Bugs Bugs Bugs Bugs

Further emanations from Planet RantWoman wherein Business Meeting delegated the task of finding new renters to Finance Committee and RantWoman might perfectly well just shut up and observe except for that part about being true to one's Light, particularly Light as delivered experimentally aboard public transit.

Understand, Planet RantWoman means someone who is very glad that there are buses to get around on, now thanks to the latest service change on many routes all night. Planet RantWoman also means someone who is very glad to be ABLE herself to use the bus at all hours of the day and well into the evening. Planet RantWoman includes responsible people in her Meeting who do use the bus but mostly in the daytime.

Planet RantWoman also includes many many opportunities for sociological and anthropological data collection. It is not like RantWoman really goes looking for these opportunities, but the environs serve generously regardless.

Various data points:
Stop announcement: buses mostly have automated stop announcement. For various reasons the volume gets turned down or they malfunction. Or the driver gets tired of answering the same question all the time and therefore will call out stops for specific destinations such as homeless shelters. RantWoman definitely expects such stop announcements to flourish around her Meeting.

Bugs: the NUMBER ONE complaint of everyone on buses who chatters about homeless shelters is Bugs, Bugs, Bugs. RantWoman expects rent can cover any costs related to this or that at least a lease might address it. RantWoman would not in the least mind a little bit of transparency from the people managing the lease about possibility of insects and perhaps even inquiry as to experience at other shelters run by said agency.

RantWoman thinks the Committee on Homeless People... might also have thoughts though RantWoman thinks the communion of Meeting for Worship with Attention to Business should be at least as efficient a vehicle for conversation as endless phone tag. RantWoman thinks this but acknowledges a certain God as Personal Butler expectation and will just add some names to her list of people it might be worth picking up the phone to.

Disaster Preparedness: it would be RantWoman's Light to have some kind of at least minimal conversation about Disaster Preparedness as terms of a lease are being agreed on. RantWoman has in mind both encouraging tenants to think about how to manage when the Big One hits, equally or probably important, more pedestrian winter moments such as windstorms and snow. RantWoman will have to continue to speak...

In the meantime, an item from RantWoman's media streams
https://thecisforcrank.com/2017/09/27/morning-crank-meets-all-necessary-privacy-requirements/amp/

And while reflecting on worship and data collection environments, a refresher that swam out of a search engine:
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2010/04/time-to-pray.html

Jahrzeit

RantWoman notes with tenderness the 10th anniversary / jahrzeit this past week of the death of a very weighty Friend who RantWoman will with deep affection and respect refer to as Hummingbird on a Holiday Friend. RantWoman offers two blog posts about worship in this Friend's memory.

http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2010/07/are-all-our-members-clear-of-sleeping.html

http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2010/11/gift-of-prophesy-worship-as-soap-opera.html

Plaza Roberto Maestas: tons of topical concepts for property discernment

Be patterns. Be examples. Um, actually celebrate others' examples!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 26, 2017 Contact: Michele Leslie, 206-587-4819, mleslie@psrc.org   Plaza Roberto Maestas Wins VISION 2040 Award   SEATTLE - El Centro de la Raza has won a 2017 VISION 2040 Award from the Puget Sound Regional Council for the Plaza Roberto Maestas. The awards recognize innovative projects and programs that help ensure a sustainable future as the region grows.   "El Centro de la Raza accomplished so much with this project," said Josh Brown, Executive Director of PSRC, "It's affordable housing for families, office space, micro-business creation, retail, transit oriented development, classrooms to expand its award-winning early childhood dual-language education center, an outdoor plaza, and a multi-cultural community center." Plaza Roberto Maestas is a mixed-use housing project located directly south of El Centro de la Raza's historic schoolhouse building, and adjacent to the Beacon Hill Light Rail Station. It offers 112 units (one to three bedrooms) for working individuals and families earning 30 to 60 percent of area median income.   The award will be presented at the El Centro de la Raza board meeting on September 26.    VISION 2040 is the region's growth management, economic, and transportation strategy, designed to meet the needs of the 5 million people expected to be living in the region in 2040. It is an integrated, long-range vision for the future that lays out a strategy for maintaining a healthy region - promoting the well-being of people and communities, economic vitality, and a healthy environment.   PSRC develops policies and coordinates decisions about regional growth, transportation and economic development planning within King, Pierce, Snohomish and Kitsap counties. The Council is composed of over 80 entities, including all four counties, cities and towns, ports, state and local transportation agencies and tribal governments within the region.   Title VI Notice: PSRC fully complies with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and related statutes and regulations in all programs and activities. For more information, or to obtain a Title VI Complaint Form, call 206-587-4819.   中文 Chinese, 한국  Korean, Русский  Russian, Español  Spanish, Tagalog, Tiếng việt  Vietnamese, Call 206-587-4819    ###

Ruth Corwin Meyer Memorial minute with annotations

 

 

