Memorials, evaluating

1. RIP Manila envelope.

By the end of Annual Session this year, RantWoman's manila registration envelope was full of important things like:

--the Annual Session program

--extra query sheets and the worship sharing guidelines for her worship walking group

--a half-completed evaluation form

--copies of the Daily Bulletin under new editorship

--a stack of new FCNL bumper stickers. RantWoman occasionally meets people with bumpers to put bumper stickers on. More importantly RantWoman goes about taking notes in different meetings on different legal pads. FCNL bumperstickers are among the things RantWoman in "Let our lives speak" mode likes to paste on the back of tablets. Note to self: probably there are lots of ways to get more bumperstickers.


2. RIP Evaluation?
Alas, RantWoman's manila envelope somehow did not make it back to Seattle with her. RantWoman is not afraid to attach her identity to most of her opinions. RantWoman also tends to have more to say than fits in the spaces on evaluation forms but there is no electronic option available. So in the interest of the "how do you do that" thread of Quaker gatherings, RantWoman feels called to share more evaluation elements here.


3. "Let the dead bury their dead?"
Today's topic: Meeting for Worship for Memorials.

This year Meeting for Worship for Memorials bumped against the plenary where God needed to rearrange the agenda. RantWoman PROMISES to say more of what came to her from that but today she needs to start slowly. The main point for now: Meeting for Memorials was shorter than average anyway.

This year instead of reading the full memorial minutes, the Meeting for Worship for Memorial opened with someone reading the list of names, which for various reasons including a very recent death of someone who was not a member wound up not being complete. RantWoman is glad to have heard names added. RantWoman was glad to have a sense of time and space for Friends to offer more individual ministry in remembrance. RantWoman  (urk!) came in late and was grateful someone reread the list of names again towards the end of the time.

And...

RantWoman misses the "let our lives speak" aspects of reading Friends' full memorial minutes. RantWoman often LIKES the things she learns about people's lives, even people she does not know. Posting memorial minutes in tiny print on a wall in a noisy plenary room is not a substitute. RantWoman definitely assumes she is not the only one put off by tiny print on a wall or who just needs to hear something out loud and held by the whole group.

Also, RantWoman thinks offering at least something from each Friend's memorial minute would create a fuller sense of these Friends being present to those who attend. RantWoman wonders whether it MIGHT be possible to read a paragraph or two from each minute at the Meeting for Worship for Memorial.


4. RantWoman is seasoning a list of tweaks to suggest about various aspects of the Annual Session program. One that comes to mind is just to have a space somewhere during every time slot for open worship. RantWoman MIGHT think to put notebooks full of memorial minutes, epistles, and state of society reports in this room on a table so that people might have an opportunity to sit, read, hold worshipfully.

There.

Thank you for reading.

In the Light.

RantWoman