Today in beads to be strung meditations:
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| It's long past time for Crepe Myrtle and this isn't the South, but the post needs an energizing visual |
Beatification
RantWoman is taking a break from trying to fill the shoes of a deceased member of her pantheon of angelic troublemakers. RantWoman appreciates this item which came in email from another angelic troublemaker whose faithfulness RantWoman deeply esteems.
Blind Polish Noblewoman who founded order to be beatified
and because it seems in a needed spirit, today's quote from FCNL's Witness Wednesday worship
Prompt for Reflection
“I must confess that, on human judgement, the world tasks we face are appalling – well-nigh hopeless. Only the inner vision of God, only the God-blindness of unreservedly dedicated souls, only the utterly humble ones can bow and break the raging pride of a power-mad world.”
- Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion
Wants to?
"RantWoman, no one wants to work with you."
"WANTS TO is not the point! No one WANTS to work with midlife vision loss, especially if one might be just a little charm-challenged to begin with. "Wants to" is not the point, not the point about that OR about another "doesn't want to" conversation that needs to happen.
But terms like vocational rehabilitation and reasonable accommodation keep also needing to come up. In fact today one RantWoman twitch left over from a recent Zoom-a-thon is about people who need the same "reasonable accommodation" whether laws apply or not. The context was the negotiations that sustain international athletic competition as in paralympics, but the same point applies to Quakers, quakers and powerpoint, quakers and reading material, quakers and...
But speaking of Powerpoint and Friends who maybe just maybe need help widening their horizons, RantWoman is meditating about whose names she saw and whose names she did NOT see on sign ups at NPYM Annual Session about Quaker approaches to pastoral care. RantWoman has one did not see gatekeper name in mind, but RantWoman is clear that that Friend needs help and that there are some other names it would have been good to see as well.
Unrepentant?
RantWoman is reflecting on a Zoom breakout room conversation after the word "US" emerged from RantWoman's lips during a Meeting for Worship. The word "us" caused GREAT consternation in context and afterward there was conversation featuring a certain amount, to RantWoman's ear, of mansplaning followed by comments about RantWoman's example being used to deal with another Difficult Friend. RantWoman remembers thinking "DO NOT tell me about marginalizing another person with a disability."
But before the breakout room went poof the word "unrepentant" also came up. Look people, RantWoman CANNOT repent of vision loss. Things don't work that way. As for things RantWoman might indeed deeply regret, Conflict is a Gift of God Friend is wont often to remark that he cannot detect this or that attitude he might desire from RantWoman. Lately RantWoman's view: just because YOU can't detect something does not mean it's not there." Again, the point applies in more than one context. But if the conversation can't deal with vision loss, we ain't never gonna get to...
An ELDER. My kingdom for an elder.
Has RantWoman mentioned how much the energy of young Friends organizing recente FLGBTQC midwinter gatherings has meant? Has RantWoman mentioned all the things that Zoom and not having to travel for Quaker fellowship have meant to RantWoman? Now RantWoman has mentioned
It was a dark and stormy FLGBTQC midwinter gathering. Actually RantWoman does not remember whether it was dark and stormy. RantWoman does remember Zoom and "that name would not have occurred to me" about one name and one interest group. So RantWoman wrote the clerks of her concerns and was offered the presence of an elder. RantWoman has no idea about whether the older was self-designated or selected. RantWoman was grateful enough for presence. RantWoman's concern occurred as predicted with an extra fillip of the concerning Friend's perpetual struggles with the space time continuum. But, just as the session was concluding after wandering a good bit around the topic of disability, the Friend offered "But what do we mean by accessibility?"
EPISTLES
FWCC Page: Epistles from around the world
There are MANY accessibility points to be celebrated in the fact that this page exists. There are also challenges and barriers not only for RantWoman.
One impediment RantWoman could most assuredly have lived without is Conflict is a Gift of God Friend proclaming himself elder and then endlessly mocking RantWoman over her need to use a screen reader or when RantWoman is typine badly a scream reader. It's not there there is no humor to be found, but doing it wrong is a really fast way to land on the wait list for RantWoman's chronically oversubscribed flogging bureau. RantWoman would further note that maybe she has been remiss in not pounding harder into Friends' heads all the different dimensions of accessibility for RantWoman and that RantWoman is aware of for others.
"Gatekeeping?"
RantWoman to another Friend: "so what's happening on the disability front?"
...something about physical disability that RantWoman does not precisely remember...
It had already been a long conversation so RantWoman did the best she could to keep her eyes from rolling out of her head but RantWoman was thinking some or all of the following things:
"GOOD LORD Friend. You are talking about physical accessibility--to a visually impaired person. Which part of "accessible documents" still BARELY registers in your brain?"
"Friend have you even stopped to think about the GIGANTIC delta between topics on RantWoman's mind when we did the survey and what actually made it into the survey? and we won't even talk about how a glossy generalized report erased absolutely critical details even before we take into account the vague mush of decisions presented at Meeting for Business?"
"I do not give a #$!@#* whether Business meeting thinks something is adequate. The person who gets to decide whether something is adequate is the person with the disability.( And right now things are not adequate on either process or content grounds.)"
"Friend, RantWoman is trying to hold tenderly your candor, but maybe THE WHOLE SOAP OPERA NEEDS HELP. If you say something like "I don't see how it can work..." it sounds like you are unwilling to try.
RantWoman does not get to stop trying and if that means RantWoman blurts out family soap oepras all over the whole entire RSoF welp, we already have a big footprint and maybe everyone will have things to learn. The problem is not going to go away not matter how hard a certain mMeetig tries to give the problem away to everyone else. In any case RantWoman is going to give things to God.
RantWoman has another whole rant brewing about not wanting to overwhelm any one person but to spead out burderns and learning for everyone. This thread is all tangled with many concerns about families and children and people repeatedly turning down offers of help and then complaining about being overloaded. But RantWoman's keyboard is already smoking enough for one day.
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