Lay as in ...materials to prepare for Worship Sharing Groups

Who is this Benjamin Lay Dude and why is he showing up in the materials for Worship Group Leaders?

Stay tuned.

RantWoman will be serving as a worship group leader for the #NPYM2020 all virtual Annual Session. Today RantWoman received the following materials, along with a list of who has been assigned this particular excursion via Planet RantWoman. RantWoman thanks those who prepared these documents very much for their efforts. RantWoman is looking forward to meeting her group in Zoom land. RantWoman humbly asks that Friends bear with the remix below. RantWoman also specifically invites Friends to make any accessibility requests known. RantWoman may or may not be able to fulfill requests but can do nothing until Friends speak up about needs. Please see additional comments about accessibility further down.

The Basics for Worship Sharing / Discussion / Music / unprogrammed worship

1. Dates. timing, and Zoom connections (Readers who specifically want to join RantWoman's worship group, please leave a comment and RantWoman is happy to include you. Readers who have not registered at all and want to participate in a worship group but not necessarily with RantWoman, please see the Annual Session Registration page.

2. Other information important for your consideration may be found at these links:

Worship Group Guidelines

• Worship Group Roles
• Queries
• 
  

These documents behave just fine for RantWoman's various #a11y tools. RantWoman always adds the caveat "your mileage may vary," though RantWoman is VERY grateful for the evolution of many things internet in the direction of much more consistent (though never perfect) basic accessibility for assistive technology. Now, about "continuing revelation" in other realms?

When Worship Sharing occurs in person, RantWoman is a worship walking person. Walking optional depending on leading and technology.

Get to know each other

As a worship group leader for the six-week pre-Annual Session series, RantWoman felt called to invite members of her group to provide reply/all email answer a couple get-to-know-each-other questions before we all gathered in the Zoom space.

Previously RantWoman's questions were:

     --What year did you first vote in a presidential election ?
and, because the anniversary of the Mt. St. Helen's eruption fell within the group's correspondence spell,

     --Tell us something you remember about the Mt. St. Helen's eruption.

RantWoman is always fascinated by such Acts of God and really appreciated the detail of the answers.

RantWoman currently has a ferocious leading about the phrase "Friends younger than 60." RantWoman is not yet clear yet what questions she will ask this time but will strive to avoid questions where some Friends may reply "I have no idea because I was not born yet." RantWoman also notes that language in this post may or may not match some Friends' concepts of acceptable Quakerese. RantWoman and Little Sister currently have a thing going about images of flan. Little Sister just sent RantWoman an image RantWoman almost missed the point of: the flan when tapped to enlarge it enough for RantWoman to fully appreciate it, dons dark shades and flashes "Deal with it!" RantWoman is right there!

More on Accessibility

RantWoman is certain some of her readers or others participating in Worship Groups may need some advice about accessibility for activities in Zoom. RantWoman offers a number of comments here. You're welcome.

Accessibility is a very big topic. For example, RantWoman hopes participants in this worship group have furniture that meets their specific needs. On the other hand, sometimes Friends can suggest ways to fulfill particular quests.

RantWoman got concerned about people with hearing issues. So she emailed a number of people whose hearing issues she is well aware of and asked about their experience:

--One Friend says they are able to do all the adjustment they need with the volume controls on their device. RantWoman would add an asterisk for people with hearing aids: there are probably things people with hearing aids can tweak to make best use of them in Zoom. Rant would suggest, contact your provider for hearing aid adjustment issues

--One Friend reported that they lipread a lot. RantWoman suggested just leaving Zoom in active speaker mode so faces will be as large as possible. RantWoman also urged everyone to remember to turn on their video--as well as their mic--while speaking. For people who like seeing full-screen faces, RantWoman thinks it would be cool to have some kind of scrolling function where faces cycle through even if no one is talking. RantWoman realizes this desire is probably a uniquely Quaker requirement: RantWoman cannot imagine many other users of Zoom wanting to plan on long spells of silence and speakers rising at indeterminant moments.

--RantWoman uncovered one Friend who relies on the closed captioning on television a lot. RantWoman and said Friend agree closed captioning can be terrible. Zoom can provide a recording and an automated transcript and there are further commercial options for full CART. RantWoman notes these possibilities and invites Friends really interested to leavea comment and RantWoman will follow up.

RantWoman's own access needs

RantWoman has difficulty seeing faces and people's waving hands. RantWoman expects Worship sharing to more or less manage itself but does invite Friends to consider using the Raise Hand function. RantWoman needs Friends' help to speak up if it seems someone is visibly distressed and RantWoman is not noticing.

Reading the contents of Zoom screen sharing is inaccessible to RantWoman.  RantWoman does not expect to want to share files during Worship Sharing also because RantWoman uses 4x magnification and ordinary navigation can give people vertigo.If anyone is led to share a file, RantWoman will need either a link or a copy of whatever is being shared in the chat area.

RantWoman prefers not to overuse the chat. The chat can be really important if Friends want to share files or links so RantWoman does not want to disable it completely.

The practice of Worship Sharing

RantWoman generally comes with some other thoughts about worship -sharing.

RantWoman remembers a conversation with a Friend from NW Yearly Meeting, the evangelical YM "near" NPYM. That Friend really did not get the point of worship sharing until she tried. it. Let each Friend's message sink into the pool of our shared space for a time before someone else offers ministry.

RantWoman is fond of the concept of Brave Space

Other Linguistic Excursions

Apparently, simplicity is not going to come easily, and RantWoman's word nerd instincts are also at high risk of running amok. Friends who need to address internet overabundance about any of the following--or any other--linguistic rabbit holes are encouraged to try to do so before we gather.

--The Lay of the Host of Igor is a great battle epic from the days of Kievan Rus.'  Why is the title rendered this way? Why is this version of the title so much more interesting than more modern translations... On your marks, get set, use your search engines!

--Lie / Lay Laid. Modern English

--Lay, lady, lay across my big brass bed: RantWoman heard a radio clip of Bob Dylan's new album. Dylan's singing voice has not really improved with age, but at some point RantWoman means to try to grok the poetry. In the meantime, words from an old tune.

--Who the heck is Benjamin Lay in the first place? Links abundant. One RantWoman especially likes is from the Smithsonian The Quaker Comet

--Searching on this blog for posts referring in any way to Benjamin Lay will open several cans of worms that might or might not be helpful for this worship group's time together.

In Light and Faithfulness

RantWoman