John Woolman anti-vaxxer

Sunflower bold and yellow against royal blue sky

(RantWoman is keeping to her #AdventCalendar intentions and exploiting the illusion of time travel created by Blogger date manipulation options.)

Dear (Overweight) Friend RantWoman, how is a good Quaker supposed to receive this news?

Signed, Faltering ? Quaker

Dear Faltering,

Schadenfreude much? Yes, well, there's that science stuff and all. Ignore the science at your peril. 

But did you know that John Woolman was an antivaxer? RantWoman heard this in a Zoom meeting for worship so it has to be true, RIGHT?

Apparently Woolman refused the smallpox vacccine of the day. Granted the vaccine of the day sounds gross and scary albeit also insightful: scratch the sore of someone with cowpox and rub the pus from the sore into another person's arm. hence the word vaccination. It was definitely a different era than today's fears of alien manmade entities injected into people's bodies.

Woolman sailed off to England and soon after declining to be vaccinated, bearing a travel letter from someone in his Meeting. RantWoman paraphrases: "this beloved wearer of undyed clothes is a little touched in the head but please treat him kindly." During the trip, Woolman  fell ill with smallpox and died. Whether or not Woolman succeeded in spreading the Gospel, history does not record whether he was also a disease superspreader.

The message that arose in today's worship: maybe Woolman knew it was time to go.

As for Trumpling acolytes killing themselves off refusing vaccination, decency requires RantWoman to hold them in the Light. RantWoman also tartly notes that for all the Trump counties where Trump supporters are dying like flies, there are plenty of young not fully formed Trumplings. Whether or not the plague puts the Fear of God into the hearts of the young ones, some of them are probably going to need to be held in the Light for a long time.

RantWoman remembers going a different direction with the prompt but since RantWoman's direction has not so far made it into electrons, let us just leave this hanging.

Larissa Gil Sanhueza (offered) the following poem to guide our shared reflection!

Prompt for Reflection:

being the loudest on earth’s playground
doesn’t make us any more important than
the dirt we crush beneath our feet
we are nothing except air
and fire and water and soil
we are a people
who forget what we are made of
a people who talk about the weather
as if it’s mundane and not magic
as if the oceans
are not holy water
as if the sky
is not a vision
as if the animals
are not our siblings
as if nature is not god
and rain is not god’s tears
and we are not god’s children
as if god is not the earth itself

• Rupi Kaur