Monday, October 23, 2017

How large is large? Large Print Bibles and ...

Welcome to Planet RantWoman, large print Bible edition. RantWoman promises there will be information about purchasing large print Bibles, including what passes for "large print."

First, you did not know you signed up for blindness tourism, complete with detours and digressions? Yep, you did. Now settle down and enjoy only ONE of RantWoman's daily accessibility excursions.

What? you are exhausted and you feel bullied and no way would you have signed up? Look, RantWoman is feeling crabby: some of y'all have only been worshipping with RantWoman for decades and God asked you to! And no, God does not necessarily call the equipped but the called do get equipped and maybe sometimes more easily than they imagine.

Plus, RantWoman has every right to make Reasonable Accommodations requests and to keep making them and to keep making them as needed. RantWoman has every right to expect that an advertised pathway to make such requests will work and is seasoning / holding very  carefully in the Light what further needs to be said in blogland about recent pathway issues  RantWoman is feeling surprisingly stern. Hence particular need for seasoning And RantWoman has faith that learning how to deal with reasonable accommodations requests will matter for every working age adult in Meeting who might either have opportunity on the job to work with the concept or need such requests themselves even temporarily at some point in their lives.

RantWoman is sorry people have hurt feelings about her needs. RantWoman has complete confidence that enough people can cope in plenty of different meaningful ways to make a difference. RantWoman has VERY limited confidence that such people can be found in certain email lists just now. RantWoman would never mind being proven wrong. Examples of  "proven wrong" might include

--Being willing actually to interact with email instead of demanding that RantWoman stop sending. Partial credit here in some directions. Partial credit matters and has made a BIG difference several times recently.

--Interacting with RantWoman at civilized hours of the day, not waiting until 9 or 10 pm. RantWoman thanks a couple people for actually picking up the phone after months and months and months of RantWoman inviting phone calls. RantWoman still thinks that earlier than 10 pm on a Saturday night would be highly on point!

--Not acting personally affronted when RantWoman attempts to contact you because of your role in Meeting.

--Asking RANTWOMAN for her availability before scheduling other people's time at Meetings where RantWoman's presence is requested.

--Not insisting to RantWoman and everyone else that feeling entitled to sit near RantWoman in worship despite a track record of badly triggering RantWoman multiple times is going to make either the community or RantWoman safer!

--Not insisting that a committee some of whose members repeatedly discount RantWoman's experience, just say "let it go" about things that cannot and should not be let go, and seem willing to take on more than RantWoman thinks it is reasonable to take on be the path to all communications.

--Offering deep gratitude for a fierce and unmistakable light to move one more seat away so that words did not have to tumble out in worship, for strong winds and a strong starter  message with the wind, and for an afternoon of other observations.

Please understand, RantWoman is VERY grateful for the last point especially considering both calendar and visitors and newcomers in the room. But out things tumbled on the way to a large print Bible Rant. PLEASE hold next chapters in the Light.

RantWoman has various app and online options for Bible-reading with screen reader and a couple sites with audio files of daily devotionals but sometimes it really means a lot to turn actual pages and listen to other things besides electronic voices. 

Yes, RantWoman also reads Braille. RantWoman reads Braille too slowly to want to suggest devoting 9' or so of anyone's hers or her Meeting's shelf space to a whole Braille Bible but has been thinking about whether to acquire a book or two at 3" of shelf space per... As for various devices and electronic Braille options, one of these days RantWoman will check out storage options for the Orbit Braille device and for a couple other pricier Braille devices. Sigh.

Now back to large print. A moment of mixed success about accessibility. :Awhile ago former Clerk of Library committee and RantWoman conferred about acquiring a large print Bible for the Meeting library. What we THOUGHT would be a large print Bible got ordered  through Amazon. The book arrived and Library committee Clerk put it on the shelf somewhere near the other Bibles in the library. One day RantWoman  was in the library and asked where the Bible was. Clerk said "Over there," for RantWoman, two of the least helpful words in the English language. RantWoman visited "over there " a couple times and did fog and bluir trial and error. RantWoman still did not find the supposedly large print Bible.

RantWoman still has not found the book and whined about it to Worship and Ministry co-clerk.  Today new library committee clerk found the bible and we learned, SIGH, that the book we bought is NOT in very large print. We also learned from someone who overheard the conversation that YES, lots of  elders with diminishing eyesight would also appreciate a Bible in Large Print. So we begin again now.

Yikes. The phrase Zondervan Large Print Bible yields, among other things, a book advertising "Giant" type and listing the font size as 12 point. RantWoman's own large print NIV is at least 14 point. RantWoman's NIV is on thin paper and is reasonably compact but it is still large enough that RantWoman does not want to carry it around.

And Voila, another search and LOOK, an item in 14-point type
http://www.zondervan.com/niv-reference-bible-giant-print

In other words, it's Buyer Beware in the search results, but there ARE options. !

RantWoman will now abandon her search for the night and go to bed./ Ya wanna hassle RantWoman tomorrow? Get in line.

It's tomorrow. RantWoman is further poking around via the search string National Braille Press Bible.

Here is a link with options in 18 pt and 24 point, sizes RantWoman considers reasonable large print.
http://www.braillebibles.org/

A page with various resources RantWoman has not fully digested yet
http://www.biblesfortheblind.org/braille.shtml

A page that promises "super Giant Print," that is 17-point or larger.
https://www.christianbook.com/apps/easyfind?event=EBRN&category=Large%2520%2526%2520Giant%2520Print&N=1029236+5401+210407&Ne=210400&Nso=1&Nu=product.endeca_rollup&format=1014722&Ns=product.number_sold

There. Now, isn't all this FUN? RantWoman has had as much fun as she can handle for the day and RantWoman is still several steps from something concise to hand to library committee and say "please order this." Sigh.

But to RantWoman's adoring (or not adoring) public, especially such as have made it this far, if you are going to exhaust yourselves however you are exhausting yourselves, please appreciate the opportunity to exhaust yourselves on the same paths as RantWoman. Sometimes RantWoman can even work a sense of humor into the picture.

Love and Blessings,

RantWoman

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