Cliffhanger Catchup

Meeting for Worship today had only a small number of messages, all tagged with questions in various directions of forgiveness.

The more interesting point RantWoman is presently pondering: when people deliver messages about matters of profound pastoral care concern, are they explicitly asking for help or are they simply placing a personal spiritual concern before the Light of those assembled? RantWoman fairly regularly spends Meeting for Worship working over some moral concern or other. RantWoman is much less often moved to do this out loud but feels she must leave room in her considerations for the possibility that others, perhaps less reticent than RantWoman, are turning over their own matters out loud.

RantWoman's meditations come from two messages. First, a Friend delivered a calm but focussed and resolute message about not being able to turn the other cheek for an event in her household which set off so many RantWoman alarm bells that more followup is needed offline.

RantWoman heard several things in worship that she needed to follow up. By the time RantWoman was ready to speak to the Friend who had shared this message, that Friend was already somewhere else. Now RantWoman has to figure out what needs to be followed up with and whether someone else has already done so.

RantWoman deeply believes that pastoral care concerns should have a place in Meeting for Worship. RantWoman also thinks pastoral care concerns in Meeting for Worship truly do need thoughtful nonjudgmental questions afterward as followup. RantWoman also, unfortunately, finds herself full of judgmental observations, inclinations to solve problems that have not been articulated and brazen inclination to make decisions or assumptions on others' behalf. That is RantWoman is afflicted to an outrageous degree with several tendencies she of late, in a total spirit of Love and Truth, has been railing against. URK!!!

The second message dates from awhile ago.

RantWoman today finally got around to following up with Friend Poet about an incident aboard a bus which Friend Poet mentioned several weeks ago.

http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2010/09/slug-rut-vulnderable-to-god-and-others.html

RantWoman has been curious about more details after the three cop cars cliffhanger cutoff. RantWoman has not thought to try to intersect with Friend Poet by phone; past experience is that is unreliable at best. Today RantWoman got her act together while Friend Poet was present, simply to ask for more information.

RantWoman learned that events which showed up in the story as a cliffhanger with cop cars and disheveled clothing had an ending other than what one might expect. The other than one would expect ending: If one is faced with a cop making belligerent comments and threatening jail, apparently it matters if other bus passengers also confirm that one was exhorting one's fellow bus passengers to stay quiet and not say belligerant distracting things to one's bus driver.


Friend Poet said he had been doing something RantWoman has actually observed him doing: calming down some of the other passengers one is sometimes called to share a ride with. That day Friend Poet was speaking with a tall, young attitudinal African American youth, and somehow the conversation degenerated into the flailing limbs spoken of earlier. This week Friend poet supplied details about the sargeant at the scene as well as the point that no one got arrested.

To say the least, this sounds more like the Friend Poet RantWoman has heard a time or two over many years do something exactly on-point to clear up some or another busboard zone of confusion, rudeness, or inconsideration. RantWoman is grateful for the update and will resume her regular level of prayer and meditations on busboard peacemaking.

RantWoman feels very, very blessed sometimes to be able to find a seat facing forward a few rows back from the very front of the bus. This means RantWoman gets to ride with a lot less chance of having her feet walked on. This also means that RantWoman frequently cannot see people who are seated in front and does not know who is there until someone speaks. Friend Poet has this kind of windy way of speaking that sometimes just calms by diverting conversation, but his age also carries weight: people listen and stop what they are doing. RantWoman has been speaking to those in her Meeting who find Friend Poet's delivery vexatious: RantWoman keeps telling people, well, this is how it works on the bus. RantWoman is glad to have new facts to back up her point.