Registration now for spring Pacific NW Quarterly Meeting, April 24-26 2026

For registration process, go to pnqm.org

Text of the plenary description because RantWoman has not even responded to a question about physical accessibility, let alone flown into sufficient rage about WHY TEXT IN GRAPHICS ARE AN ACCESSIBILITY PROBLEM

(The Good news: the registration form gives LOTS of ways to make needs known)

Panelists

Sarah June Welker, Center for Development in Central America

Joe Snyder, Guatemala Friends Scholarship Program

Even Welkin, Friends World Committee on Consultation Section of the Americas

Registration Open for Pacific NW Quarterly Meeting September 27-29

(For readers who need a cool but unlabeled graphic of a boat, please head straight to pnqm.org)

PNQM Fall Quarterly Meeting, September 27-29

Boats that Float: Creating Meetings that Nurture Us

Join us at Lazy F Camp for the fall session of PNQM Quarterly Meeting.

As we gather for Fall Quarterly, Friends are invited to explore what is most critical to maintain, grow, and protect within our Meetings as many of us rebuild after the challenges of COVID-19. 

What nurtures our youngest Friends will be different to what nurtures visitors; how a long-time Member and a new regular Attender nurture the Meeting in return will be different, too. 

What we each find is essential in a Meeting community may change for us throughout our lives. As some Friends depart, others may join the Meeting and bring new gifts to make the community whole in a new way. The future we want for Pacific Northwest Quarterly Meeting is one we must discern – and create – together.

Taking inspiration from a beloved tradition of our youth program, groups of Friends of all ages will work on building boats out of recycled and natural materials as an embodied way of exploring what is important in a community.

Details about what happens at Quarterly, schedule, safety guidelines for Covid concerns, registration, and much more are available on the website https://pnqm.org.

If you have not attended PNQM in person for a long time, recall the joy of being able to connect with Friends. If you have never been to PNQM, ask those in your meeting who have fond memories of Lazy F and their experiences at Quarterly to tell you about the opportunities for worship and fellowship they enjoyed.

If you have children of any age, we encourage you to come as a family and help them meet new friends and reconnect with those they only see at Quarterly.

Camping is an option, and many families find Lazy F a great opportunity to introduce young children to sleeping in a tent.

Host meetings Salmon Bay and Pullman-Moscow

 

So sure, talk about brain injury, and meetings, and reasonable accommodations.

Once upon a time or more than one time or even dozens of times, RantWoman realized that in-person meetings were not going well for her, and in fact not going well differently after vision loss than before vision loss.

Nothing like quakerdom where meetings are a sacrament to collide with things that do not work.

No Visual feedback: RantWoman can't read anything written all over other people's faces.

People making decisions by nodding and grunting.

People sending things like minutes and statements to be discussed by email after RantWoman had already gotten on a bus to go to meetings.

Blaming RantWoman for all the problems. (RantWoman thanks one Friend for acknowledging that some pieces were tough for everyone, not just RantWoman.)

RantWoman, optimistic that illustrating the problem in other contexts than Meeting offered Friends MULTIPLE invitations to come to different meetings where most people were blind. FINALLY, after literally YEARS of such invitations, RantWoman enticed two members of the community to come to different blind person events.

Both came back with extremely topical observations.

One Friend completely blew their own insight out of the water, though. 

How? 

"Yes, I see... AND I DON'T SEE (pun NOT intended) how this has anything to do with Meeting for Business.

RantWoman's excessively plain English to Quakerese badly short circuited into stunned silence.

Now RantWoman can manage to say, "Friend, have you considered that YOU NOT SEEING .. and therefore not being willing to try might be part of the problem????

Zoom has changed the dynamics of many meetings.

It's HIGH time to revisit the RantWoman in meetings issue and RantWoman means to take initiative AHEAD of one upcoming event.

Enter the world of Twitter and sort of kind of hidden disability in the realms of brain injury, stroke.

Saturday Night Live better not even waste time trying to parody this.

