or maybe just stay out of her way when she is doing pigeon patrol out the window.)



But if RantWoman spends too much time just thinking about is she a wave or a particle, RantWoman forgets to do really simple things like feed her, make sure she has water and a clean catbox...



Last first day RantWoman succumbed to voices wanting tidy messages and not necessarily repetition. In RantWoman's experience at least sometimes new elements wind up adding something for someone.



What canst thou say as to physicists, worship, cats?




Now, as to again eldering Eye Roller Friend, adapted from RantWoman's email to Eye Roller Friend, previously shared with Friends who think God should arrive in worship in approximately 30-second sound bytes, and now shared with the entire blogosphere:.



Dear Eye Roller Friend,



I am sorry you left Meeting for worship early. If you really were having trouble sitting still, it was probably the right thing, but you missed a couple messages expressing something new to RantWoman's ears, care in your direction as well as a nice one from someone RantWoman did not recognize speaking, to RantWoman's ears,to part of your point about how nice it is just to frame big questions different ways.



You also missed a plea from Worship and Ministry to direct questions about worship to them. Do you have any questions you might direct to them? When might you direct a question to Worship and Ministry rather than, say direct unmediated conversation with a person whose messages challenge you? (Do you have any clue how RantWoman might answer that question?)



Thought question of the day: what would it take for you to find words for your important thoughts without for instance sounding, even to RantWoman's jaundiced ear, a little like you were picking on a sweet little old lady? Please bear with the "little old lady" characterization. RantMom has gone, completely without asking RantWoman's permission, and turned into a little old lady, and Nasturtiums in Salad Friend is older and littler than RantMom. What would it take to have more patience to bear with... at least more of the time?



For furtther background, Mr. Nasturtiums in Salad Friend had a stroke awhile back and has been in assisted living ever since. This has meant huge adjustments for Nasturtiums in Salad Friend. RantWoman is sad that Nasturtiums in Salad Friend no longer has the energy to set up her beads at Friends events so Friends who do not know how to talk to each other can do something physical and hang out together and sometimes find words for a lot more or sometimes just hang out and learn a few tricks of beadwork.



RantWoman is NOT nostalgic for Nasturtiums in Salad Friend's habit when RantWoman was new to her Meeting. Nasturtiums in Salad Friend was clerk of Peace and Social Concerns and she regularly brought the entire box of good cause solicitations arriving every month to Business Meeting for help dealing. Rantwoman is VERY grateful that the community eventually took steps to recognize shared responsibility and over time evolved a number of practices related to solicitations.



Nasturtiums in Salad Friend like many among us, tends to have the same messages in slightly different words but RantWoman is grateful sometimes to be surprised by new seeking. RantWoman wrote Eye Roller Friend and counsels forebearance. RantWoman has no idea what to suggest to Eye Roller Friend about alternate wording. But read on.



Thanks also for sharing your comments after worship. I joke about your ministry of audible eye-rolling being a nice accessibility feature BUT I still do not consider it particularly a marker of disciplined worship. ...



Last First Day RantWoman personally did not notice. Nasturtiums in Salad Friend is one of several weighty elders dealing with the isolation, aggravation, frustration of hearing loss. For better or worse, it's POSSIBLE she herself did not hear Eye Roller Friend; maybe other elders nearby did not hear for the same reason. But RantWoman knows some people find interruptions during vocal ministry rude, disrespectful of the Light even if Light is not arriving to the interrupter. RantWoman considers it entirely reasonable for a member of Worship and Ministry to talk to Eye Roller Friend about that.



(RantWoman has also heard the word intimidating though not necessarily attached directly to Eye Roller Friend. RantWoman expects that people new to speaking in worship could easily find audible eye rolling intimidating!)



To rephrase RantWoman's question at the top, what would help you offer your own answer to the Margaret Fell What Canst Thou Say / Jesus to Peter Who do you say I am question alongside the answers suggested by Nasturtiums in Salad Friend or others in Worship?