More nights Meeting for Suffering: Healing the Nation

First the call perhaps you came for

An amaryllis of hope

Meeting For Suffering will continue Friday January 8, Saturday January 9, and Monday January 11

6 pm PST, 7 PM MST, etc.

On the eve of the Georgia Election on January 5, 2021, Davis Friends Meeting (with the support of Atlanta Friends Meeting) hosted 80 Friends from across the U.S. in a “meeting for sufferings,” a special meeting for worship focused on a particular concern. In this case, the focus of concern was for democratic processes to proceed in good order on January 5, 2021.

 
In light of insurrectionist actions in Washington, DC, yesterday, (January 6) Davis Friends Meeting invites Friends Everywhere to join another meeting for sufferings tonight – again with a focus on the health and survival of U.S. democracy.

Link to Join the meeting     

Thoughts that stuck with RantWoman from tonight's worship

“Live Oak Friends Meeting joins with people of good will everywhere in affirming the way of love.  We denounce the normalization of hate and violence in society and within ourselves.  We commit to working with others to build trust in our wider community.”

"Violence is what happens when we do not know what to do with our suffering”, Parker Palmer. I am struggling with recognizing what suffering, other than fear, many Americans are dealing with as they riot." 

College Park Quarterly Meeting.  January 16.  Theme: Reweaving the Ties that Bind.  There will be queries and conversations about how we might heal and communicate across divides.  More info at  CollegePark Quarterly Meeting

 A Friend John Wilmerding organized a  Facebook page for white Quakers who want to address their racism, here is the link.  https://www.facebook.com/groups/whitequakers/

See also:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/JohnWoolmanCollege   A Friend shared with me  Barnstable Friends Meeting Racists in Recovery Anonymous 2007  https://tools4racialjustice.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/RIRA.pd  Tutoring and virtual workshops available on creating a more justice world and on race matters, equity and responsibilities  (leave a comment and RantWoman will provide the contact info.

FGC Friends of Color 2020 Epistle

What RantWoman was muddling around

--all the chatter about disparity of treatment for different causes and racial identities.

--RantWoman was arrested once in the capitol--for praying in the rotunda with a bunch of other people from Sojourners. RantWoman is trying to consider what would be appropriate proportional punishment for yesterday's crowd.  RantWoman went all very Bad Friend in an email, but Friends are invited to consider their own take on this question. 

--RantWoman appreciates a woman on the radio tonight who voted for T twice but said yesterday was just too far!

--Defund the police, all the different police agencies in DC, the importance of several networks, of the Capitol Hill Police working with MPD and MPD being able to call on mutual aid from local jurisdictions. RantWoman is feeling contrarian about Twitter voices reading police complicity with rioters out of the two sides taking selfies together. What if all the selfies wind up helping identify rioters?  The US is probably not going to be able to police our way out of millions of Trumpling malcontents any more than we can police our way out of all the pernicious effects of white supremacy.

--What an interesting circumstance it was to have both the sitting VP and the VP elect at the capitol with their security details who have sworn oaths to uphold the constitution

--The election protests in Khabarovsk, Minsk, Hong Kong

Waging Nonviolence article on Belarus

Johan Maurer A country built on a good idea

There was no way anything cogent was going to make it out of RantWoman's mouth about any or all of that but for now RantWoman is grateful just for the meeting to hold the space. RantWoman is still sitting with...