It’s far beyond anything that anyone could ever come up with.
pic.twitter.com/rnQmVo4bbQ

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) June 17, 2023

Speaking of brain injury, RantWoman has not tweeted back that, well, it's obvious to RantWoman that the two people Rep. Boebert was tweeting about knew better what they meant to say than a certain former White House occupant and flagrant disseminator of word salad.

Luckily, Divine Mercy has spared RantWoman any need ever to be in meetings with Ex President and Groper in Chief Word Salad Master. (For anyone interested, #DisabilityTwitter has pretty piquant things to say about Ex President Word Salad Master on multiple grounds. That is a topic for another day.)

RantWoman has however been in many meetings with people who may or may not announce that they have brain injury. One person says people read her as drunk sometimes. Another makes different mistakes in English than other native speakers of his mother tongue. Bells are ringing in RantWoman's head about not one but TWO additional situations.

Here we come to more conceptual minefields lurking in community conversations.

Once upon a time, RantWoman, still not forgetting lapses in a recent survey about disability wishes to bring up the term "reasonable accommodations."

"Reasonable accommodations" is language highly relevant in many situations where people need to speak both of their own disability and of adjustments about process, practices, facilities to allow people to fully participate. Cue the question "What reasonable accommodations are helpful...?"

"Reasonable accommodations" is language from the Americans with Disability Act. In many situations it yields more practical and actionable steps than lots of mushy rhetoric about "disability justice."

There is a problem. Probably more than one problem: even if people need the same accommodations at work where maybe they are swirling in trendy DEI JEDI, choose your favorite acronym for "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" and at school and at faith communities where people aspire to live by a "single standard of truth," faith communities cleverly got themselves exempted from the ADA.

But WAIT. The Americans with Disabilities Act is not the only legislation relevant to the conversation. Many states, including WA have their own further non-discrimination civil rights statutes. One important aspect of the WA non-discrimination statute, RCW 49.60 is that, unlike the ADA, religious organizations are also defined as public accommodations, where anti-discrimination efforts are on point.

RantWoman is clear to hammer on this point in terms of continuing revelation, not allowing misapprehensions to persist. (The actual legal venue to hash this out would be the WA Civil Rights Commission. RantWoman, for a number of reasons is clear that the Civil Rights commission would be less helpful than asking  Friends to start where we are.)

In RantWoman's corner of the Quaker universe, this mental gap extends even further. A Care and Accountability Committee FOR A PERSON WITH A DISABILITY asserted that their task had nothing to do with disability.

And then a whole survey got done and although RantWoman was permitted input into the survey, RantWoman was also RELEASED FROM MEMBERSHIP before the survey was implemented.

And although disability  or matters of physical accessibility still crept into some community conversations, RantWoman still has a sense of worshipping silence!

And Quarterly Meeting Ministry and Counsel decided OVER AND OVER that somehow RantWoman was out of their purview. One Friend basically said "we don't want to take up the issue..." Not WANT TO is not the point! Probably no one WANTS to take up mid-life vision loss or ... or...When Quarterly Meeting finallygot around to creating a committee on disabilities, they decided it should be a committee ONLY about matters of disability AT Quarterly Meeting.

RantWoman is muddling all of this as she registers to attend NPYM annual session virtually. RantWoman was able to register fine, partly because she is technologically versatile. But on the way RantWoman hit so many emotional minefields, she decided she HAS OPINIONS and asked for a member of Ministry and Counsel to please reach out.

In the meantime, RantWoman will go back to the joys and pains of wordsmithing under Roberts Rules of Order with a bunch of very motivated blind people who are all clear a certain national organization needs not only to invite itself to a party but to demand that the organization throwing the party invite a bunch of other people too.

Yes, RantWoman used the word "party' seasoned by snark: the party is about creating a credential requested by one category of medical provider who know they have a problem. RantWoman is clear that organizations inviting themselves to the party is a much better idea than just demanding a full stop.

And when RantWoman unwinds from that, there is also fretting about Putin shelling anothe city with a nuclear power plant and live stream about whatever Action is breaking out. RantWoman is PRAYING for sense to take over but so far...

Hanukkah Night 3 Affiliation

Drawing behaving oddly as I edit

RantWoman how would you like your affiliation in the .... directory?

