Restless, with gratuitous Barclay reference: Music, Quarterly Meeting.

RantWoman was WELL-blessed at this session of Pacific Northwest Quarterly Meeting. RantWoman offers notes and gratitudes, along with selected hastags #quakers .

RantWoman blesses the ministry of car ride conversation and very congenial travel companions.

Stop RantWoman before she records again. RantWoman volunteered to be acting FCWPP Recording Clerk because RantWoman's replacement in the role was unable to come. Old habits die hard. RantWoman enjoyed the energy of the FCWPP Steering committee. RantWoman has other opinions but they do not belong in the blog.

RantWoman blesses the weather, sunny but a little chilly. The creek was fast but not as high as some years.

RantWoman had a total of 4 different roommates, thankfully only 3 at a time. RantWoman THOUGHT she was doing her customary "pack to be able to carry everything and still add a cello." Nevertheless, RantWoman and all of her roommates seemed to have really a ridiculous amount of stuff. Welcome to modern life? At least people got along.

RantWoman had several great conversations with people attending Quarterly Meeting for the first time, at least one of whom RantWoman expects to see again at Annual Session.

RantWoman mobility notes:
--Really nice to see people with canes and walkers using a sidewalk path between the large dorm and the dining room.
--Having tables both upstairs and downstairs in the dining hall made getting around MUCH easier and not only for RantWoman.
--Service dog: No fuss no muss! Dog was nicely behaved and had a harness. Yes!
(Obligatory Digression: Do not ask RantWoman about Wonder Chihuahua the alleged service hound residing in another part of rantWoman's life. When quizzed about how a chihuahua could be a service dog in the first place, RantWoman did not cite any psychic capacity to detect that someone is about to have a seizure or needs to take medication. RantWoman cited only that the dog has a way of asking to go out just as the nuclear family is about to hit meltdown. RantWoman really has no idea how this is covered in service dog regulations.)

--Worship walking while blind or very idiosyncratically vision impaired or...
   --RantWoman thanks everyone who helped point out especially rough spots on the trail.
   --Thank you to everyone who kept asking RantWoman whether she wanted to take their arms. RantWoman is, um, built like a linebacker. Even if RantWoman were closer to HWP, RantWoman would still be a large person with ahealthy respect for gravity and the ability to do damage while falling. If RantWoman falls that has to be one thing. If RantWoman falls on someone else that is a bigger problem. TRUST RantWoman on this. RantWoman is going to be pretty nervous taking someone's arm unless someone is a pretty large person.
   --Everyone please bear with RantWoman about reluctance to let others carry bags
   --RantWoman likes to feel ground under feet even when it is bumpy.
  --Thank you all for bearing with RantWoman's need to go on and on about this.

Business Meeting: RantWoman ignored Meeting for Business but did receive word of an upcoming conference call organized by NPYM M&O about email. RantWoman is seasoning whether the Still Didn't Get the Memo Committee on Email Immoderation is going to appoint a representative or whether RantWoman for now will confine herself to chronicling authentic spiritual experience as manifest through Facebook.

Interest groups: there is lots of interest in electronic communication. There was critical mass of participants but one absent leader and another with leading for plan B. The critical mass split: some went to work about climate disruptions; others went in for conflict and eldering. Courtesy of the conversation about conflict, RantWoman's inner data geek was guided to an observation. The Much-Eldered Friend with a Ministry of Audible Eye-rolling these days mostly has his moments of prophetic eruption around ....drum roll please...Friends who are also on RantWoman's Frequent flyer list! What if, instead of only continuing to exhort Eye Roller Friend to be quiet, some wise and thoughtful elder could encourage him to think about what he might say if words were to align and he were in the presence of those who vex him????

State of Society Reports:
--RantWoman still owes the world both her Meeting's missive and a augmented rant about same.
--Favorite quotes:
   Mid-Columbia Worship Group: "We exist! ... Six of us....."
   Eastside Friends Meeting: further phrasing about #opendata work with WA Department of Health gun deaths: suicide deaths outnumber homicides about 5/1. What this suggests is...

RantWoman is seasoning a sort of symphonic reflection departing from the music theme. The message  did not make it out of RantWoman's mouth during worship. Oh well.
   Wait. Part of the message was going to be "Well if Friend Geneticist can talk about methylated something or other and epigenetics during Community Night, RantWoman can darn well talk about neurodiversity during Meeting for Worship. By neurodiversity RantWoman does not mean only the term some on the autism spectrum as a mark of acceptance about their situation. RantWoman means a respect for the many different ways people work with information.
   See, Barclay and the early Quakers were WRONG about music distracting one from God. People from other faith traditions have made this same mistake. Thank God for continuing revelation and for people's ability to forgive themselves for not attaining the unattainable and being able to imagine multiple paths to God.. Then maybe there would be some motifs about getting too stuck in repetitive small details and losing track of how things add up to a big picture.
   Then there would be some moments of dissonance and chord progresssion as work passes from one key to another, followed by threads of Quaker witness and weaving people together and.... By this time the kids had entered and the half-woven symphony was too close to topics kids don't need to have to worship about and have partly made it into an email, never mind the Barclay reference.
Blessings upon...

Now RantWoman will resume more vigorous turning of the spiritual compost heap.