Contagion?

Who do you say I am?

RantWoman hereby celebrates the election of a new Pope, a Jesuit who has chosen his Papal name to remember St. Francis of Assisi's focus on the poor and humble by invoking.....Robert Barclay, educated by Calvinists and Jesuits, ... and John Woolman. RantWoman needs to get a couple Quaker in-jokes out of her system; RantWoman also promises she DOES mean to poke and probe at what the living presence of the Holy Spirit asks of her Meeting or at least of RantWoman.


Furthermore, RantWoman hereby celebrates both Nominating Season and the season of drafting the State of Society Report. "Celebrates" is a peculiar word. RantWoman is wondering whether she has been fed some weird too much of the truth serum of quinoa, guacamole, and 4 stars spicy salsa or whether some stray bedbug left over from last year's contingent has just been scouring her email:



Recent email from....Conflict is a Gift of God Friend:

"We are facing a significant down-tick in participation this winter -- worship attendance is down almost 20% from last winter. "


RantWoman:

Thank you for sharing this concern. I appreciate info about something I would not necessarily have noted.

--To what might we attribute this decline?

--the annual flu / crud being worse than average both in firs instance and in tendency to recur?

--a significant number of Friends called to travel because of deaths in their families, work, pleasure?

--the exhausting barbarity that passes for work schedule for many working age Friends

--the expense and tiresomeness of travel by car or bus

--childrearing, eldercare. grieving, medical events all the matters lurking amongst us trying our spirits right now

--The demands and darned inconveniences of aging. We have many weighty wonderful but rapidly decrepitating elders. Without in the least making any effort, for instance, to ask Rantwoman's permission (Rats. RantWoman would not grant it anyway) many of these weighty souls are beset by hearing loss, rheumatism, Parkinsonism, various forms of vision meltdown, digestive obstructions, dyspepsia, disinclination to leave the house, and multitudinous other distresses. A certain Pendle Hill pamphlet may well go on as to "Hallowing our Diminishments" but what if Friends really need is "Howling about our Diminishments"?

--weird weather?

--people coming once and not feeling led to return?

--People besides RantWoman sometimes feeling bored and stifled by all the beloved Friends in Adult Religious Education who are certain they have things figured out and need to say so instead of listening when some of us don't?

--People afraid of being accosted by someone loudly calling them to the community of coffeemaking?

--People who want other people just to shut up and go make coffee and don't deign to listen about spiritual matters or who demand conversations about spiritual matters predigested according to each person's individual tastes?

--Fear that Nominating Committee will try to draft them for something frustrating that does not feed them spiritually...?

--Something else which has somehow evaded the fog and blur of RantWoman's oh, so limited Light?


Have you considered whether you should also perhaps share your concern with:

--the clerk of Meeting?

--members of Worship and Ministry?

--members of Oversight?

--the clerk of Finance Committee?

--someone on Nominating Committee?

--random people who those listed above do not necessarily talk to



What would YOU have us do about this? Any guesses what others might feel led to do about this?

--Different format activities?

--Weekly invitations on Facebook so that all the people who Beliefnet tells are Liberal Quakers know how to find us? Oh dear. That means presuming we have something to offer a world hungering for spiritual communion. Actual agents of contagion? (See below)

--Potlucks at arbitrary intervals, perhaps featuring random rambling moments from RantWoman's dorky documentary collection, disaster preparedness, other slightly demented entertainment?
--The harangue a month Saturday brunch club?

--some sort of neighborhood based gathering / witness and gardening party

See some of these ideas definitely speak to Rantwoman and RantWoman is having problems finding other Friends who either share her enthusiasm or are willing to be carried along, say for the sheer privilege and delight of hanging out with RantWoman, the joy of walking in the Light....?

Recently RantWoman saw something connected with flu season about infection control and different religious practices including communion. Having read Barclay's Apology last year, RantWoman might offer one comment about infection control through spiritual rather than physical communion, including HOPEFULLY the immune boost from just showing up around one's community.


(Disaster Preparedness Brain also recalls encountering a story of one community whose residents during the 1918 flu epidemic were too scared of contagion to go out and care for each other. Guess which community suffered a much higher than average death rate!)

The Woolman reading group this year is getting a really different spin on infection control and particularly sometimes deliberate exposure to small pox.

Put this all in the salad slicer with someone's definition RantWoman read recently of being an elder as "agent of contagion for the Holy Spirit." What might "agent of contagion for the Holy Spirit look like around our Meeting?