The first iteration of RantWoman's response

What happens if you just leave meeting affiliation blank?

How many conniptions will it cause in the data if you do that?

RantWoman appreciates attending and getting acquainted with Meeting A and Meeting . Both of them

are fine but different meetings. RantWoman is unclear whether to claim both of

them and not capable of further civil thought about the question

tonight. Please ask tomorrow.

[RantWoman, MUST YOU argue with every dang data table anyone tries to fit you into?]

As it happens, Yes! 

There is an alphabetical lookup but omitting any affiliation will result in RantWoman not appearing at all.

Okay then In Quaker zoom spaces RantWoman simply identifies as Seattle or NPYM or ... depending

How about add Meeting A, Meeting B, PNQM, Quaker Voice, the Pacific NW

Quaker Women's Theology Group, FLGBTQC, and The Association of

Bad Friends but absolutely not not not...

[There WILL be more conversation.]
Okay then,
PS Thank you for asking about accessibility in a software realm where RantWoman wanders all the time even if it's a different Quaker realm 

 

Interest Group: Disability AGAIN

RantWoman is falling down on her zeal for relentless self-promotion and invitation to idiosyncratic interest groups experiences.

Here is the interest group description as returned with a request for a Zoom link:

> | Interest Group: | Disability AGAIN??? |
> | Description: | Those gathered will go where lead about the topics of
> disability, ableism, persistence.
>
> Oops. Ouch Whoa--AND DISABILITY?
>
> Spoons?
>
> Friends hosting ALL interest groups are encouraged to ask those present to
> share any accessibility needs. Hopefully this practice can become as routine
> as mention or non mention of pronouns.
>
> In the event that no one shows up, Team RantWoman will be visiting another
> Online Interest group and may or may not share all her accessibility needs until the issue comes up. 

The space was needed.

Shamelessly amplifying a good bit of the fall quarterly descriptive material.

Theme Summary

Plenary Recording

Practical Peacemaking

As we travel to Lazy F, we will pass by people we don't quite agree with. If "there is that of God in everyone", these people are our neighbors too. How do we make peace with -- or even just talk with -- all our neighbors, not just the ones with whom we have easily-found common ground? Perhaps you have challenging relationships with family or co-workers or childhood friends with whom you disagree on closely held beliefs. Our hope for this session is that we will learn more about how to encounter ALL our neighbors with love, and build bridges where all we can see now are rifts. For some of us, this may be a new experience. For some of us, it is daily life.

We will hear from our F/friends living across the Quarterly Meeting about how they practice day-to-day peacemaking, no matter where they live or who they meet. Let us learn from one another.

HOSTED BY EASTSIDE AND SOUTH SEATTLE MEETINGS

PNQM Fall Quarterly Meeting September 23-25, 2022

The flyer has 3 lovely pictures, two of car bumpers each plastered with a different but sort of predictable combination of bumper stickers and a third one of a road straight down the middle of some flat dryland with low shrubbery on the side. RantWoman has enough eyes to tell this with magnification. 

On Planet RantWoman with RantWoman's screen reader, these pictures sound like "unlabelled graphic unlabeled graphic photocredit.

RantWoman is not going to spend more time adding the images here.

Queries the panel responded to:

1- How are you practicing peace-making in these divisive times?

2-How does your non-Quaker community - neighbors, friends, workplace,

extended family - and their political leanings inform these choices?

3-  What would you like to share with Quakers who are living in a different

political environment?

RantWoman feels vaguely responsible for not sending out suggested worship group queries until after she herself had registered. The worship group RantWoman was in was well-held regardless.

Video Highlights From Fall 2022 Quarterly Meeting

Practical Peacemaking - Plenary

Quaker Voice

Announcing the Ableism Fish Fry Virtual interest group at Pacific NW Quarterly Meeting

Saturday April 23, 3:30-5 pm. 

Live on ZOOM. See Coordinates below

What is ableism to you?

What is accessibility / Inclusion to you?

Wrong answers only?

A session for the good, the bad, the comical, the outrageous.

