Warning: in addition to mention of unarmed truth and
universal love and this blog post contains references to blood sacrifice, survival
cannibalism, communion in the Barclay sense of the holy spirit moving among
many people at once, the sensibilities
of a Friend raised Quaker, and terms of several different registers referring
to the police. If you would rather stick to unarmed Truth and unconditional love,
click away before the second heading.
If you desperately wish RantWoman would just STFU in
whatever medium she appears, please note that RantWoman considers electronic
requests to be held in the light, for instance at the beginning of a blog post
or email, just as holy as the ones delivered live in Meeting For Worship. Now
what can RantWoman do to communicate how much a sense of spiritual
accompaniment matters, how deeply confident RantWoman is that there is an
abundance of what is needed among our community as a whole even if …? And will
RantWoman ever freaking figure out how to find a good editor?
On HONORING Dr. King
After worship, in coffee hour.
“How do you spell her name?”
“I-j-e-o-m-a O-l-u-o. The article I talked about is
on Medium.com”
Thought bubble: Ooh, ooh, ooh. Thank you so much for
asking. Score another one for Ijeoma! RantWoman previously gave a message
rising from her Twitter streams and collected from a young Friend information
responsive to the Twitter thread but this time the circumstances were more
piquant, less conducive to immediate tending.
RantWoman was rightly led in worship even if her message did not get to
the part about love in the original article.
At close of worship:
Madame Clerk who faithfully maintains careful efforts to have Friends
hold our history and privilege spoke of
an African American woman named Ruby Tibbs whose life is so far weakly documented
in Meeting lore beyond the fact that she worked for the American Friends
Service Committee after World War II.
During Worship.
…”This week we honor Martin Luther King’s birthday.
I read this article by local author Ijeoma Oluo about being asked to speak at
the annual Martin Luther King County celebration but really not wanting to
CELEBRATE lingering inequity after lingering inequity. But we can HONOR Dr.
King by….
From the speech RantWoman referred to.
“I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love
will have the final say.”
Celebrate is not the word that comes to mind.
And to the Friends who think God should send
messages only in 30-second blops and do not read blogs, if it takes God THREE
WHOLE MINUTES to deliver something powerful and profound and complete, WHAT
THEN?
In RantWoman’s case, all honoring Dr. King might
mean this year is listening to the titles and authors of books about Barack
Obama on the NLS BARD website and noting, Good lord, there were a lot of racist
opinions penned during that presidency.
RantWoman was trying to forgive HERSELF for what
little she could do this year to honor the MLK holiday. However RantWoman is
also a judgmental witch when it comes to other people.
And another thing
“There is a committee in NPYM working on the minute
on eradicating racism …”
“But did you go to the threshing session….?”
“No, did you?”
RantWoman’s Excessively Plain English to Quakerese
filter faltered badly in the moment; she is just going to leave a whole bunch
of thought bubbles here like pins on a Google map. Invitation needed to fill
some of the thought bubbles?
RantWoman has also heard that the threshing session
was fruitful. RantWoman is interested to
hear more because, among other things, the threshing session did not fit into
RantWoman’s schedule
Voice in RantWoman’s head: What do you mean you live in ATLANTA and just
want a day off? Wait, Look RantWoman
just because YOU were awed to be able to buy Martin Luther King postcards late
at night one time in the Atlanta airport does NOT mean everyone else you know
has to have the same level of awe. It does NOT.
Communion 1
RantWoman is really enjoying a young Friend’s
account of learning to pray, as presented last week in Adult Religious
Education. Part of learning to pray: her grandfather was a minister. Her father
was a confirmed atheist, with thoughts like “They drink the blood of Christ.
How gross is that?”
RantWoman remembers being new to Friends and being
THRILLED that there was space in community conversation both for the thought
that communion is a bizarre cannibalistic ritual and for the anthropology of
blood sacrifice and survival cannibalism. RantWoman also appreciated being
relieved of the need to debate both transsubantiation as metaphor and real wine
vs grape juice. Should RantWoman need more of such discussions RantMom’s Presbyterian forays into the applied physics
of what gluten free products can safely be dunked into the communal communion
by intinction vessel are more than enough raw material.
Communion 2?
RantWoman is sitting with two other threads from
Young Friend’s This I believe origin story, besides her dances of when she as a
woman just has to barge into conversation (RantWoman can SO relate) and when
she needs to LISTEN.
The first thread is about use of the word “cops.”
Young Friend spoke of needing a new analysis of racism as a result of going far
away to go to college in Baltimore and of paths toward engagement around cops
and prison abolition issues. An elderly Friend spoke of being taught never to
use the word “cops” and instead always to say “police.” RantWoman’s language
nerd brain immediately ran away to her building’s parking lot and questions
like “What is 5-0 / the po-po / .. doing in the parking lot today?” The Typical
answers: A welfare check? A domestic violence issue? Either way, ) Then
RantWoman’s brain wandered back to Adult Ed. RantWoman humbly admits that she
usually appreciates elderly Friend’s ability to articulate the sensibilities
she was raised with, but that sometimes the sensibilities make RantWoman roll
her eyes. RantWoman however thinks it important to have shared discussion and
would not have minded if there had been more freedom to work with these points
right in Adult Ed.
The second has to do with leaving the place one is
from and yet someone still needing to speak to the people still there.
RantWoman is thinking of a whole discussion of tolling two Lake Washington
floating bridges at the same time, how much money it would have saved
taxpayers, and objections from exactly the place Young Friend is from. Has
RantWoman actually strayed far from blood sacrifice even if the question
appears to be only transportation policy?
What? Barely any survival cannibalism? Stay tuned
for another post.
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