Dear World, God/dess...
The annual State of Society report is gestating and RantWoman is as usual having trouble exercising restraint. Here are notes and a whacked up draft RantWoman inflicted on our brave and intrepid drafting team.
RantWoman insufferable? HOW could this be? Let us count the ways:
--RantWoman's hyperactive Inner Blowtorch keeps showing up a certain "This is your mother speaking" insistence about sharing many points of experience not necessarily at the front of other Friends' minds; RantWoman is also richly endowed with the gift of hearing others' protestations about this insistence only as "shut up."
--The clerk nearly forgot to begin the process of drafting our State of Society report until RantWoman reminded him at about the last second of the Business Meeting where drafters are customarily recruited.
--After Business Meeting a pair of parents of young children stepped forward. RantWoman remembers her role as idiosyncratic verbal documentarian about Irrepressible Nephew's early years. Little Sister just was NOT writing much at all and she still occasionally thanks RantWoman for the collection of electronic dispatches 500 characters at a time RantWoman served up on her device of the age. For comparison, RantWoman needs to congratulate this year's drafters for getting anything on paper.
--Next, RantWoman can be both a ruthless editor and extremely ungracious in response to others' editorial efforts. RantWoman offered considerable enhancement to the first draft circulating. RantWoman tries to be somewhere in the vicinity of humility, but...There are LOTS of words and RantWoman assumes others might be at least somewhat generous as well.
Some things that rise from a first read of the draft:
--RantWoman is the sort of nerd who actually reads these reports either at Quarterly Meeting or at Annual session. RantWoman reads for:
--some kind of interesting language about spiritual life
--what are challenges and how is the community addressing?
--something interesting about what Quakerism means within that community.
--are there any big changes or news?
--What political issues is the community engaged about and what are they doing?
--is the font big enough? Usually RantWoman has eyeballs for 1 or 2 at a time; and tends to skip the ones with the smallest font.
As to this year's drafting:
--RantWoman liked some pieces of the first draft a lot; other pieces seemed repetitive and invited substitution to expand the snapshot of community life.
--RantWoman has some opinions about census type info that get tested in the course of generating the final report.
--The area around our Meeting is changing. We are three years away from a new Light Rail Station opening within a few blocks of us. Both because of the new dorm impinging on a view to the south and because of a new apartment building across a street, some among us are thinking about what this will mean for our worshipping community.
--RantWoman shares a concern about not just doing laundry lists of activities. RantWoman is TRYING to be at peace about what the authors are led to write but RantWoman is a student of the Our Lady of Perpetual Community Responsibility: RantWoman seems to be about shoving the authors toward words that reflect the whole community.
--Our library is both a treasure trove of historical Quaker literature and a place for Friends to gather in love and community.
--There are many poets lurking among us; the monthly cycles of art exhibits in our social hall connect us to other circles within Meeting and beyond. Even the discussion of what to do with the Rich Beyer fence and other artworks reflects care of heritage even if modern realities nudge us in hard directions.
--RantWoman thinks just the fact of doing things like a travelling minute is sometimes important. This year Meeting prepared a minute to....send Conflict is a Gift of God Friend off to....teach conflict resolution in a foreign land.
Along the way, RantWoman felt called to have a spasm in the direction of her perpetual "What do I take away / What do I bring back?" query. RantWoman felt compelled whether others wanted to listen or not, to share a story of a weighty Friend RantWoman heard at a Quaker event looking to get her travelling minute endorsed. RantWoman was thinking about when the Weighty Friend had spoken at Annual session about getting to have several roles over time, mother, famous astronomer, excuse the odd phrasing, Quaker theology bon vivant out talking about science and theology at places like the World Council of Churches.
RantWoman notes how this quaint Quaker custom can connect a local Meeting who might have very limited time and energy with big questions that can be nibbled at in small local but meaningful bits. RantWoman is also thinking about how, even though she is a huge fan of electronic connections, the travelling minute is this wonderful token of in-person contact. But in the process of expressing that thought, RantWoman found herself called to further vex ...Worship and Ministry committee. ....