Please bring good humor or be prepared to ask for reasonable accommodations if you are afraid you may be too humor-impaired. For example, if you are worried your head might explode around the topic, it is helpful if you can bring both visual and non-visual cues so that our staff can help cope.

Seriously, asking for help is hard. Maybe people who attend will practice.

Orrrr, read and interact with some State of Society reports

State of Society reports as HOMEWORK?

Saturday April 23 Interest Group

Meeting ID: 859 4336 5336

Passcode: 665344

One tap mobile

+12532158782,,85943365336#,,,,*665344# US (Tacoma)

+13462487799,,85943365336#,,,,*665344# US (Houston)

Dial by your location

        +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)

        +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)

Coming Soon to a BLENDED Pacific Northwest Quarterly Meeting, April 22-24 at Lazy F camp AND virtually

It's time to get back together. Whether the thought of something frying in hot oil makes you think party or simply dietary excess, this interest group will be an opportunity to talk about ableism, community, and hopefully both painful and joyous realities.

Just to get our fish fry off to a good start, screen reader users, there is an awesome graphic full of text, only some of which RantWoman will put in a caption or in alt text. It's art. Sometimes one one messes with art, somethines not.

Register now for Oct 24 Quarterly Gathering of Sierra Cascade Yearly Meeting

 Who is SCYMF

Check out the People link for a list of congregations at SCYMF website

From the  Contact Us  page

Join us in building an inclusive coalition that uses Quaker process to discern who we are, to find common ground, to help us identify the continuing steps in our life together as part of Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends.

The Quarterly Gathering

Friends: It’s time to register for our October 23, 2021 Zoom Quarterly Gathering. Registration is required since we will not be publishing the Zoom link to the public. Send your name, email address and church/meeting affiliation to registrar@scymf.org or reply to this email. The schedule for our Quarterly Gathering is: 

Saturday, October 23rd
10:00 to 10:45 am – Music and worship led by Ruba Byrd, Eugene Friends 

11:00 am to 12:30 pm – Workshops
12:30 to 1:30 pm – Break for lunch
1:30 to 3:45 pm – Business session
4 to 5 pm– Small group sessions 

 

Workshops 

 

1. Singing Your Prayers  

 

Workshop Description:  

We will create a safe space to experience different   ways to pray through spontaneous singing. We’ll explore prayers of joy, gratitude, grief, and healing for ourselves, others, and the world. You can choose to sing in your own private space, or with a few others (or both). ALL levels of singing ability are welcome. Just be open to listening to the Spirit and letting song-prayers arise. 

 

Workshop Provider:  

Ruba Byrd is the pastor of Eugene Friends Church, a faith community where singing together has been sorely missed this past year! She’s learned some nourishing ways to sing together on ZOOM and looks forward to sharing them. 

 

2. Why we cannot be silent about Palestine 

 

Workshop Description: 

 A brief history of Palestine and then discussion guided by participants' interest on a variety of possible targets including home demolitions, US unrestricted aid to Israel, the arrest and detention of children by Israeli forces, annexation, illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Boycott-Divest-Sanction, Apartheid. 

 

Workshop Provider: 

 Cynthia Gilliam is an Arab-American advocate for Palestinian human rights. She formerly attended Reedwood and West Hills Friends. She is affiliated with Multnomah Monthly Meeting in Portland, Oregon, which is a member of North Pacific Yearly Meeting.  

 

3. Approaching mission from the bottom up - building friendships and ministry through language learning 

 

Workshop Description:  

We will examine non-colonial missions - approaching missions as a learner.  We will discuss five roles that follow the model of Jesus as we build cross-cultural relationships. 

 

Workshop Provider: 

Dr. Betty Sue Brewster and her late husband Tom are the authors of the LAMP book (Language Acquisition Made Practical) and have taught language-culture learning to cross-cultural workers in over 7o countries around the world. 

 

4. What is People Care All About? 

 

Workshop Description:  

This workshop introduces the work of the SCYMF’s People Care Committee, starting with a brief background of the committee’s origins, and an explanation of our work. We will then lead participants in a spiritual care exercise. Then the workshop will explore ways churches/monthly meetings provide care to people in need of healing. We hope to hear participants’ thoughts about how our committee can support that work 

 

Workshop Provider: 

Norma Silliman attends Camas Friends and is clerk of People Care. 

