Two invitations: Disrupting Ableism and Pastoring in the Quaker Tradition

 RantWoman presents invitations to join RantWoman at one of the events listed here. RantWoman apologizes for sort of spartan visual presentation but definitely promises that it is worthwhile to click on the links. 

A webinar series from The Hasting Center on Bioethics  called Disrupting Ableism through artful activism. Read background and register in Advance

December 7 12-1 PST

Part 3: the art of Flourishing 

Quaker Theological Discussion Group Event December 11-12

https://qtdg.org/2020/11/19/quaker-theological-discussion-group-december-11-12-2020/

Advent Week 1 Annunciation of Mary

RantWoman said unto the Internet: "Give me something topical to the First Sunday in Advent

The internet replied: "Careful what you ask for.

Happy Birthday RantDad BOLERO Ravel レーベルボレロ Orquesta Joven de la Sinfónica de Galicia ガリシア D: V...

If RantDad were still alive, he would be 86 today. Fresh-faced young people performing a work with a lot of woodwind voices is a very fitting way to celebrate. Perhaps that is enough said for now.

Visuals: many views of individual performers, sections and the whole orchestra.

Pandemic Property Issues and socks

Featured tours on Planet RantWoman this season are on the theme "Peculiar Gratitudes."

Today's example: RantWoman is glad the 50 and then, after "de-intensification," 30  who formerly used rented space ... now have their own hotel rooms courtesy of the city. RantWoman is sorry it took a massive COVID outbreak at the overnight shelter downstairs. RantWoman is sorry for the financial hit toMeeting and RantWoman is holding in the Light a number of other concerns..

 The back story: RantWoman one evening was browsing positive test results on a county website for various homelessness services providers. RantWoman noticed that there were two unspecified locations operated by the agency operating the shelter in the Meeting basement. Both locations had double-digit numbers of positive tests, though RantWoman did not register the number of hospitalizations. RantWoman decided just to bite her tongue and curl up any email fingers. RantWoman cannot say she is sorry that public health officials decreed that there is no way to make the space safe right now. 

Tree leaves Rain

Next peculiar gratitude: RantWoman is very grateful, despite sever philosophical quibbles, that the other agency renting the basement is part of a holiday new sock drive. RantWoman is thinking of RantBrother and some no-one can fix issues and how much getting him the right donations seem to matter. RantWoman realized her task is to STFU about philosophy and bigger dimensions of problems right now. If socks are what is needed and socks are what people can give, RantWoman needs to STFU about a whole bunch of quibbles and just get out of the way.

Peculiar gratitudes part 3.

 The following posts came to RantWoman's mind and search engine wile thinking about the shelter situation above. 
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2017/07/diligence.html

RantWoman still thinks she was asking reasonable questions; RantWoman would have been thrilled if the questions had come out of anyone else's mouth. RantWoman recalls a conversation with someone who, RantWoman pretty sure was not at the business meeting documented above something like "yeah, it seems like we are getting pretty intensely into homeless services." All RantWoman could say: "I am totally unsurprised.

https://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2017/09/stewardship-due-diligence.html

https://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2018/01/light-dawns-thought-bubbles-at-least.html

Seattle Magazine article including app-based help channels

Holiday visual motifs and new tags

During this impending winter of #pandemic and soon-to-be-exPresidential shenanigans, RantWoman is striving to be festive, to cultivate grace, to draw out the best in all, most of all herself. 

Okay, this is RantWoman. Let's try for festive and try to hold holy whatever comes along.

RantWoman offers clues to visual motifs and then presents some new tags. Hopefully the new tags will be more self-explanatory than some of the existing ones RantWoman is in love with. RantWoman does not promise to go back and add tags to many old posts where they belong. This is the unedited version of Blog as Quaker Journal.

