(RantWoman writes here of much she is clear about. RantWoman actually is also UNclear about a number of points that probably deserve a separate post. RantWoman is grateful for openings from the continued flow of information and will be doing her best to deliver seasoned thoughts in the direction of the openings. RantWoman also has a ferocious leading to nurture the Light of Friends younger than 60 and arch beginning oboe student commentary related to the process right now.)
When Something Freaky Happens
RantWoman currently has a thing about, when something freaky happens checking with observers / other characters as soon as possible after the something freaky happens. If something rises from the below RantWoman invites readers to leave a comment and please specify whether you mean it to be public. Other options would be to contact the convenors of the FLGBTQC worship space.
RantWoman thanks the FLGBTQC online worship for helping hold space maybe to start a conversation that is badly needed. RantWoman is happy to take up as much space / entertain as much of an audience as Friends are willing to offer; RantWoman, though, wonders whether there could be some kind of clearness process that does not take up the whole worship but does draw some seasoned Friends from outside Seattle and space to see where the worship conversation could be led. RantWoman has also been expressing concern about whether a number of points might come up in worship. Some of those points come up below.
RantWoman is inclined to ask the convenors to help season these points. RantWoman also humbly notes that sometimes she does better in writing than in person. Sometimes voices can be extremely valuable; sometimes RantWoman really has to comb thoughts together via fingers and keyboard.
That said, one strand of needed conversation in the worship involved three Friends besides RantWoman, Great Cat Names Friend, New Last Name Friend, and Motivator Friend. RantWoman prefers for a number of reasons to use pseudonyms. Anyone who recognizes themselves and absolutely cannot live with the ones assigned is invited to suggest something they would prefer.
Reasonable? Reasonable Accommodations.
New Last Name Friend and Great Cat Names Friend both work with children who have special needs. Motivator Friend has a community college teaching job where having people make reasonable accommodations requests is a normal usual thing. RantWoman wonders why any of these Friends think "Go away for a year" is acceptable if they are serious about working with reasonable accommodations. RantWoman will thank these Friends in advance for not trying to tell RantWoman that the conversation has nothing to do with reasonable accommodations!
RantWoman is probably getting repetitive about this point: God keeps sending people with disabilities to our communities and expecting us to figure things out. RantWoman thinks "figure things out is not " starts with shared worship and shared worship that does not require RantWoman to wait around either for an engravved inviation or for everyone to get over their ableism. If one does not come to worship prepared to be transformed, around RantWoman one is not worshipping!
RantWoman also notes many people who keep telling RantWoman of decisions and not ASKING RantWoman anything such as her perspective on MANY circumstances. RantWoman can think of several topics it would be entirely reasonable to ask and will be conveying specifics to local Friends.
RantWoman definitely invites Friends to ASK, not just tell.
A less specific general question suitable for this blog would be "RantWoman, why won't you do what we ask / tell you to?" A short answer: RantWoman has both been trying to offer suggestions and making request. Neither has produced desired responses that RantWoman can tell. Perhaps if there were movement here, either others requests would not be needed in the first place or RantWoman might find it more in her Light to consider requests. RantWoman is meditating about whether to take initiative here about further detail or just to see what rises from the blog so far.
Furthermore, From RantWoman's perspective, RantWoman has been making reasonable accommodations requests for a VERY long time, ever since a series of DNA lotto medical events that kicked RantWoman's vision down from medium crappy to legally blind. Expelling RantWoman from membership, telling RantWoman she can only come to memorials, sending RantWoman off to separate and unequal worship she is not even allowed to advertise in Meeting channels is decidedly a weird way to respond! Did RantWoman mention a lot of silencing, gaslighting, Grab the Blind Person and Bless them and drag them into traffic issues, probably some microaggressions even though RantWoman does not have a good mental list of what behaviors earn that term.
Add to the whole list, ableism run rampant on a Care and Accountability Committee, There also is a swiftly drafted set of guidelines drafted without RantWoman's presence that RantWoman is supposed to sign onto even if the guidelines involve things RantWoman cannot promise to be able to do. In other words, UFM really, really, really needs to be held in the Light and not just as it discerns about work on racial justice.