Have Beach Towel will...Zoom

Take me to your virtual
Quarterly Meeting.
Try, try, try to catch up on sleep

RantWoman celebrates last weekend's 2021 PNQM virtual gathering: The Schedule, preparatory material and.. .

Think Joanna Macy

RantWoman has good intentions about harvesting some resources from the chat streams she has dumped into draft email. That may or may not happen. RantWoman has no idea whether the event links above will linger and is at peace, SORT OF, with the ephemeral nature of much on the internet.

RantWoman is missing the drive out of the city and over the mountains to fresher air and more natural exercise than her new under-the-desk exerciser. RantWoman is pondering whether the planet is asking that we do less travel and more Zoom, what would be the gifts of hybrid gathering, whether we should offer to help grace our beloved gathering site with some tech to support better internet access and / or some electric car charging options. In the latter case, RantWoman wonders whether charging infrastructure is getting ubiquitous enough that Friends might be able to count on charging vehicles in one of the towns on the way to the site. 

RantWoman celebrates the creation of an ad-hoc disabilities committee. RantWoman celebrates the Light and energy of the young Friend called to convene the committee. That is enough for a fast snapshot. Stay tuned for more.

For readers wondering what the beach towel is doing here, RantWoman takes the beach towel to Quarterly Meeting as part of her bring your own bedding practice.

For Fourth Saturday Worship: among other things, is ADON OLAM ad drinking song? - Hampton Synagogue - Thanksgiving Concert 2017

Fourth Saturday worship is not exactly on hiatus for September. It has been swallowed up by virtual Pacific Northwest Quarterly Meeting, with a format shaken up and Friends invited to participate in the whole weekend. So Friends who might want to worship at this time are invited to do so without RantWoman's help. RantWoman is pretty sure you can do it.

The first evening program closed with an invitation to think of living life in a permanent state of gratitude. RantWoman was not quite ready to go all the sort of sarcastic, (sarcastic but true) Bad Friend directions that came to her. Luckily, instead of more videos by Joanna Macy, YouTube served up several variations of the Adon Olom. RantWoman permitted herself not even to try to untangle all the threads of the Wikipedia entry but just to enjoy the music and repeat her occasional musing about gender identity: RantWoman would only ever consider transitioning if she thought she might emerge with a halfway decent low range singing voice.

Adon Olam with a female soloist

Mark Your calendars: PNQM Fall Session. Sept 24-26 Is it Live? Is it Virtual? Stay tuned.

 

A screen reader accessibility fave (NOT!)
a lot of text embedded in an image.

As always check out PNQM website

This text is here so screen reader users do not have to do various technological contortions to read the text. RantWoman feels no obligation to reproduce the exact look.

QUAKER

FALL QUARTERLY MEETING

2021

Grieving and Dreaming

Gratitude Pain & Transformation

Inspired by the vision of Joana Macy's work

that reconnects facilitated by Mary Ann Percy,

Bellingham Friends Meeting and Tom Rawson,

Lopez Island Friends Meeting

Hosted by Bellingham and Lopez Island Friends Meetings

September 24-26, 2021

April Fourth Saturday Worship--with Beach Towel

What's the beach towel doing in here?

RantWoman invites anyone interested to join the entire virtual gathering of Pacific Northwest quarterly meeting

Virtual Quarterly Meeting Schedule

Exuberant Beach Towel
turned sometime blanket

 Fourth Saturday Worship for April is listed in the Pacific Northwest Quarterly Meeting virtual schedule as an interest group about disability.

Virtual Quarterly Meeting Schedule

The description in the schedule got edited from RantWoman's original language, something about a basket of topics and seeing where the discussion is led.

RantWoman recommends, in the absence of pine trees, much dryer east of the mountains air and rushing stream at Lazy F camp that Friends do something that can simulate the Quarterly Meeting experience for you. (rantWoman is glad to see--in an overlay her screen reader did not find--that Lazy F is open in a limited way! Interested Friends read for yourselves!)