But enough. Here is what RantWoman did to whack up the draft. RantWoman is speaking only for herself and perfectly well knows it would be FINE, FINE to let others speak for once. And this is RantWoman…
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State of the Meeting Report (March 2013) DRAFT
University Friends Meeting
Our worship this year has been rich and balanced. Our meetinghouse hums with life: in addition to two First Day meetings for worship, lively Adult Education and midweek worship, our Social Hall is rented out nearly every night, a preschool thrives on our ground floor 20 homeless individuals find shelter in our worship room each night; this ministry draws in enthusiastic supporters for benefit concerts and helps us consider many concerns related to affordable housing across our city At Quaker House, we also continue to welcome both travelers and six new social service interns, newly renamed QuEST fellows, each year through our QuEST program.
It has now been a few years since our Year of Discernment, a process many of us found to be quite enriching and strengthening This year we ask where the clarity we found that year might again serve as a way to reset our compass. Are we doing too much? Are our tasks and roles the right ones? Do we work in simplicity and Light? At a threshing session on this topic, a suggestion emerged that we might try a drastic winter pruning—cutting back on the number and size of our committees and endeavors, and from that cleared space, seeing what structural needs emerged. For example, we consolidated both financial management and care of facilities for our two buildings within one meetingwide committee each; now we are discerning what makes most sense for managing our several personnel
We have been quite clear in our commitment to properly welcoming and supporting our youngest attenders and their parents. Our permanent preschool teacher is in her second year of working with our infants, toddlers, and preschoolers. This year we also hired two permanent First Day teachers, who provide regular programming for our elementary-aged children. We also host a quarterly gathering with young families at our meeting and South Seattle Friends Meeting. Junior Friends from several Seattle-area Meetings gather once a month to create a sense of Quaker community as well and to share our experiences raising children as Quakers . Finally we also honor the care and sporadic participation of Friends’ grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and young people in our activities.
Our worship community includes survivors of sexual abuse as well as sexual offenders. We hold this reality carefully and with deliberate transparency. We maintain a set of policies and practices geared towards the safety of our children. We always have two adults with our children’s program activities. From time to time we hold educational activities about abuse awareness and prevention; we hold abuse survivors tenderly along with the other struggles of many in our community.
A number of challenges are trying the spirits of Friends right now. In addition to deaths in our community (…..) several among us are grieving the loss of parents, spouses, or other important people in their lives. Our community holds this with care even when Friends are grieving people not directly known by many in Meeting.
Many Friends are beset by the demands and darned inconveniences of aging: 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"? We focus the Light of ministering to specific Friends through over individual care committees; we also strive to pay attention as a community: a new disabled parking place, for adaptations in how we distribute information, and other gestures of care and accompaniment.
Our community welcomed …. New members and …. Transfers out. One transfer especially stands out; one member of the first same-gender couples anywhere to ask their Meeting to call their commitment to each other a marriage and to take it under the care of the Meeting like any other marriage. This couple broke up amiably after over 10 years together and each found and in that Friend's case lost a beloved new partner. This year That Friend has moved back to CA where she grew up to live near her grandchildren.
The arrival of grandchildren is especially touching in light of WA voters this year voting in favor of full marriage equality for same-sex couples within our state. University Meeting and North Pacific YM have been on record in support of civil marriage equality for over 15 years. Echoing George Fox, "we marry none but only witness whom God marries. Interestingly, pride in WA voters notwithstanding, none of the same-sex couples in our Meeting is in any hurry to head to the courthouse for the new paperwork.
One illustration of our rich community life; our fall community-building retreat / work party first asked Friends to explain their experience of worship in one verb then divided us into small groups for worship sharing. Over lunch a clothesline provided space for Friends to hang their verbs. There some Friends shared difficult and prickly words also present though not necessarily spoken aloud. After lunch Friends dug into a number of needed work projects; when everyone gathered at the end of the day, Friends were grateful for many completed maintenance project and re-energized with new verbs.
We are richly blessed, enjoying each others’ company at Light Lunch, engaging in collective social action and political advocacy, tending to the native plants that surround our meeting house, and greeting with open and attentive hearts the newcomers and old-timers with whom we meet for worship.
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