Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Feet. Shoes. Dance Party

Disability? Not Disability? Half and Half? No Matter what, as part of #NDEAM2021


Today's Witness Wednesday prompt for reflection offered by Bobby Trice


"Why try to work uphill for peace, justice and freedom on Capitol Hill at a time when cynicism about the character and operation of government and government officials is widespread, and when disillusionment about the church and organized religion is so common and so vocal? Because religion should be vital and relevant and because the health and the future of democracy rest upon responsible participation by informed and concerned citizens."


--E. Raymond Wilson, Uphill for Peace: Quaker Impact on Congress (1974)


Part of what came to RantWoman is about what has and has not changed over the span of RantWoman's lifetime, too much for Meeting for Worship and RantWoman is not even attempting to comb out those reflection threads here. The quote could have been written yesterday and at how many other points in history.


RantWoman has one foot in the world of blindness, one foot in the sighted world,


One foot in a spirit centered world of public ministry, one foot in the world of activism / advocacy where too much talking about one's spiritual center sometimes gets in the way of shared discernment,


One foot in the world of Quaker self-congratulation about for instance Friends' role in the movement for Women's suffrage, one foot in the world of the West where, please excuse RantWoman, women had the right to vote in several states years or even decades before the ratification of the 19th amendment.


One foot in radical nonviolent witness and one foot in wonky highly technical public meetings about transportation infrastructure.


Finally what came to RantWoman after all the one foot / the other foot thoughts: that's a lot of conceptual feet for one two-footed body, and somedays RantWoman has no idea which foot is on which side of the body.


RantWoman has big feet. One time RantWoman made a speech about feet bigger than either of two people but that it would take the whole room to fill their shoes.  RantWoman is intrigued by the history of those gone before at FCNL. And RantWoman thinks it will keep taking a lot of people to fill their shoes.


RantWoman, the dance party? Come on. You and a lot of moving bodies?"


Yeah. There are many ways to enjoy a dance party even when one has to work hard at not plowing into people or only plowing into the right people.




 

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