Starving widows, original sin, holiday rat pups

RantWoman's Biblical preparation for worship: Library instead of Adult Ed. Meditation overdue about library but not today. Find the new large print KJV which has not found its way to a shelf yet. Read the rest of Habakkuk. Dig the strong language and symbolism. Let mind leak like a sieve about exact wording: any message will just have not to quote Habbakuk.

Then read of Anna, the widow who spent her days fasting at the temple shortly after the time of Jesus' birth. Fasting? Yea right! RantWoman is thinking widows said to be fasting were probably making a virtue of near starvation standard of living. Here God told RantWoman just to go to the end of early worship and not hyperventilate about widow prophets and their diets.

in RantWoman's Building lobby

There were two, count them two messages in the last 10 minutes of worship, not nearly as much message train wreck as 11:00 worship but still, RantWoman thinks, out of the ordinary. RantWoman meant to just creep in. But there was a long message about our society busily purging itself of public figures connected to any whiff of sexual misconduct. Also celebrate lots of unfamiliar faces in early worship:

Speaking of out of the ordinary, original sin showed up in 11:00  Meeting for Worship, an unusual occurrence among liberal Quakers, though not a concept unknown on Planet RantWoman, especially RantWoman's mental soundtrack at this time of year.

Oh Holy Night "...long lay the world in sin and error ..."

Random works by Jewish musicians trying to make a living, nothing to do with sin necessarily but also in the soundtrack along with Hanukkah greetings as appropriate..

Tom Lehrer: "...try and prove your sin is original..."

A message arising after Adult Religious Education. RantWoman missed ARE because she was called to Bible reading Friend heard of original sin in his childhood church but had not thought about it in decades among Friends until this week's Adult Ed.

A lovely message about school children: even on good days, one little boy throws his pencils across the room a lot. The other kids just pick up the pencils and hand them back. Some school children dread holidays because school is one of their Safe places. The holiday collage making went well and the teacher is relieved to be on vacation.

A message from Friend who, the Friend says, Ardently Believes in Original Sin mentioning community in a way that made RantWoman season a leading about interrupting based on what RantWoman experiences as SEVERE disconnects in the realm of community. Then something about traumatized rat pups having trouble caring for their own offspring. RantWoman definitely had trouble getting from biology to original sin, but at least that trouble kept Rantwoman's brain from short-circuiting further about matters of community.
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2017/12/remove-person-1.html

Oh, and RantWoman offered a prayer for the kids who dread vacation because school is their safe place (or unsafe in a different way than home).

Then RantWoman told the Christmas Chair story.

Readers who want the Christmas Chair story get to beg and plead in the comments, or ask someone who was in Meeting for Worship.