Queries. Climate Change Critiques?

RantWoman, you are preparing for Meeting for Business with long queries AND exegesis based on draft minutes???

 

Yep! Hold on tight. Specifically RantWoman views are in italics, mostly

 

Queries:

How are we to make the necessary social, societal, and community adjustments to adapt to the disruptions caused by climate change if we do not figure out how to talk to each other?

 

What might help Meeting for Business and other Meeting activities be places of deep listening and respect for different Friends’ individual light and contributions to the whole?

 

How might the priorities and frenzy of our daily lives evolve if Friends were to live within the constraints of very congested roadways, compact development, transit resources, and community close at hand? Ding Ding Ding. Cue Community Building?

If facts related to privilege also mean greater than average contribution to climate change, are Friends willing to examine that privilege and adapt to make life better for everyone?

How can our testimony on equality help us recognize groups who are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change and evolve so that vulnerable people are protected as everyone makes the changes needed to adapt? What does this have to do with displacement, housing affordability, and barriers to needed community evolution?

 

How might other Quaker testimonies and spiritual practices play a role in adaptation to climate change

 

What light might the particularly vulnerable have that could serve as guidance for others needing to make adjustments?

 

Here RantWoman will be happy enthusiastically to preach the benefits of transit, offer walking encyclopedia service about many parts of the transit system and to expound warmly about all the social connections possible as people use transit instead of private cars. This is also called making a virtue of necessity. RantWoman does not get to drive so she never has the option of clogging  roadways in a Single Occupancy Vehicle. RantWoman leaves the driving to others and in transit has plenty of time for Twitter, time to Pray, and other ways of weaving community together. Yep, time constraints mean some activities do not happen and RantWoman grows testy sometimes with  people who have no time to talk to RantWoman because they are truying to do 5 things in the time that RantWoman will do two or three.. Cue the testimony on simplicity.

Likewise, RantWoman wants particularly to lift up another proud transit rider Friend. This Friend was led to insist that Meeting should make the connections between effects of climate change such as starving orcas and the need for informed participation in public processes related to changing transportation infrastructure. RantWoman is kind of a public policy nerd and it took RantWoman awhile to GET IT about why mentioning starving orcas is EXACTLY on point and RantWoman is very grateful for this Friend staying true his light as his minute got seasoned.

ent with transit issues and the minute above as topics initially deemed “off topic” for the first iteration of efforts about discernment of future for our property and our community. RantWoman wants to honor the work that got done. It would occur to RantWoman GENTLY to try to elder one Friend about taking on too much, but RantWoman has not figured out how to do that without rage about disrespect for her time getting in the way of decent conversation.  RantWoman acknowledges that skepticism about the work process arose partly because two committee members, one of whom is further mentioned below,  consistently specify problems more narrowly than RantWoman does and because the initial phase of the discernment did not pay as much attention to need for and potential for community building as seemed topical to RantWoman. And RantWoman urges all to hold things in the Light.

 

But Business Meeting?

RantWoman’s psyche is a maelstrom of personal anniversary issues. RantWoman will be grateful for ANYONE who calls her up and offers to LISTEN. In the meantime, RantWoman has had many communications. RantWoman is clear that she will go where called and will sit where called to sit. RantWoman also believes in an all-seeing God, a God who CAN calm fears and bring Light. RantWoman is unclear that this is a helpful thought among Friends who are kind of squishy about God,  that of God in others.

 

From Draft Minutes, with RantWoman’s interjections in italics

 

“…The Friend pointed out that our belaboring niceties of the minutes avoids the hard issue of some people’s fear to speak if (RantWoman) is listening, and urged us to fully engage with this hard task:  “We are allowing harm to happen.  We should not just push forward.”  The clerk called for a moment of silent worship.”

 

“A Friend then stood and said that knowing that RantWoman was listening made him uncomfortable, since he had “received many messages [from her] critiqueing what he says.” 

Critiqueing? Has it occurred to Friend that there might be something to critique??? RantWoman also has MULTIPLE times invited Friends who are uncomfortable around RantWoman to ask, say, a clearness committee to sit with them and RantWoman and see what can be learned. RantWoman mentions this because the Friend RantWoman THINKS is mentioned in these minutes has been a Friend for a long time and, RantWoman THINKS, might be expected to know how to ask for a clearness committee. RantWoman also thinks the Clerk might consider recommending a clearness committee, but that would also imply that there is capacity to create clearness committees.

 

RantWoman further points out that she repeatedly ask the Consternation and Ableism Committee, oops Care and Accountability committee for help setting up exactly such conversations and that never occurred.

 

And speaking of critiquing, this Friend likes to present at Adult Religious Education. RantWoman’s experience is that this Friend talks a lot and is not as effective at drawing out the voices of others as other presenters. RantWoman also goes to a lot of meetings where the presenters are people who might have interesting things to say for adult ed. But RantWoman is not even going to volunteer any such info until RantWoman and this Friend get past the “I feel uncomfortable…” stuff.

 

“He suggested asking (RantWoman) to move into the social hall, and queried us, how can we interact with this Friend in a manner that is constructive both to her, and to us?  The clerk then asked for the clerks of W&M and C&C to join her in asking (RantWoman) to move into the social hall, and for one or more volunteers to sit with her there.  While these were out of the room, another Friend “invited us all to pray really hard, because we’ve all been in a very tight bind to help someone who is deteriorating badly:  we have struggled to stay in community, while she has retreated into more and more difficult behavior.  How do we do this well and respectfully for everyone?”

 

Would the Friend who speaks of “kind” please ask RantWoman’s point of view ordoes RantWoman get to start off cold with say “ableism?”

 

Would the Friend who used the word deteriorating care to elaborate? RantWoman is happy to listen carefully but RantWoman may be called to suggest that this Friend is making very bad assumptions.

 

RantWoman’s point of view.

RantWoman apologizes if the information she has misidentifies the main Friend referred to and asks all to hold everyone in the Light.

 

RantWoman believes this is a Friend to whom RantWoman is expected to offer a thank you for recently, for once, emailing RantWoman a copy of his presentation notes and references when this Friend did a presentation on Climate Change.  RantWoman has a standing request. It gets handled inconsistently.  RantWoman thinks if the handouts could be emailed out with the weekly bulletin that others might share RantWoman’s interest in actually interacting with the resources and having discussion based on seeking shared Light, not just Light as filtered by one Friend.

 

RantWoman believes this Friend

1.       Refused to serve on Worship and Ministry committee with RantWoman a long time ago

 

2.       While subsequently serving as Clerk of said committee responded to RantWoman’s leading to educate people for a whole month about disabilities resources by asking to be taken off the mailing list. 

3.       Deserves mention in a #GlobalAccessibilityAwarenessDay sense for pre-retirement work educating university departments about how to make their websites accessible and appearing at events where RantWoman also was present, except other issues here get in the way of full appreciation.

 

4.       Keeps talking about “empathy” in such an abstract way that RantWoman has no idea what the concept means to that Friend in practice. Show me, don’t tell me.

 

5.       Is in RantWoman’s observation one of the voices most adamantly silencing when RantWoman tries to address issues of disability in Meeting For Business.

 

In other words, this Friend needs to be held in the Light, and RantWoman will not be silenced, and solving climate change depends on people like this Friend and RantWoman figuring out how to talk respectfully in each other’s presence.

 

In Light and Faithfulness

 

RantWoman

 

PS By way of further centering, RantWoman reminds readers of George Fox’s quote which is actually from one of the gospels, about “be patterns, be examples….” Sometimes there is much to learn even from bad examples.