Saturday, June 20, 2009

Blog Roll Please

RantWoman is experimenting with the mechanics of running her blog. RantWoman has decided to add a bunch more wordy features and has been testing out how to find the headings and other page elements that help her screen reader skip around and read only what RantWoman wants.

RantWoman is also quite self-centeredly collecting some links that she might want to access easily even when away from her own beloved customized machine.

RantWoman is aware that the result of these recent efforts is very wordy. RantWoman will at some point put in some more pictures and graphics. Well, here, RantWoman is soliciting help from readers: do you have any pictures that make you think of something about God, faith, Quakerism, personal and collective action grounded in faith? Post a link and a description of the visual content. If you want also post an explanation of why what you sent makes you think of one of the above themes. Then RantWoman will as lead, repost and elaborate from her perspective. Think of it as a visual Worship Sharing never mind visual challenges.

RantWoman supposes some will note a certain amount of decidedly non-Quakerly content. RantWoman knows she is not required to explain such but since the point of sharing the journey, she will, um, share the journey.

Our Daily Bread: lots of Presbyterians in the family. If we all read the same Daily Bible Verse, sometimes it creates openings. If RantWoman puts it in her blog, she will in fact be more likely to read it in the first place. RantWoman admits she is thinking about options to add instead or in addition.

The Mormon stuff: This is another experiment, an interfaith one. RantWoman awhile ago discovered that some of her forebears are in fact Mormons. RantWoman is greatly relieved that the most immediate ones found the "freethinking" Presbyterians more to their taste, but RantWoman has zillions of distant Mormon cousins should she ever discern the slightest leading in that direction.
Further Mormon matters: in connection with our Meeting's participation in a local interfaith body, RantWoman also found herself concurring with the then representative that picketing other people's worship services over differences in theology is, well, unseemly. This is a separate point from RantWoman's view of same-sex marriage. RantWoman's Monthly and Yearly Meetings are both on record calling for full civil marriage rights and therefore action in the political realm is a serious matter of differing theology; RantWoman just does not think mindless picketing will create the desired openings here. RantWoman is NOT clear about what to do instead, alas.

The other peacenik stuff: RantWoman is more of a Baptist social action Quaker than the contemplatives of several flavors around her. RantWoman herself has been neglecting some forms of peacemaking of late. Maybe if the stuff is in the blogroll, RantWoman will read it instead of some of the, cough, mindrot she sometimes reads now.

RantWoman is debating about one or two more pleasure threads but she is not necessarily clear on that front and may let her readers find that material other ways. Well, she may.

2 comments:

  1. http://sneezingflower.blogspot.com/2009/04/okay-its-all-right-with-pictures.html should fit your picture criteria well enough.

    Is there some taboo on the word "I" here? I affirm that one can rant quite well without third-person circumlocutions, although they do add a certain obsessed-and-demented flavor. (I prefer habenero chili, myself; three of the little buggers should do the job unless you're making enough to fill the bathtub. (Hmmm.))

    I confess to some Mormons in the family woodpile as well, although my mother escaped the fold to marry a heathen. I'm afraid my attempts to read their book simply confirmed what Mark Twain said about it. But there was a Morman uncle on my mother's side who prayed aloud for hours before we could eat, and made his living raising rats for researchers. (One of them learned how to get out (and into) his cage, but my uncle felt this was getting too uppity: "Thump!" "Sqwwk!")

    So. Picketing is "mindless." Well, turning to any technique out of desperate habit does seem a bit lip-flubbing, especially when it's a technique that's been as spectacularly unsuccessful as most all the methods of demonstrating I know. (But it does attempt to communicate some message, and satisfies the "Do no harm" rule, which seems essential in view of the nasty complexity of the social system one tries to influence.) Is there, then, anything at all that recommends itself for dealing with what William Stringfellow called 'the power of death' at work in this Heck-bent nation? (Very much like "Hell" except they play muzak.)

    I see you mention 'unQuakerly' content. Hmmm, likest-thou Joe Bageant? http://www.joebageant.com/ is not a Quaker, not at all like one except for striving to tell the truth, which sometimes gets downright unQuakerly, right?

    Anyway, looks interesting around here, & please get in touch if you'd like another warped mind to play with!

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  2. Hi.

    Just stumbled onto your blog courtesy of QuakerQuaker. Glad to meet a fellow Pagan/Quaker/[your religion here] blogger.

    Here's a link to the most recent relevant image posted on my oldest blog, Walhydra's Porch.

    My other blogs are The Surly Librarian and The Empty Path.

    Blessèd Be,
    Michael Bright Crow

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