Memorial Minute for Ruth Corwin Meyer

 

Ruth Corwin Meyer, a birthright Friend, died May 11, 2017, in Rio Rancho, New Mexico.  Born September 21, 1933, in Rochester, New York, she was the only child of Elizabeth and George Corwin, founders of the Wilton Connecticut Monthly Meeting.  Ruth began piano lessons in grade school with a teacher who told her parents she had  no aptitude.  Fortunately they found a more insightful teacher.  Ruth went on to study piano and French horn at the Conservatory at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio, and graduated in 1955.  She earned an M.A. in music at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and received a Fulbright in 1957 to study at the Mozarteum Academy for Music and the Performing Arts in Salzburg, Austria.  At the Mozarteum Ruth met Martin Beat Meyer, a Swiss student of conducting.  They were married under the care of the Wilton Friends Meeting, and on completing their studies, lived briefly in Switzerland, then in the United States. 

 

After their divorce in 1965 Ruth moved to Boulder to begin a doctoral program in musical arts at the University of Colorado.   Her first teaching position was at the Oberlin Conservatory, having been invited to replace her own professor, Jack Radunsky, for the 1969 fall semester.  Finishing her degree in 1970, Ruth taught piano for two years at Western Colorado University in Gunnison.  There she became a close friend of oboist Forest Cornwell, his wife Jessie, and their three children, a relationship that endured and flourished through the years.  Later, the family moved to Montana and Ruth to Portales to chair the piano department at Eastern New Mexico University, but she visited many summers and at Christmastime.  They became her adopted family. 

 

At Eastern Ruth taught piano, piano pedagogy, and piano literature and also ran the  piano preparatory department.  With her colleagues, violinist Katherine Thayer and cellist Art Welker, she played for several years in a Trio.   An outstanding teacher, Ruth always treated her students with patience and great respect.  She cared for them as individuals: if they were struggling financially she found a way to help them earn money.  They would sometimes live or travel with her.  For many of them, her teaching was an “incomparable gift.”

 

Upon retirement in 1989,  Ruth moved to Rio Rancho, NM, where she continued to teach pedagogy and piano to area teachers.  She also tutored math at a local middle school.  A brain aneurysm in 1994 abruptly changed Ruth's way of living.  Losing her short-term memory ended her independence but did not dim her buoyant, warm, generous spirit.  When her assisted living facility closed, Brenda Oates, the manager, invited Ruth to live in her Paradise Hills home where she became part of a vibrant extended family.  Nor did Ruth lose the ability to play music that she already knew or to learn new pieces.  She and her friend Janis often played and performed four-hand compositions.  Also, her joy and appreciation of live classical music remained strong.

 

Along with Ruth's devotion to music and her students was her lifelong commitment to the Religious Society of Friends.  Growing up in the Wilton Meeting, she attended First Day School and took part in many Young Friends activities.  To celebrate her 50^th birthday--“a gift to myself” Ruth called it--she took leave in order to live and study during the 1983-84 academic year at Pendle Hill, the Quaker educational community in Wallingford, Pennsylvania.  For Ruth this was a meaningful new experience.  She often spoke about her teacher, Dyck Vermilye, who made a lasting impression.  Ruth's bequest to Pendle Hill reflects its deep spiritual influence.  In February 1990 she transferred her membership to Albuquerque Monthly Meeting where she contributed a quiet steady presence, coming to meetings of the Peace and Social Concern Committee, enjoying third Sunday potluck lunches.  Ruth played at the 60^th Anniversary of the founding of Albuquerque Meeting and bequeathed the Corwin family Bible to the Meeting.

 

She is survived and remembered by her friends, many of them former students.  A joyful memorial meeting to celebrate Ruth's life was held  at the Albuquerque Friends Meeting House  on July 15, 2017.

 

A picture from the late 1960's of Ruth and her student Pamela.

Like many good Quaker memorials, Ruth's memorial included moments which did not make it into the memorial minute.

One was about smoking. Enough said.

The other was about a long-term relationship while in college with an African American guy. RantWoman is SO curious. RantWoman wonders whether he is even still alive for RantWoman to #Sayhisname. RantWoman is trying to decide how to feel about how the couple's desire to marry Just Was Not Done at the time.

Love and blessings always.

Online Worship: NPYM Peace and Social Concerns Monday September 25

Please join us Monday for NPYM's Peace and Social Concerns monthly online worship sharing at 7pm PST.
This is purely about tending to our souls.
It is a place to grieve, inspire, and be inspired. It is not a place to brainstorm, create, or take on work.
We will meet monthly, on the final Monday of the month (yes, that's in just a few days).
Here is the login information:
Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android: https://zoom.us/j/125548662
Or iPhone one-tap :
    US: +16465588656,,125548662#  or +16699006833,,125548662#
Or Telephone：
    Dial(for higher quality, dial a number based on your current location)：
        US: +1 646 558 8656  or +1 669 900 6833
    Meeting ID: 125 548 662
    International numbers available:
https://zoom.us/zoomconference?m=fzYgZqkOxxsxzr2ftr2vw_W7bVNpAbH-
Thank you, and I hope to speak with you there!
best,
Sea

Two hours of Reflective Thinking Once a week

RantWoman does not usually think of ROI and spiritual experience in the same sentence.