RantWoman will be bringing her beach towel. There is no beach really at Lazy F. RantWoman though uses the beach towel as a blanket, part of her pack light bedding regimen.

RantWoman was clear in her leading to offer an interest group overlapping with worship. All are welcome. If Friends do not appear by about 4 pm PDT, RantWoman is likely to take her ministry of endlessly insisting on talking about disability to another interest group.

If something involves RantWoman it always involves disability.

What disability-themed (or not?) stumblings on the road to spiritual transformation might lurch out of RantWoman's mouth if she goes to the speakers' panel?

Will RantWoman visit herself on the Bread for the Journey interest group?

Will RantWoman go to the interest group on Reparations and enlighten Friends to the modest limits of RantWoman's capacity about the role of the Black Panthers in the organizing that led to the Americans with Disabilities Act?

Will RantWoman go to the interest group on Uprooting Systemic Racism and enlighten Friends to the modest limits of RantWoman's capacity about the role of the Black Panthers in the organizing that led to the Americans with Disabilities Act?

Will RantWoman bless the discussion on resuming worship with the oppressive awareness that every time RantWoman and her screen readers touch a new pieces of software such as the app being used to register in-person worshippers she has to think about accessibility?

Will RantWoman manage just to be calm and be glad to be among Friends? Come and see!

Young Quaker Voices Speak Event April 23, 7-8 pm

 You are invited to “Young Quaker Voices Speak,” short final reports from the four participants in the first year of our new program. Their reports will be part of the Quaker Voice session at the Pacific Northwest Quarterly Meeting virtual spring gathering, Friday, April 23, 7-8 pm.

These under-30 Friends have been following legislative issues all session as part of each Quaker Voice working group and will share why they participated; what issue they followed and what happened with it; and what lessons they learned from the experience. The Voices are Ezra Ford, Rebecca Marder, Gabe Sharp, and Ian Stanfield.

For Zoom information see the listing for this event on the QuakerVoice blog

https://www.quakervoicewa.org/young-quaker-voices-speak-friday-april-23/

RantWoman will be eager to hear what Friends made of all the tangles of carbon pricing, road segments, salmon restoration and ped and bike infrastructure measures the WA state legislature is chewing through this session.

RantWoman will also be interested to hear Friends views of the various criminal justice measures. 

Readers wanting to prime the pump with information about this year's QuakerVoice legislative priorities should check the website.

Readers who like RantWoman get to be in permanent Think Outside The Box mode might also be interested in the Disability Mobility Project and the Transportation Choices, both findable with the search engine of choice.

Still Time to Register: VIRTUAL Pacific Northwest Quarterly Meeting, April 23-25

In normal in-person years RantWoman always recommends Quarterly Meeting for

--An easy way to find a ride out of the city to fresher air

--Opportunity to Worship and Learn with Friends from all over WA and ID.

 --Opportunity to meet in person with great Quaker activities such as Quaker Voice.

This year, Friends will have to find their own way to fresher air even if it is only to go zoom in a park.

The plenary topic is “Spiritual Healing: what does it mean to you?” .

Queries

What does spiritual healing mean to you?

What experiences have you had with spiritual healing?

What practices strengthen our intention and focus in order to facilitate spiritual healing?

How can we facilitate healing spiritually in any given situation?

How do we apply spiritual healing gifts in our own lives?

How does spiritual healing occur in your MM? How do our meetings collective apply spiritual healing.

 

There is no charge, but donations are welcome.

 

Schedule & links to join the online program will be posted at

https://pnqm.org/virtual .

 

 

See the Registration form on the front page of the Quarterly Meeting web site https://pnqm.org 

And, as a bonus, RantWoman will again heed her call to offer Interest Group space to talk about Disability! This will occur Saturday April 22 during the regular Interest Group time 3:45 - 5:00 pm

Zoom info for RantWoman's Interest group which may soon also appear on the page with all the links.