Visual motifs and what they mean

Christmas Cactuses: GRATITUDE

Plant Exchange Christmas Cactus plants
with Pinkish White and darker pink blossoms 

RantWoman is grateful for the UFM Plant Exchange. RantWoman remembers a retreat when she was very new to Quakers by a married couple who had worked extensively on conflict resolution in Northern Ireland. RantWoman remembers bringing the plant with the darkest pink blossoms to the workshop. RantWoman does not remember why she brought the plant to the workshop, but let us imagine many cycles of blooming as part of conflict resolution.

Random images of holiday Gifts: 

These will be intended both as appreciations of gifts, efforts that are very meaningful to RantWoman and donations of unsolicited in-kind technical assistance

New tags

Grace

Forgiveness

Since we are discussing holiday themes, RantWoman needs to comment on one theme from a previous year: readers may have noticed that one year recently RantWoman observed Hanukkah with a bunch of "Nothing Appropriate" visual images. RantWoman realizes the entire series may have had different impact for some people than RantWoman intended. RantWoman in no way INTENDED to slam an entire religion. If anything, RantWoman intended to highlight abundant ignorance floating around in US culture. RantWoman also was symbolically working out how to deal with lingering and recurring fury with the RantParents for doing nothing appropriate about one situation stuck in RantWoman's mind along with other holiday memories. RantWoman's tasks are both to figure out more concisely what needs to be said to whom and when and to heed the call about forgiving 70x 7 times  RantWoman apologizes if this theme offended anyone and hopes that this explanation can help anyone concerned sit with a more complex picture.

RantWoman also offers confessions. 

First, RantWoman has adequately spoken to NO ONE about how helpful some forms of Quaker service were in helping RantWoman stay on her feet psychologically while dealing with SOME aspects of midlife vision loss. Plop another Christmas Cactus of Gratitude here about this topic even though the conversation will quickly degenerate into WHY CAN'T YOU MAKE TIME TO LISTEN...?

Second, but related to the first, recently in connection with one of the hats RantWoman wears outside Meeting, RantWoman wrote a "How NOT to do it" skit about how to lobby legislators. The skit was a blind mother, with an unreasonable ask, on a Zoom call with a legislator. The mother had several distractions. The senator did not know very much about blindness and did things like yawn out loud. In other words, both sides found many reasons to be less than charmed by the encounter. Despite all of this, the two did get to an agreement to explore the topic further. 

RantWoman's confession: she had WAY too much fun writing the How Not to Do It Skit. RantWoman is also seasoning an abundance of How NOT to do It material on her blog. RantWoman asks readers to bear with her and to try to extract nuggets of wisdom. Stay tuned...

Lari White - "Lead Me Not" (Official Music Video)

"Lead me not into temptation...I can find my way there on my own!"

This post is dedicated to everyone who can envision way more of a wild raucous Saturday night than they can actually achieve and in particular many possible threads of scandal and soap opera.

This post also dedicated to a humble Friend RantWoman has been sitting with in worship for years without realizing either that this Friend cultivated her musical gifts performing with a very musical family or that this Friend's late sister was a famous actress and recording artist.

RantWoman thanks this Friend for entrusting the community with the story and enough information for RantWoman to venture forth with her search engine!

Enjoy!

Zoom training Video Closed Caption Option

Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!

Exuberant foliage
Pink and White Blossoms

(It's the season, more than average, of practicing gratitudes! As in past years, RantWoman is going to solicit help from her unruly pots of Quaker plant exchange Christmas Cactuses. It is the season of more and more blossoms every day. The blossoms usually do not last until Christmas, but they fill RantWoman with such joy that several posts are likely to have Christmas Cactus motifs)

Now, back to today's spurt of unsolicited technical assistance. 

Look Ma, look what RantWoman found while poking around after upgrading her personal Zoom account to Zoom Pro, the most basic paid version! Look! An awesome training video about how to do Close captioning with Zoom. Simple directions, steps that can be followed by anyone paid or volunteer. 

Enjoy the video. RantWoman will opine further below.

