Adult Religious Education Guidelines

RantWoman is, among other things discerning about whether to cling to her decidedly nonvoluntary (posts still pending;stay tuned) "floating free on Grace" state or to take up the cause of Adult Religious Education committee, lately faltering due to sudden resignations of its two newly appointed co-clerks.

RantWoman is dipping her toe in realizing two sessions that were already half prepared. RantWoman is starting with basics like the guidelines currently in use.

RantWoman received the guidelines below this week from Conflict is a Gift of God Friend. RantWoman especially wants to appreciate and deeply esteem Conflict is a Gift of God Friend for his gifts creating space for God and community to flower with each other in our Meeting's Adult Religious Education sessions.

RantWoman has been dutifully studying the writings of weighty Quakers about applause and expressions of gratitude for the labors of specific Friends. RantWoman finds herself thinking of a famous old quote "Thee was favored and thee was faithful." Conflict...Friend IS gifted about fostering dialogue, those who attend are favored with the gifts of ongoing ever opening interaction, and all are faithful for the realization of these gifts in discussion at Adult Ed.

RantWoman for once thought to ask for permission to post in her blog. Conflict...Friend said the document has already been widely distributed, though he also expressed a wish that RantWoman would edit or excerpt and perhaps include essay reflections on study and learning. RantWoman is clear that the internet needs the document as is, as a specimen of guidelines for such sessions. RantWoman has also lately been being true to her Light / plainly Getting in People's faces about the issue of accessible to RantWoman independently and wants to cover her bases about info channels. There are HOURS of painful conversations involved in this being true to one's Light / evoking learning in one's Meeting activity but that is another post entirely. Editing or excerpting is also presently beyond RantWoman's Light.

Upon a fast reread, RantWoman is led to reflect also on how this document might be received by, say, a state legislator invited to discuss tax policy. RantWoman finds in this thought yet another reason for now to preserve the document as is for first pass in her blog.

BY way of a small additional increment of reflection on study and learning, RantWoman does not have cable and needs cheap ways to engage with the quest for Truth. RantWoman also is a choir director's kid, so about 5 hours / week, not counting bus travel, engaged specifically in religious community activities does not seem too much to RantWoman, even ON TOP of personal study and reflection. Apparently many in RantWoman's Meeting balance their time differently to the point of wanting to spend only an hour or two on religious community activities outside Meeting for Worship. RantWoman is posting this mainly as a point for reflection!


Guidelines for presenters for Adult Education sessions
at University Friends Meeting

We appreciate your willingness to lead a session of our program. Whatever your subject, we ask that you stay within the following guidelines for spiritual education:

A. Worship discussion:
All sessions are a Quaker process called “Worship-discussion”; it is a conversation that arises out of silent worship, under the Spirit, and is based on deep listening. We ask that you limit the total of any presentation you offer to about 30 minutes (whether all in one stream or in bits interspersed throughout the hour); we allow for question¬ing and various opinions/experiences, but it is not debate. Your answers are separate from the presen¬ta¬tion. The session ends with silent reflexion, at least 3 minutes or more. If you prefer, a member of Ad. Rel. Ed. Committee will introduce you and monitor time.

i. the religious/spiritual approach: We are Seekers of Truth, Children of the Light, not interested in dogma; we hold things in the Light together, look at them, discern and learn

ii. “authority”: The Great Mystery, the Creator, Eternal Spirit of Life and Love, the Holy One, The Light –whatever name you use-- is the only final authority; we humans understand through our filters, so many approaches are right if they lead us toward God. We expect you to respect the great diversity of theolo¬gi¬cal expression in our Meeting as well as differing spiritual needs. We will try to respect your way of expressing your experience.

iii. dialog: always allow time for questions and accept others’ opinions and insights – it’s best to leave a short silence between speakers. You may ask someone to moderate for you.

B. Adult education principles
Education for adults is not “study” in the traditional sense: it eschews lecture and pro¬blem/ correct answer approaches. It may include practice of skills but prefers Socratic reasoning processes, narrative and shar¬ing of personal experience (feelings, thoughts as well as events), but is not traditional “teaching”.

i. applicability, “reality”: Learner must see some relation to one’s own life, have some response that uses the learning

ii. student-centered: program exists for the learner, not for the speaker’s ego or pet hypothe¬ses; follows group’s interests rather than presenter’s.

iii. practical vs. theoretical: no “angels on the head of pins” or “pie-in-the-sky by-and-by”; not what might have happened (or even what should have happened) but what did happen, what is going on, what can we do differently?

C. Quaker guidelines
i. Any subject may be held in the Light: we seek those aspects that unite all human expe¬ri¬ence and celebrate each one’s sacred value and uniqueness; we “meet in that which is Eternal.”

ii. There is more concern with the why/what-for than the who or which

iii. We value that which leads to harmony & love, peace, equality, integrity, simplicity, community; and challenge that which leads away from these values. The beginning point of all Quaker theology is that “there is that of God in every person.”
For 2010-11 we are trying to tie every program to Integrity: how can we walk our talk?

Fences

RantWoman's daily quest via blog roll for reminders and new articulations of Divine presence has served up this lovely item from Rachel Held Evans about her first experience of silent worship, which she plunged into fresh out of a week of highly scheduled meditations among Benedictines.

http://rachelheldevans.com/journeys-religious-misfit-2


Read as many of he comments as ... as well!