This blog references a Care and Accountability Committee, the word idiot, the word Pizza, and reference to new provision in NPYM Faith and Practice for "releasing from membership." The minute releasing RantWoman from membership delegates some interim decisionmaking to a number of individuals RantWoman has NO LEADING to address directly but would be willing to accept offers from others to carry specific asks on her behalf. At this point, RantWoman is clear to work with the provision in Faith and Practice for asking assistance from Quarterly Meeting Ministry and Counsel. RantWoman is also clear about many reasons to seek help in a specific outside channel and RantWoman is currently assembling documents needed to do that.
The exact moment that came up in worship:
RantWoman gave a message and used the words "we" and "us." There was stuff about hold in the Light while Light is having a hard time getting through because of Smoke. RantWoman does not remember the rest of the message and therefore is curious what others remember.
RantWoman does remember using the words we and us about a topic where RantWoman is VERY clear that there are two alternatives: shared discernment or "Unsafe at Any Speed" and unsafe in a way that RantWoman cannot in good conscience just walk away from. To make matters worse, RantWoman has a role outside Meeting that she cannot fulfill with integrity if she does not mind her Light about trying again.
Warning: bear with God language digressions
RantWoman is also clear: RantWoman has a versatile God who gets things done lots of ways. Here RantWoman honors another blind person from an earlier generation at UFM. Previous Generation Friend lost vision at about age 40. She went from work as an industrial physicist to work for the Department of Services for the Blind and was the family case manager for a family where the now-grown kids have strong presence as advocates.
A sighted colleague also worshipped among us. He is remembered and loved for making xylophones and tactile maps by hand before there were so many electronic ways to get to tactile maps. Sighted colleague did a certain amount of looking after his colleague. She is remembered in both the blindness world and at UFM as "a no-nonsense person who could rub people the wrong way." In particular one of the people mentioned above remembers her for giving mediocre parenting advice that made a bad situation worse. RantWoman feels no need to atone for anyone else's past lapses, but does continue to harbor appreciation for thoughts that "that which does not kill you only makes you stronger." Also cue "Fathers and Sons" and mentoring or "Be patterns, be examples (bad examples?)" as themes.
And in other versatile God meditations, lately RantWoman has been hearing a lot of "Leaning on the Everlasting Arms" from people talking about a sense of Divine presence when people around them are, um, less than available let alone helpful. RantWoman is the kind of believer who can definitely work with that, at least long enough to wonder about everlasting arms and sweaty armpits. RantWoman is pretty sure New Last Name Friend and Great Cat Names Friend can follow RantWoman's language about God. Motivator Friend has come to Quakers because of activism; RantWoman has heard this Friend speak of their spiritual journey and RantWoman can tell there is definitely a journey there; so far the journey definitely does not include God language but does include experiences around prayer.
Racism?
Motivator Friend is the person who keeps making a public request to hold University Friends Meeting in the Light in relation to work on Racial Justice. It's a PUBLIC request. RantWoman after 28 years in Seattle and around the Meeting has light on the topic. There are many strands of thinking in the current political and cultural environment that are just freaking insane and dangerous. To the extent that Quaker ways have something to contribute in times of insanity, RantWoman needs to be faithful to her Light and on an appropriate timeline. As RantWoman has written in other posts, sometimes around RantWoman, hold in the Light can be pretty fierce, probably a little too much inner blowtorch.
RantWoman has several emails over many months from Motivator Friend where Motivator Friend makes some sweeping pronouncement often either in academic language or full of principles without reference to data or lived experience or the history of some work in Seattle. Over several months RantWoman has written back talking about lived experience and asking about other principles. RantWoman has very little experience of any responses. So when Motivator Friend spoke in worship of distress and RantWoman suggested email, RantWoman was not surprised that the email offer was declined.
