Friends 1, 2, 3

Dear Friends 1, 2, 3

 RantWoman wants to thank you for your offer of time in the current difficulties. RantWoman wants to thank you, AND RantWoman is seasoning whether she needs to be true to her Light about people wearing too many hats and to say “Thank you but no thanks” or “no thanks in the form proposed.”

 RantWoman realizes that she is reconsidering something she previously said Yes to. And RantWoman is to be true to her Light and requests that         all hold the situation in the Light.

 

Friend 1

1. Thank you for the queries for the upcoming meeting. RantWoman is likely to prepare written responses to some items and is unclear that all responses will be appropriate for this blog. RantWoman needs to request clarification. RantWoman also needs to request that we adjust our process. See below.
 

2. You have another major role in our Meeting and RantWoman has prioritized a need related to that role over expecting very much out of you in your role on Care and Counsel.

 

3. When RantWoman raised a a concern in Meeting for Business about multiple Friends both wearing too many hats and repeatedly refusing offers of help, you not only were glib about your own capacity, you spoke of assumptions about others. RantWoman is NOT asking you to speak for others. In fact, RantWoman was objecting to one nomination both because of the appointing himself to wear too many hats issue and because that Friend had not taken any time to respond to RantWoman’s question either before or after the Meeting for Business in question. If that Friend cannot respond himself, how on earth can you presume to speak for him?  
 

4. You have commented two different years in Business Meeting when matters to do with RantWoman have come up. RantWoman hears these comments as “I don’t really know what is going on and I do not really know what RantWoman has gone out of her mind, (and I have not really talked to RantWoman either) but I think we should steamroll ahead anyway. It is possible this track record is the best Care and Counsel can do in its present form, but can you possibly imagine how this history might not be the best footing for a conversation about RantWoman and trust in Meeting?

5. Your queries talk about some months when RantWoman is more agitated than other months. Is it possible that some months Meeting for Business more completely discerns the will of God? RantWoman suggests we identify the months and topics associated with agitation and review minutes and other circumstances and see where we are lead from there.

 

Friend 2                               
1. You have just accepted a major Yearly Meeting role. RantWoman admires and respects you deeply and must be true to her Light about people wearing too many hats.

2. You are the subject of RantWoman’s “How do you prefer to be eldered? Posting. RantWoman recognizes that one point of community is for people to share work when people are allergic or challenged for time or….

3. RantWoman has REPEATEDLY encouraged you to STOP FILTERING and please facilitate people talking to RantWoman directly. RantWoman reminds you that she cannot read minds. She cannot read faces. RamtWoman realizes it sounds incredible, but RantWoman's capacity to miss communications is ENORMOUS. RantWoman apologizes for this problem but cannot necessarily fix it. Even if everyone says the same thing, RantWoman can interact much better with the intensity of complaints simply by hearing them in people’s own words. RantWoman also values individual conversations because they frequently come with information or digressions that allow room for improved connection even if nothing can happen immediately—or at all—on other concerns.

 

Friend 3

1. RantWoman cannot work with your schedule being the most important constraint in the selection of dates for meetings. RantWoman realizes it is presumptious to expect input for herself upstream in scheduling meetings, and RantWoman is VERY clear to do so.
 
2. RantWoman tartly notes that deferring to your schedule sends two messages RantWoman thinks neither of us want to send. First, there is the message that you are the only person who can solve whatever problem we are working with. Considering all your other involvements, RantWoman repeats her suggestion that you consider whether this one really is yours to help solve. Second,  RantWoman has problems all the time, not just when you are available to address them . RantWoman is wondering how we can get to a process that identifies a few simple principles that LOTS of people know rather than placing ANYONE in any kind of a gatekeeper role.

 

3. RantWoman appreciates that you at least GET language about disability when RantWoman uses it around Meeting; RantWoman is still clear that it is important to hear back that others get that language too and is unclear what kind of process would lead there.

4. RantWoman has eldered you more than once about circumstances where you as a person without an obvious disability make decisions based on your preferences, not on realities or preferences of people with disabilities. Again, noting this problem may be the best anyone can do for now, but it is still a problem.

 

May we all please hold these concerns in the Light and talk further.

 In hope and care

 RantWoman

Adore this!

From this week’s bulletin filler used when there is space, for example because there are not enough announcements either about Meeting activities or about change / peacemaking in our community or even exhortations to SPEAK UP and directions about how to find the footstools.

 

Worship is the adoring response of the heart and mind to the influence of the Spirit of God. It stands in neither forms nor in the formal disuse of forms; it may be with or without words, but it must be in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). We recognize the value of silence, not as an end in itself, but as a means toward attainment of the end, which is communication with God and fellowship with one another.
Faith and Practice of NPYM

 Dear World,

Channeling Miss. Piggy: Adore THIS! RantWoman is NOT doing well about adoring, adorable, adoration this week.

 As another Friend says on Facebook, I do not enjoy daily barrages of simulated aerial attack. Thank you ever so much Blue Angels.

Rantwoman IS physics geek enough to think that flying IN one of those planes might be really, really fun—if all the extra G forces and dynamics did mot clobber what is left of RantWoman’s vision. But Adoring has NOTHING to do with what RantWoman is likely to be doing abut this during Meeting for Worship or Meeting for Worship for Business. Trying to transform fury. Trying to draw the poser of God into some kind of topical thunderbolts. Tryingto cover everyone in RantWoman’s vicinity with centering Light and insulated sanity. Sure. All of those. Adoing, not so much!

