If the Quaker Honorary Auntie reflection seems a tinge astigmatic, bear in mind the passage from I Corinthians about "through a glass darkly" and the ever-peculiar machinations of RantWoman's wonky eyeballs. And please forgive RantWoman if the language of Corinthians is something novel and weird: RantWoman herself is not a giant student of the Apostle Paul, but the other day in one of RantWoman's "I lift up my eyes to the mountains, oops no, to Twitter" moments, one of the younger that RantWoman Quaker theology tweeters seen fairly regularly in RantWoman's feed was wondering what the heck was going on in Corinth that Paul needed to start like 5 letters with some variant of "How about you all work at being nice to each other?"
Anyway, as far as enumerating gratitudes, and partly in the spirit of fostering discussion about what has worked and what has spectacularly not worked about matters of disability at RantWoman's Meeting, RantWoman will use headings so if one section seems indigestible, consider moving on to another.
Crocodile Orthodontist / Scorch Marks
RantWoman looked to the heavens, or the cloud, or at least Twitter for counsel with respect to others, with respect to how to use and take care of weird gifts. Here is part of the long thread that came back:
Most people don’t choose to be a writer because it’s safe, it’s not safe, it has less job security than the career of a crocodile orthodontist. Write what leaves the best scorch mark and understand that some people who love you might tell you to turn it down a notch.
Reply/all with a side of eldering. Scorch marks?
RantWoman should probably post the minute creating the Ad-Hoc Committee on Disability. RantWoman could also post earlier versions of the minute so that readers can appreciate all the vocabulary and concepts that have gotten scrubbed out of the current minute. RantWoman COULD do that, but at the moment RantWoman wants to grab hold of the charge to talk about what works and has not worked and riff on a theme of Reply/allWhat works: really awesome improvements in electronic accessibility #a11y for Friends Journal compared to when RantWoman first took up with screen readers. RantWoman tries to forgive everyone whose eyes glaze over when RantWoman has to talk about this. Mostly it's that Biblical forgive 70 x 7 times. RantWoman is absurdly grateful when someone, anyone gets it. In celebration both of people getting it and publishers of truth publishing in many media of the day, from the latest email article emanation A Quaker Response to Gun Violence
And how does this relate to the matter of reply/all? Once upon a time three insistent members of a pastoral care committee demanded to come elder RantWoman RIGHT NOW about her objections to restrictions on reply./all on the Meeting's experiment in listserve. Bear in mind, all of whom have worked hard or not but still earned frank but less than flattering noms de blog. These Insistent Friends have over varying intervals proven themselves to be considerably less than responsive to RantWoman about multiple matters with some direct connection to disability and accessibility, whether meeting process, use of sound system at a retreat, and other matters.
We will not even discuss civilized timeline like maybe during daylight hours or sometime before the Saturday before Meeting for Business. With this eldering effort already on fabulous footing before it even got off the ground, perhaps readers will be unsurprised that efforts to read RantWoman from a Friends Journal article which RantWoman managed to hear as "Shut up RantWoman/ Worship OF Silence" also did not go so well. RantWoman absolutely GETS that in times of woe and distress and generalized dyspepsia in the zeitgeist, settle and breathe is unquestionably on point. It's just that RantWoman can only worship silently for so long before she becomes filled with energy to Get Up and DO Something. When that happens, RantWoman is really, really, really happy that improvements in website accessibility allow RantWoman to go read Friends' Journal online all by herself and find things that better speak to her and that she would be happy to discuss with whoever is interested.
Reply/all
But back to Reply/all. RantWoman regularly points out that on another Meeting's listserve, Reply/All plays a quite lovely community nurturing role of gathering voices when someone is ill or has a death in the family.. RantWoman owes the blogosphere some explorations of one topic that would not survive reply/all on the list. In contrast to all the Friends quailing at the possibility of recognizing some shadow of themselves in RantWoman's blog RantWoman even has full permission from the topic's poster to go at it on her blog. RantWoman has not gotten around to tackling the topic yet but may yet start things off as part of her Black History Month Binge Blog effort.In further witness of the usefulness of Reply/all, recently a most interesting sequence of conversations about pronouns has arisen on the Meeting Listserve, among people who until now have been mostly reticent so score one for new voices. And score one for job / presence in the rest of the world ripples on Planet RantWoman as well: Cilantro, Soap, Broccoli, Pronouns
And then score one for conversations at annual session with Friends from places less steeped in awareness about how much they learned from a Diversity and Inclusion type effort through work about a transgender person who spoke of having more energy and focus at work because the person was free to be open about themselves at work. And then cue a Seattle cousin who visited some high school friends of RantWoman's in MT and oh boy the conversations that happened about pronouns. Think of it as ripples and why would one want to contain that????
Up next: ANXIETY
RantWoman's maniacal language nerd health care bean counter fussiness about sloppy use of mental health terminology should be well known by now to anyone who has been reading RantWoman's blog. RantWoman is clear to use the precise term but in the interest of continued dialogue about the balance between privacy and the community value of sharing experiences RantWoman will say as little as possible that might allow the general reader to identify the who, besides Friend # 3, RantWoman or the circumstances of a conversation.One Friend specifically used the term "anxiety disorder."
Another Friend spoke of recognizing how debilitating the problem can be because of observing a relative struggle with the same thing.
Still another Friend (RantWoman, for everyone who might have wished RantWoman would get it) spoke of realizing the term might also apply to her. RantWoman has come to this realization in fits and starts.RantWoman can speak of her own family, detailed conversations with one family member and RantWoman's snarky comments about another. RantWoman recognizes elements of the condition that show up in some standard mental health assessment questionnaires but that have not come out clearly in RantWoman's answers. RantWoman has heard the word used around her but has not really been able to interact for a number of different reasons: "You're darn right I am anxious. Here are lots of reasons why. Oh wait, I am not even going to speak of reasons to be anxious because they will just scare you. And no I will not just go take meds for your convenience and comfort." What has finally helped the idea stick in RantWoman's head: people around her who are stunningly open about their realities under different circumstances. Also social media where again people are quite frank HOPEFULLY all this will get RantWoman past other stumbling points. RantWoman thanks the first Friend for speaking up. RantWoman apologizes for an initial eye roll. And RantWoman offers the comments in general hope that Friends can work out our various needs for accommodations.
Conference Calls
Alert readers who have not already read the posts RantWoman is thinking of can put Zoom into the search bar and read hopefully decently seasoned thoughts about conference calls. This note is partly conference call prep, partly the next iteration of what goes in minutes / notes. RantWoman has a set of notes where these thoughts belong, but RantWoman thinks the thoughts are educational enough to blog for Friends who might not see notes.The point: a suggestion came up on a recent call about using the famous (INFAMOUS) guidelines RantWoman cannot even agree to without a reasonable accommodations request AND USED THE TERM REASONABLE ACCOMMODATIONS. RantWoman made the request, stated what would help and voila, all but two points were off the table. The two points were a suggestion from RantWoman that people ask to be recognized and have the clerk of the call do so and second a request from others about "be kind." RantWoman needs to review the notes and the automatic transcript available in Google hangouts: RantWoman said and would have liked to have recorded that she has guidelines from several meetings she goes to that she is clear to share with the group on the call, in a spirit of continuing revelation and making a to-do list. RantWoman also wants to have recorded a sense from multiple Friends that we were not at unity about "kind," including moments when blunt is actually kind.
But enough for tonight.
In Light and faithfulness
RantWoman
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