Reflection Paper, Redacted, with a glimpse of nudity

RantWoman redact ANYTHING? Um, yup! Below is RantWoman’s reflection paper for the 2014 Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s theology conference, redacted, with a glimpse of well-surveiled nudity. RantWoman thinks she can make her point sufficiently here.

 

Wilt thou Go…? 
Uh, how much choice do I get?
(RantWoman), University Friends Meeting, Seattle
2014 Pacific Northwest Quaker Women’s Theology Conference

 

The Roadmap, finding one’s way as the journey begins:

 --the quotes, of course, available at http://www.pnwquakerwomen.org/conference/2014-papers/

 --A Friend’s wisdom in reading further in Isaiah about the going not making sense to anyone around one.

 --themes embroidered into the picture by other papers already submitted: Take Nothing; Go for us?

 --Not-particularly linear timelines. Call it magical realism. Call it triggers or flashbacks or a couple other terms I may be using sloppily. Call it what you will. Think of it as recapitulation, theme and variations from classical music. The point is if the timelines do not seem linear, cope. Or ask. Or sit with it and then cope. Or ask.

 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

 Who will go for us? Who IS us?

 

Here am I send me, to church, with the rest of the family, ON TIME thank you very much because being choir director is Daddy’s JOB and my children will darn well Cope!

And at church, a sacred breathing place different from frustration at home and Mommy has a better week all week. And I am the oldest so Behave means I get to stay with adults and have a break from tiny kids and “behave or you’ll get a spanking at home after..” rules for siblings. Wilt thou go back in time on my sister’s telephone time machine? Uhhh, is it really a choice? Thank you my sister’s therapist.

 

I run away from home to go to college. Among other adventures Baptist social action collides with the churnings of academic feminism. It took me awhile to give up, despite some enthusiasm for math, on thoughts of majoring in physics. I have a degree in Russian; I majored in political activism. My theological / spiritual path is approximately that windy as well.

 

I need a break from college. I am living in Washington DC, selling the nuclear freeze door to door and then tending data for a small peace lobby. I will assuredly go to peace camp. I do not have language for leadings but I MUST go there. My job has laughable financial rewards so “Must go there” has fewer work-related barriers. I will find a ride at the bookstore or the feminist newspaper collective or. Turns out peace camp is land of what I call the Quaker seamless garment, healing inwardly while striving to bring peace beyond ourselves. There are spiritual traditions in collision all over the place. There is protesting. There is endless process while we decide how to build our outhouse. There are powerful women tripping over all kinds of Big Issues. There are healers. There are women who build things and protest nerds. There are sometimes helicopters flying overhead, to be ignored if one is in the middle of the solar shower. There were women who could at least put on our denim skirts and go visit the local church peace group. There were wise Quaker women who, with a few gentle words could sometimes settle the whole clamor into clear decisions all could unite with.

 

Then God said move to IN. The job I went for left something to be desired but God said Graduate School. Actually God said “Enough of that peacenik stuff outside the military base, you will now go to grad school with several members of the military destined to become Foreign Area Officers. And while you are at it, how about instead of waiting around for people of color to join your organizations, you go and actually listen and join the NAACP? By the way, please note that military service is a way up and out for many people of color!

 

I might have thought to be interested in Quakers but God did not provide / I did not particularly seek out reasonable transportation options on Sunday mornings. As far as seeing my face in actual houses of worship, during this period of my life, God and my father got to cope with my list of monthly social justice meetings held at various local churches. Finally grad school ended, I packed up, moved to Seattle, found Friends in the Yellow pages, and could say much more

 

I was born with congenital cataracts. My brother, father, grandfather all had them too and there are surgery stories for everyone. I have worn glasses since I was two. Ten years ago the next chapter of family DNA lotto caught up with me, detached retinas, becoming legally blind, voc rehab, “Grab the Blind Person and Bless Them,” crossing a threshold into the world of disability, sojourning in whole new circles and dragging others along on sojourns they would not necessarily sign up for either.

 

God said, sure, of course you can want data as much as ever, you just will get it all through screen readers and who cares if the write code yourself thing is not happening anymore? We can add project management, administrative tedium, interpersonal challenges, work place diversity on steroids? Teaching and training that are very rewarding. Things that I really, honestly,  suck at and need to offload. Okay, God, which pieces make a difference? Just HOW much of this am I actually called to? HOW much can I actually do from love?

 

One of the members of my Quaker 8 +/- potluck group is a pediatric neurologist. He so clearly is the kind of doctor I would want if I had a kid who needed a pediatric neurologist. He talks of going to MT, to two cities, once or twice a year to each. He talks of these cities and suddenly I am in a car full of frustrated parents and crying siblings on the coming home leg of our family’s trips to see an ophthalmologist based 200 miles from where my family lived in CO.

 

Wilt thou go on my journey? Your travel options will be the city bus and the internet. What canst thou say? Uhh, I have whole blogs for that. Just ask.

 

One time a weighty Friend hissed that I was “so out of order” when I had in mind four families, 3 of whom are either specifically not white or don’t assume we’re white and two of which had parents living with challenging disabilities. God said, “you thought vision loss was… How about whole new vistas, seeing things other people don’t see?

 

God said “you know how to sit on conference calls and take minutes. How about a stint as Recording Clerk for a local Quaker organization?”  That takes me into the world of interfaith connections. The other blind woman in the room is keeping blindness on the down low but we find each other’s issues instantly. I say I am from the Quaker organization. In other’s eyes, I grow an enormous halo, the kind of halo that is so large one would not get it through the door. Except I am not a Quaker because I am any good at this peace and love stuff; I am a Quaker because I need all the help I can get.

 

On my mind:  what DOES prophetic witness look like in this current century?