 Then there would be the usual churning of RantWoman’s spiritual compost heap in the Light of God and these our Friends, inventorying and attempting to purge the newest additions to the endless list of candidates for RantWoman’s multilingual multiconfessional flogging bureau. Still not a lot of just adoring though?

 How about adoring the opportunity to grumble about repetitive Faith and Practice excerpts and exhortations  and wishing someone would MAYBE possibly see whether there might be other inspiring passages to mix in.

 

Just sayin

 

RantWoman

How Quakers Make Decisions: Quaker Speak. God DOES care about the carpet.

A holy sacred.....



...where we get ugly with one another...?

Not tread on child

Dear parent,

 

RantWoman is really not in a position to evaluate your parenting one way or another. RantWoman simply does not want to walk on your child when he or she is seated in a path where more people than just RantWoman might also be trying to walk. When RantWoman suggests, maybe even in a really tired voice that moving out of the way would be very helpful, really appreciated…, RantWoman is expressing great trust and confidence that your child can and will do what is asked. RantWoman apologizes if that does not sound like what came out of her mouth.

 

RantWoman will try to remember next year to offer to the Children’s program to come talk about vision loss and generally being aware of other people on sidewalks. RantWoman will do the best she can to make this be positive and fun for everyone. But please note it has taken RantWoman a LONG time to be willing to speak.

 

Please hold continually needed speaking in the Light. Think of it as continuing revelation, and I will also hold all the other dimensions of parenting as well.

 

Sincerely,

RantWoman

 

 

 

The longer version, with thanks to a 5-year-old at an Annual session plenary insisting in a 5-year-old way that worship is IMPORTANT.

RantWoman is still getting this blind person thing down. And RantWoman is not a Quaker because she is any good at this peace and love stuff; RantWoman is a Quaker because she needs all the help she can get. Furthermore, RantWoman draws great spiritual nurture from people much older than she who also still do not have things figured out. RantWoman does not promise this automatically makes things any easier for everyone.

Here RantWoman must share a story from her own Meeting with a plea to hold one Friend in the Light because RantWoman herself can barely speak to this person. One week last fall, the number of exuberant children was particularly large and many of them new to the Meeting. RantWoman’s nerves were jangled by other things and RantWoman did not want to share the jangling about things that cannot be fixed, only held in the Light. As with the child mentioned above, RantWoman both figured the children involved can grow and did not want to walk on loose kids while they grow. So RantWoman duly emailed numerous topical people asking for help. One of the first replies, PLESE hold the sender in the Light,  was the ever so helpful and welcoming suggestion that RantWoman go find someplace to worship where there are not children. BLESSEDLY, a try-again email and others' voices emerged as well!

RantWoman and God have an understanding. RantWoman will ride one bus to Meeting for Worship. That standard gets RantWoman to any of the three unprogrammed Meetings in Seattle plus or minus a walk or a shorter two-bus routing in one case. Fortunately for the future of the Religious Society of Friends ALL of these Meetings have children! Plus, RantWoman really digs being Auntie and tends to assume that parents and children need a whole village anyway, though RantWoman supposes readers a little bit get to take their chances on which of the RantWoman Auntie personae show up at any given moment. Bottom line: Sensible Auntie really, really does not want to walk on small children and encourages everyone to be aware of the concern!

 

A gratitude and a grumble.

A very big gratitude:
RantWoman deeply appreciates a few different faces of people at NPYM Annual Session who tapped her on the shoulder at some point or another while RantWoman was being safe enough to cry but not verbal enough to talk about it.

RantWoman offers a teeny, tiny grumble to one Friend who offered 3 times  to carry RantWoman's purse before telling RantWoman her name. RantWoman has no idea whether her nametag was in the conventional name out position or in the un-nametag "Please tell me your name" position. Either way RantWoman means it about not being able to read people's nametags until she is indecently close. Sigh.

An Oops

An Oops:
In http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2014/07/who-are-we-all-called-to-become.html
RantWoman wrote:
"Some of the Friends in RantWoman’s Yearly Meeting doing the most credible witness about racism never come to Annual Session, partly because of cost, partly because of a sense that there is little there to feed them."

RantWoman's oops: RantWoman did in fact hear some young Friends from ID talk about a concern about racism. Considering that they are young Friends, RantWoman could darn well have probed further, reached out to ask more.

RantWoman did not.

So there will be upholding from a distance and in partial ignorance. Sigh.

A confession

Ya know how at many churches in the Sunday bulletin, if you cannot think of things to confess about on your own, there is a nice set of words to guide you. RantWoman deeply esteems the fact that

Quakers can and do think of new things to confess about all the time. Here are RantWoman's confessions du jour:

--The Blue Angels are back in town and RantWoman lives on the flight path. This is causing RantWoman to have a VERY unhealthy interest in surface to air missiles.

--Even worse, RantWoman's unwholesome interest... threshold is MUCH lower than the Blue Angels' flight path. Recently RantWoman and some visiting friends dined at a lakefront restaurant. The meal was interrupted several times by the roar of float planes taking off. Over a delicious meal, RantWoman had NO trouble admitting that the ambient noise was evoking in her roughly the same enthuusiasm for surface to air missiles. Sigh.