Motivator Friend has also been part of conversations that keep sounding to RantWoman like RantWoman is doing harm by existing. These conversations are not quite as gross as Crip Twitter dealing wiht people who think some categories of people should either just stay home or happily disappear if resources become too scarce, but they, um, severely challenge RantWoman's efforts to find that of God.... To say the least, RantWoman does NOT unite with perspective. RantWoman is sorry about causing pain, particularly since she does not intend to. However RantWoman has no clue what would stop pain, let alone whether what would stop pain is even something RantWoman can or should promise to do.
Motivator Friend is part of the Ad-Hoc committee on Disabilities. The Ad-Hoc Committee on disabilities is the latest iteration of efforts to talk about Disability. An effort was made several years ago. The committee then called Oversight, or as RantWoman sometimes snarkily put it "Oops well" did a little report to Meeting for Business but left out A LOT of relevant topics. Meeting for Business, everyone except RantWoman went "clap clap clap" without further instructions. RantWoman wrote probably more than one email. RantWoman specifically remembers one offering a count of blind people in Meeting but RantWoman did not suggest anything clear to do next. RantWoman greatly appreciates the voice of one Friend on that committee at the time who has since acknowledged that there was a LOT that the previous committee did not look at. Can we say "continuing revelation?"
The Ad-Hoc Committee on Disability was born out of a Clearness committee the previous clerk decreed when RantWoman made multiple efforts to bring the creation of such a committee to Meeting for Business. The Ad-hoc Committee on Disability was created AFTER RantWoman was released from membership and in spite of a history of silencing and ableism, RantWoman is now expected to trust the work of this committee Motivator Friend and the other member of the committee besides the clerk refuse to participate in anything with RantWoman present!
RantWoman recently came across an email she probably should have followed up sooner. Motivator Friend was sharing with someone else new to Meeting some minutes about RantWoman and in the same email severely gaslighting RantWoman about issues of physical safety, discounting RantWoman's experience, and again, not at least checking with RantWoman for her perspective.
Ask RantWoman? Not just silence and run over? What a novel idea.
RantWoman has been given a whole 15 minutes in Business Meeting. In exchange for 5 extra minutes, RantWoman got asked again on short notice about signing onto the guidelines mentioned above. NO! RantWoman WILL NOT sign onto guidelines she cannot promise to do.
Basically, RantWoman is trying to express gratitude for things that worked, for some forms of Quaker service that helped RantWoman a great deal when she was trying to figure out what she could still do, what new skills would be most helpful, and many other ins and outs of vocational rehabilitation. Quaker service has wound up feeding life outside Meeting, particularly matters to do with transportation. At some point before the midlife DNA lotto events, RantWoman was recovering from an injury, doing physical therapy while watching county council hearings on public access cable. RantWoman realized she was spending all her time thinking about transportation anyway and maybe she should just volunteer for public engagement. RantWoman considers herself lucky: RantWoman has previously done programming / report writing jobs. Transportation wound up being a way to stay engaged even though RantWoman wound up deciding that trying to go back to writing code was going to be too much.
Now, with a light rail station set to open in less than a year near UFM, with a brain full of many strands of multi-modal transportation lingo, RantWoman has many reasons to travel in the neighborhood and many concerns about policing, equity, stewardship. RantWoman has been quoted a dollar value for what her time as technical assistance or other categories of work is worth. RantWoman considers time she is willing to spend on this topic an in-kind contribution to the life of the community and RantWoman is called to continue to be faithful to that Light, to many topics needing discernment, and to many stresses on the horizon.
Now back to "us," "we," or you
Holy Cow! RantWoman realizes that the tone of this post sounds way too much like the only time she ever heard the Righteous Reverend Rant Granddad preach. Considering that the family DNA lotto runs in that side of the family, perhaps readers can just bear with the problem for the moment.
RantWoman has painted a fierce and horrid picture of many things no one should want to be a part of, so yeah, if someone wants to zero in on the words "we" and "us" and doesn't want to include RantWoman, go for it! Have fun. Enjoy yourselves.
On the other hand, if Friends can listen and acknowledge and think about how to get to a better future, "we" and "us" should mean something entirely different.
In Light and Faithfulness.
RantWoman
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