Authoritay and that hard, hard love your neighbor, pray for.. stuff.

RantWoman lingering dialogue with God riffing from last First Day, strand 1.

God, I have been reading Lloyd Lee Wilson on spiritual authority in Meetings. And I am all tangled up in vocabulary about Ministers elders and Overseers, not to mention elders and releasing and certain yearly meetings. (For future readers not steeped in current timelines Northwest YM and North Carolina YM; numerous links available)

Besides there is all that vocabulary about disrupters, witnesses bridge-builders
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/mercynotsacrifice/2015/08/18/disrupters-witnesses-and-bridge-builders-three-different-tactics-in-the-struggle-for-justice. That article is what evoked the Lloyd Lee Wilson link. Go figure.

God, see, RantWoman has been thinking with GREAT fondness of a sister from NWYM. RantWoman has come to know many delightful, spiritually powerful, and just sweet and entertaining stories from this Friend's life. RantWoman has served multiple times with this Friend on the Pacific NW Women's theology conference planning committee. And RantWoman would never have come to know the details she thiks so fondly of if RantWoman had not been willing faithfully, gently, from time to time to bear with homophobic comments.

RantWoman here honors two other voices attesting to the work of God when people sit together in worship. One voice, SOLIDLY, long attached to Northwest Yearly Meeting speaks frankly of God telling her to go travel among unprogrammed Friends even when it meant rooming with a lesbian witch in a cabin in MT.

Another Friend, the first time she attended the Pacific NW Quaker Women's theology Conference found herself in a worship group with three lesbians. Three. But what matters more to RantWoman was when that Friend many moons later spoke of coming to see Jesus in the eyes of a lesbian near her own age.

RantWoman's meditation's suddenly lurched toward southern county clerks who cannot in good conscience sign marriage certificates for same-sex couples. RantWoman is thinking of Quaker tax resisters and quaker lawyers who refuse to wear ties in court and get told by the presiding judge "you may appear as you are." RantWoman's problem: RantWoman can hear said county clerk saying I feel God has called me to do... 

Unfortunately, RantWoman thinks as well, if God calls you to civil disobedience, God also calls you to deal with consequences. RantWoman is touched, though, by Justice Scalia's observation that said County Clerk might need a different job.

The Quaker releasings were brewing before this year's Supreme  Court rulings on marriage equality. Even though RantWoman disagrees with the county clerk in question, RantWoman finds it easy to relate to the thought that who the hell is the Supreme Court to come between an individual and their God? If RantWoman were thinking as clearly as she aspires to, RantWoman would probably noodle around about different streams of authority, the kingdomd of heaven, the rule of law...

Look, okay, legal recognition is never to be disdained, but being clear in divine calling about one's sexuality does not exempt Friends from all that nasty hard Love your neighbor and pray for those who persecute you stuff.