Memberships laid down; Minutes.

Mental soundtrack to Meeting for Business:

--Saturday night cello riffs from annafritz.com and the Gospel of Treebark: leave it in the ground, turn the trains around.

--Wait just a second: Quakers in WA can talk all we want about Lummi treaty rights, the EPA Environmental Impact Statement, and gigantic shipment safety issues. BUT where is room for the Crow nation in MT who have treaty rights to sell that coal and to get the best deal they can for it? What is anyone besides RantWoman who can only keep harping, called to do about this point?
--Never Mind all that: take another run at clarity about much less detailed points from minutes for last months where RantWoman, with her Friends Committee on WA Public Policy hat on asked about Friends' engagement about climate change. RantWoman did not actually know that there is a statement on climate change signed by umpteen Quaker organizations. RantWoman considers adding mention of that to the conservation program reflected in draft minutes the most she can reasonably pray to have reflected of her thoughts which got slightly squashed last month. But maybe not everyone is called to live on that wonky edge whereorganizational development and  Quaker statements and intent meet public policy.

--bong... bong... bong... bong.... RantWoman turned the notifications volume on her Smartphone WAY down but she could still her the text messages coming in about #fergusonOctober. RantWoman specifically decided to leave the soundtrack with prayerful notes of faithfulness remembering both the firing of Dr. Eddy Moore and a listening to Black Clergy meeting RantWoman could neither attend nor pry any committee clerks away from another Meeting to attend. It's not really that committee clerks have any role automatically; it's just that all the people RantWoman knew to invite were committee clerks due at another meeting. Don't let...get in the way...;more hats needing new heads?

--RantWoman's brain was also full of a multistrand presentation in Adult Education about Latinos and WA.

But onward:

The Care and Counsel committee of RantWoman's Meeting from time to time brings to Meeting for Business recommendations that memberships be laid down. This month there were two:

--No Longer Wants Anything to Do With Friend. No Longer Wants Anything To Do With Friend, RantWoman thinks, showed up in a comment stream forom another acquaintance in common on Facebook. RantWoman did  not make any effort and No Longer Wants Anything To Do With Friend has not responded to multiple inquiries from Care and Counsel. Plus he has a new husband and by all accounts a new faith community. Sayonara with remembrances of foster-parenting with No Longer Wants ANything To DO wWIth and his ex wife: they bravely accepted into their hearts and foster care three sisters and then help sue the state of WA trying to get the girls needed help. Bravery and heartbreak and former spouses with many reasons not to speak to one another. Say a prayer including for girls who must be young adults by now and say goodbye.

--Friend Known to Us As, also apparently known as.... Friend Known to Us is deaf. He is responsible for Meeting hiring sign language interpreters when needed and for Meeting having an actual TTY for making direct calls to deaf people. (RantWoman note: that may not be the most important technology today, but tough!) When RantWoman was new to Quakers, Friend Also Known as edited the Meeting newsletter. Apparently Friend Also Known As has some legal problems of the Absolutely Hold in the Light sort. Sigh. And Say Goodbye. And ....

Oh, and now, actually editting the minutes, in addition to the moment noted already:
--A sentence deleted about exactly WHY something will not be renewed. Upon holding in morning Light, RantWoman thinks PROBABLY it is not necessary to be as blunt about reasons for a decision as the draft minutes were. HOWEVER, RantWoman thinkts it might still have been on point to say something like "After laboring about several issues for a number of years..."

--Addition of the phrase "from unallocated reserves" to a minute about money added to a budget line midyear. RantWoman definitely supports clarity about where money goes.

--A thread where RantWoman definitely meant to speak of discernment within her Meeting perhaps leading to greater community discernment but that got recorded only as discernment in a broader sense. RantWoman is unclear whether those who commented could hear the difference between what RantWoman said and what got recorded. Upon reflection in the light of a new day, PERHAPS it is RantWoman who was too limited in her thinking. Perhaps, except that RantWoman definitely meant her comments last month as a gentle kick in her Meeting's rear. RantWoman is trying to decide whether one commenter's snippiness mean RantWoman really was heard... Hold this all in the Light and blame Mercury being in retrograde, as opposed to usual RantWoman muddle if something remains confused!

Further riffs on the hours and hours doing something called Minutes theme:
--RantWoman tends to be a show your work recording clerk and to use minutes of exercise to record threads of discussion. RantWoman values the communion of shared discussion and finds it interesting to see how conversations evolve over time. RantWoman also finds minutes that record only decisions very sterile

--RantWoman likes careful use of terminology such as "unallocated reserves," nonprofit status, non--partisan...

--That said, RantWoman knows of no accounting dictionary anywhere that uses the phrase "peanut-buttered across two quarters..." with quite the same flair as one former treasurer.

--RantWoman likes a clear sense of where, usually which committee or body, something has come from, what instructions seem clear from minutes of exercise, and where topics get sent back to even if there is no other action besides sending the topic for more work.

--RantWoman heard mention of the idea of sending draft minutes out for Friends' attention say a week before Meeting for Business instead of on Fridays. RantWoman is unclear about this idea:

   --RantWoman thinks there is community value in hearing points of concern more than once and shared wisdom is needed sometimes for corrections.

   --RantWoman thinks this might burden Recording Clerks with lots of phone calls for clarification.
  --RantWoman thinks of two States of Society reports where email alone was definitely not sufficient for clarity and does not want that to be a precedent s far as minutes.

But RantWoman Recognizes that light may arrive differently to others.
Sigh.