Interest

Awhile ago RantWoman's clearness committee had a conversation about RantWoman introducing blindness to our Meeting's children. Then Worse Auntie showed up. RantWoman is not sparing readers the details; RantWoman is just seasoning Worse Auntie's intervention, at least a little. The point:RantWoman has decided maybe starting with adults would be a better idea. Coincidentally, Quarterly Meeting is coming up. RantWoman needs to show up because of a Quaker role. RantWoman has succumbed to temptation and proposed an interest group:

Name of Interest Group:
Howling about Diminishments:
The RantWoman Guide to Midlife Vision Meltdown

Description: This interest group is devoted to everything you never thought you wanted to know about midlife vision loss. What constitutes “everything” will be determined by leadings of Spirit the day of the event.
“Everything” may include accessibility measures during silent worship, a badly-behaved white cane, favorite Bible bits, Braille, reading, faith healing, Quakerism aboard the bus, nodding and grunting, advice for elderly drivers, advice for those fretting about elderly drivers, blogging, and other topics as led.There will also be time for sharing out of silence.

Y'all ccome, okay?

Clothed

RantWoman has been holding in the Light the Tar Sands Pipeline protestors. RantWoman is not even collecting links off her blog roll. Correction: RantWomant WAS not collecting links off her blog roll until she came across this item touching not only on the protest but also on critique of fashion and Plain Dress without Quakers.
http://blog.sojo.net/tag/freedom/


and the blog behind the quest:
http://onedressprotest.com/about/


(RantWoman has been holding the protest in the Light; RantWoman herself has graduated to numerous paths to prophetic witness far beyond getting arrested.)

While the daily blogroll delivered RantWoman's reflections in the direction of sartorial matters, there is an interesting article in Quaker Theology 19 comparing Quaker and Amish capacity to retain youth. The basic thesis: the Amish are more separated from the dominant culture, with fewer and lower level skills about functioning in the outside world as well as bigger penalties (hell) for permanent estrangement. These together tend to help retention. RantWoman notes the conclusion ruefully but she mostly has plenty to do on the salvation front coping with the sludge in her own soul.
Note downloadable pdf
http://quaker.org/quest/QT-19.pdf


Finally, adding Blog as writer's notebook to RantWoman's Blog as Filing Cabinet practices, one of these days RantWoman means to pen an item about "Day-Glow Friend." DayGlow Friends number n, n+1, n+2.... all bicycle everywhere. These Friends all dress in variants of Day Glow yellow. RantWoman also has some serious reflector gear fixations. The importance of these confessions though: RantWoman reads lots of plain dress material all about making choices about one's clothing as tokens of one's submission to God. RantWoman would point out that Day Glow Friends number n, n+1, ... etc are ALSO submitting to God as represented by laws of physics rather than imperatives of fashion. RantWoman means to elaborate this theory some more and hopes her efforts will not be spoiled by this preliminary peek into the RantWoman writer's desk drawer.

Meanwhile, because it is the time of shifting seasons and shrinking daylight, RantWoman offers an old paean to her preferred reflectivity practices.
http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2009/02/make-me-glow.html

Pterodactyls

RantWoman thinks in previous centuries she would have been read out of Meeting or tossed out of many a fellowship for...interacting with horoscopes, oh horrors.

This is RantWoman's horoscope for the week of August 31 from Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology, a title RantWoman especially likes for the non sequitur of Astrology after Free Will

CANCER (June 21–July 22): Speaking about her character Harry on the TV show Harry's Law, Cancerian actress Kathy Bates said, "Harry is her own woman. She isn't going to take guff from anybody. I'm very much like her. I try to be diplomatic, but sometimes pterodactyls fly out of my mouth." I wouldn't always advise you to follow Bates's lead, Cancerian, but in the coming week I do: Be as tactful and sensitive as possible, but don't be shy about naming the difficult truths or revealing the hidden agendas. Pterodactyls may need to take wing.



RantWoman thanks Ashley W for sharing her care committee's report. RantWoman would never just borrow someone else's report, but RantWoman finds some themes that speak to matters on her own mind.
http://questforadequacy.blogspot.com/2011/08/care-committee-report-ii.html

Service Dogs: current ADA technical assistance

RantWoman is posting the following link shorn of baggage for information and reference:

http://www.ada.gov/service_animals_2010.htm


While RantWoman is at it, with no comment about whetehr Quakers sell tickets to anything:

http://www.ada.gov/ticketing_2010.htm


Added after the fact FYI
http://www.seeingeye.org/news/default.aspx?M_ID=382

What is Pacifism Good For

RantWoman thanks Johan Maurer over at
http://johanpdx.blogspot.com/


for links to the following two articles offered as partial memorial for Sen. Mark Hatfield:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/1982/october22/markhatfield.html


http://blog.sojo.net/2011/08/08/a-tribute-to-mark-o-hatfield/


RantWoman is not clear what sense of principles not quite in parallel is leading her to post the memorial items above in the entry she already started featuring the following item with provocative questions about pacifism but RantWoman is to be true to the Light she is given.


http://forusa.org/blogs/ethan-vesely-flad/what-pacifism-good-for/9496