Disability Accessibility Accountability

Meeting ID: 946 7024 4090

Passcode: 858699

Sitting Shiva for RBG: LUKA SULIC - Kol Nidrei

This performance of the Kol Nidre is dedicated to the life and legacy of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The Kol Nidre is a lament, usually performed by solo cello and orchestra, except in the world of high school music festivals where there is cellist and a pianist and a piano reduction and a judge, not a Supreme Court Justice, just some kind of adult musician marking on a scoring sheet. The piece is fantastically difficult with a good bit up in the violin range high on the A string. It is also the sort of piece where "In the future, stay in the listening lane" can definitely be on point.

RantWoman's first inclination, while on her humble effort to sit shiva in memorial and reflection for a time,  was to find a performance by a woman. The first video RantWoman found, by Jacqueline DuPre was too scratchy. RantWoman likes this performance better and besides it can be dedicated also to Justice Ginsberg's friendship with Justice Antonin Scalia. RantWoman is pretty sure, no matter how much she talks about praying together across differences that she could not have pulled that off.

But here, listen to the music.  Celebrate the life of someone who died on Rosh Hoshanah, the Jewish New Year, a time of renewal. According to Jewish tradition a person who dies on Rosh Hoshanah is a Tzaddik, a person of great righteousness.

Pray. Pray in the legacy and power of a very brave and gutsy champion of people, people of all genders.Pray for our country because about a kajillion things can definitely go wrong, and because there are at least as many reasons to aim for hope and faith and renewal. And this is RantWoman, so besides the lace collars, the repeated bouts of cancer, the towering presence, other more problematic reflections from RantWoman's own life are likely to wander in below, after the video.

  

The sight of 100 former law clerks for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lined up outside the Supreme Court, masked, socially distanced, awaiting the arrival of her casket a couple days ago was almost, ALMOST enough to make RantWoman rethink several decisions not to go to law school. 

Becoming a lawyer was not even on RantWoman's distant mental horizon in college. In fact, RantWoman has been known to quip that she has not gone to law school because the US does not need more lawyers per capita than any other industrialized nation. 

But RantWoman also has, um, interesting life experience about lawyers including several moments where more than one kind of lawyer was needed at a time, need to contact Russian-speaking lawyers about an estate issue involving a possible heir in Kazakhstan, the tangle of different legal themes involved in a college sit-in, and the meaning of "Right of Return" when some powerful human rights activists RantWoman did political work with in college were moved to plead at the Israeli consulate in NY about the rights of Palestinians being brutalized in two refugee camps in 1982. This last was one of several times where RantWoman in a support role literally had no idea what was going on because events evolved in ways not predicted.

What is all of this doing in reflections about Justice Ginsburg. Reading about Justice Ginsburg renews RantWoman's courage. RantWoman is not called to be a Supreme Court Justice. That does not mean RantWoman needs courage any less.

RantWoman also feels underinformed about the High Holy days, underinformed in a way that just going and reading say a Wikipedia entry will not fix. RantWoman wants to send to the universe a whole lot of forgiveness and need to keep trying about some hard things. 

RantWoman is also reading the schedule for virtual quarterly meeting and realizes she meant to pay attention to a timeline and will now have to do plan B.

 

Hold in the light.

From South Seattle Friends Uprooting Racism Committee

Excerpt from email sent by the South Seattle Friends Meeting Uprooting Racism Committee

We’re writing you so we can bear the weight of this historic and transformative moment together. Our community spirit holds us together even though we have been physically apart for months. We hope that this message finds you well and safe despite all the current challenges we face as acountry and world. We choose to meet these challenges together.

We are grieving and angry over the recent and ongoing violence against Black people in our country. The violent police response to peaceful protestors is disturbing. We encourage our SSFM community members to use this moment of increased exposure and awareness to heal deeply from scars of systemic racism and to take action as led. Here are some steps to consider:

1. *Learn. * We all exist within a racist system. As NPYM’s Uprooting Racism Minute acknowledges, this system “rewards white people with unearned advantages while often punishing people of color with pervasive disadvantages.” It's a life journey to understand and change our role in a
racist system. Here are some suggested books and resources, geared toward white people, to help guide us in that journey:

bit.ly/ANTIRACISMRESOURCES

2. *Give.* If you have the financial resources, consider supporting Black
organizations on the front lines, addressing racism and supporting protestors. Some of the groups our Uprooting Racism committee members support are Movement for Black Lives, Social Justice Fund NW, Race Forward, NAACP, National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, National Bail Out, Black Lives Matter, and Color of Change. This is a beginning list, not an exhaustive one.