RantWoman may need to reconsider.

http://www.businessinsider.com/i-created-a-2-hour-rule-based-einsteins-habits-2017-8

Stewardship Due Diligence

RantWoman has been reflecting on GREAT distress she caused Gratefully Valued Clerk trying to be true her Light about due diligence issues in a recent Business Meeting.

http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2017/07/diligence.html

RantWoman did not even realize Gratefully Valued Clerk had left the room until others reminded her. RantWoman is very sorry for distressing the Clerk. RantWoman is also even clearer about need to speak to what was on her mind.

Having a who can out-distress who contest does not seem on point, but RantWoman is clear to try again about the due diligence issue on her mind. RantWoman is clear to lay out her concerns but unclear whether they need immediate attention for example in context of a discussion about what is meant by stewardship.

The questions on RantWoman's mind were basically about funding sources and financial stability for a new tenant, a different homeless services agency than our Meeting has dealt with in the past. Since that Business Meeting, RantWoman has looked at the agency website where there is a big giant "we are having a fundraising campaign" message. Again, RantWoman has no opinion about whether that means we should be cautious about organizational capacity to pay regular rent, but RantWoman thinks we, the whole community not just Finance Committee should know what we are getting into.

Along comes business Meeting this month, with um, complexities meaning RantWoman was not present. After Meeting for Business, RantWoman asked Friend Treasurer whether anyone had asked about the due diligence issue mentioned above. Friend Treasurer said um, no, RantWoman was probably the only person besides members of Finance Committee even to look at the webpage in question.

If RantWoman were being completely insufferable she would ask wehther Finance Committee looked at the webpage before or after RantWoman called the point above to their attention. As it is, one does not need to be a "Trust nothing implicitly" fanatic to think it is reasonable for Finance Committee to be able to answer questions and for the answers to make sense. RantWoman thinks it is lousy stewardship that no one else is paying enough attention to ask some of the questions on RantWoman's mind. Hopefully RantWoman can try again more decorously. Or RantWoman will somehow manage to afflict someone else with her level of interest in the topic.

See, RantWoman has an odd scruple. Our Meeting's ministry to homeless people has progressed from allowing people to sleep under our eaves to the SHARE group that slept in our worship room to a shelter paying rent and with a different model of service than SHARE. Rent and a lease and an organization able to handle such are part of the steps forward. Still, RantWoman's scruple: RantWoman is uncomfortable relying on the continued existence of homelessness as a substantial income stream.

New tenant is a very reputable organization. Homelessness is unlikely to get solved anytime soon and better to aim for higher standards of service. Still RantWoman would like more data about progression from homelessness to stably housed. And RantWoman has heard others comment about loss of relationship SHARE participants had with Meeting. RantWoman has heard this and has no need to comment.

Stepping back though all organizations that serve the homeless are facing tough challenges from utter insufficiency of state and federal funding, from the increasing numbers of people on the street and a whole housing system under stress. Seattle is experiencing a region-wide housing affordability crisis. Numbers of homeless people are up. Numbers of unsheltered dying outdoors are up. The city conducts regular sweeps of homeless encampments which can be found everywhere.  Rents are skyrocketing. New construction is not keeping up with demand. And performance standards / funding flows sometimes depend on agencies being able to place people in housing that does not exist for millennial Amazonians with good salaries let alone for people with very low incomes where people with disabilities are also overrepresented.

SHARE, our former partner about ministry with homeless people has had organizational  and funding challenges. This is partly internal but partly also taking on an expensive and unwieldy operation of tent cities. RantWoman thinks housing crises are not likely to stabilize for quite awhile and fears that Operation Nightwatch too will reach some point of overwhelm. RantWoman wonders whether this possibility has crossed anyone else's mind and is sublimely uninterested in others' views that she is crazy for thinking of it.

At the same time, RantWoman is absolutely fine about charging the rent the market will bear. RantWoman is absolutely fine about making sure that the costs of serving the unhoused is reflected in program / project arrangements such as leasing of shelter space. But as long as we are going to derive important income from the current state of affairs, RantWoman's sense of integrity requires that we also   embrace larger efforts to address housing affordability in our region! Stay tuned because RantWoman also perfectly well recognizes stewardship issues inherent in the state of the real estate market in general.

RantWoman humbly posts this before the Campus Discernment Retreat partly because the thoughts are complex and would not necessarily all make it out of her mouth in worship-sharing. At the same time, RantWoman feels awkward about going on at length and crowding out other voices. Hold the problem in the Light, for one thing because RantWoman is SO clear about the points on her mind.