Often people hire a trained transcriptionist to provide close captioning, but precedent around RantWoman's meeting experience is that one thing, hiring ASL interpreters, happens for deaf people who use ASL. But for someone who loses hearing late in life and never learns ASL, precedent has been, say in Meeting for worship, a Friend sits next to the person and transcribes messages. RantWoman does not think her native scribble font would ever be useful for such efforts. In any case, nowadays in the age of pandemic, the fashion is worship via Zoom or if people are feeling really bold, hybrid worship with both in-person and Zoom. it makes sense to rely on CART or close captioning. And RantWoman is excited to discover that it could be done by a volunteer.

RantWoman knows that at least one person would benefit and be willing to try. RantWoman knows this because in connection with virtual annual session--she did an informal survey of several people she knows with hearing issues. One person spoke of watching television all the time with the captioning on. RantWoman knows that the quality of captioning varies greatly, but nimble-fingered Friend volunteers should be able to do at least as well as TV captioning! RantWoman wishes someone had had the capacity and inclination to research Zoom capabilities in time for Annual Session; RantWoman understands the point of wanting to avoid expense and Friends might also be reluctant to ask for what they really need.

RantWoman hopes this moment of eldering, oops unsolicited technical assistance will inspire say Friends with hearing issues, the Ad Hoc Disability Committee--with or without RantWoman-- and Worship and Ministry committee to have conversations about what might be possible.

RantWoman is going to stop here for the sake of digestibility. 

In light and Faithfulness

RIP Service Python Friend

From the meeting newsletter

"Long-time, long-inactive UFM member (Service Python Friend), a passionate birder, has recently died. Care and Counsel has no further details at this time."

Pink and white tissue
paper flower

RantWoman here offers an All Souls Day remembrance for the comfort of Mrs. Service Python Friend and Service Python Friend's 3 adult sons. But first RantWoman wants to express considerable irritation:  Service Python Friend has been dealing with health difficulties including recovery from a broken hip for quite some time, but whether or not Care and Counsel committee noticed, "long inactive" is not accurate unless coming to worship somehow does not count! Service Python Friend--and Mrs. Service Python Friend--have attended 9:30 worship at least a couple times during RantWoman's period of prayerful presence and observation over the last year. 

What else has Care and Counsel maybe not noticed???

There. Now that RantWoman has gotten that out of her system, a few remembrances:

Service Python Friend earned his nom de blog for suggesting during early days of RantWoman's midlife vision meltdown that maybe a service python would be helpful. Suggestions that crack RantWoman up are always helpful!

Service Python Friend almost always attended 9:30 worship. For a time he was the voice of that worship community on UFM's Worship and Ministry committee but he found this kind of committee service less than joy inducing. Service Python Friend also served on a couple NPYM committees.

Service Python Friend worked for many years as a hearing officer at the King County Assessor's office. Service Python Friend shared few lurid details of the appeals he heard but he regularly expressed amazement about the excuses people offered for not needing to pay their property taxes. As he neared retirement, Service Python Friend also pursued a degree in social work, but RantWoman is unclear whether he ever actually worked as a social worker.

Service Python Friend often spoke fondly of his wife Mrs. Service Python friend. Mrs. Service Python friend has a different last name and was never active in Meeting until near the end of Service Python Friend's life when she brought him to worship regularly. RantWoman sometimes teased Service Python Friend about ever getting to meet Mrs. Service Python Friend. Service Python Friend would simply say "She doesn't exist." She does exist and RantWoman sends heartfelt condolences.

Service Python Friend has 3 adult sons including a pair of twins, one of whom is 6 minutes older than the other. As a former data analyst at a now consolidated HMO called Group Health, RantWoman collects Group Health moments. Service Python Friend's moment: the whole time Mrs. Service Python Friend was pregnant with what turned out to be twins, the doctor did not do an ultrasound, but on a hunch in the delivery room the doctor requested a second baby cart. And indeed a second baby appeared. 

Service Python Friend will be remembered with much appreciation for his wry sense of humor and deadpan delivery. Many blessings with the memories