3*. Act.* Do what you can to voice your mind, to each other, family and friends, or through protests or letters to elected officials. Consider supporting changes such as police demilitarization and defunding, as well
as other measures to protect lives and reduce systemic racism.


In closing, our thoughts are with each of you in this vibrant community as we face the challenges in this unprecedented time. Please reach out to us and one another in support and love as we find a path toward collective freedom together.

In solidarity, love, and for justice,

SSFM Uprooting Racism committee



*NPYM’s Approved Uprooting Racism Minute (2019)*

North Pacific Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, an organization of unprogrammed Quaker meetings and worship groups in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana affirm our commitment to live the
intertwined testimonies of Integrity, Equality, and Community as we look to the transformative power of love to guide us in uprooting racism.

Friends recognize the detrimental impact of racism on all people and the injustice of substantial racial disparities. Under Divine guidance, we are led to dismantle the system of white supremacy which rewards white people with unearned advantages while often punishing people of color with
pervasive disadvantages. We seek a deepening awareness of how these privileges and barriers have manifested in each of our lives. We endeavor to use this awareness to act against racial injustice.

We acknowledge that white Friends have erected barriers to Friends of color and continue to perpetuate systemic racism in Quaker systems. We commit to examining Friends’ traditions and actions for barriers that exclude people of color and altering them accordingly. We seek guidance in how to remedy
continued injustices perpetuated by systemic racism and in the creation ofimproved alternatives. Important roles for white Friends include listening directly to and supporting Friends of color, educating other white Friends about racism, and holding each other accountable.

We commit individually and as meetings to take action that dismantles oppressive societal attitudes and institutions, creates equity, and constructs multiracial movements to solve the pressing problems of our times. We accept the challenge to co-create Beloved Community with equality of opportunity, respect, and spiritual and economic well-being for all people everywhere.

We will create a team of Friends who outreach to quarterly meetings, monthly meetings, and worship groups to assess what assistance they would like in uprooting racism, offer resources and/or provide experiential
workshops that allow for deep listening and work toward removing barriers.

Resources supporting these actions can be found at
*https://tinyurl.com/yyo4sctn*

Stumbling into...invitation to propose and Interest group--at Quarterly Meeting

The entire meditation below clattered off RantWoman's keyboard before it occurred to her to check with the people planning Quarterly Meeting about schedule for interest groups. It turned out, the invitation to propose an interest group is an artifact left over from when the form is used for Annual Session registration. RantWoman may recycle her thoughts, but RantWoman is posting these thoughts here partly because they are one thread so far NOT getting clear attention from the AdHoc Committee on Disabilities. Will RantWoman refine and resubmit the idea for Annual Session? STAY TUNED.


RantWoman stumbled into the thought of offering an Interest Group at the forthcoming online gathering of Pacific Northwest Quarterly Meeting. Friends fascinated by RantWoman's mental meanderings in the process of discerning whether to make the offer can skip down to the heading Discernment

The Short Version of RantWoman's proposal.

Meeting Affiliation: It's Complicated.

Title: Community, Disability, and the words we use for the shared experience

Description:
When people talk about disability and sharing the realities of different people's experiences and offers of support, people use a variety of words to describe efforts to be in community. Some examples include

Allyship

Solidarity

Spiritual Accompaniment

Are friends familiar with these terms?

What does each term mean to you?

Should there be any terms added?

I aspire to find some kind of resource related to each term by Friday and I hope this group will give Friends  a place to consider these terms in their own right and as they related to Faith and Practice, Quaker testimonies, or other spiritual teachings you may have encountered.

If you sign up for this group and some specific step would make it easier or more welcoming for you to participate, please email with your concern. I cannot necessarily promise to address everything but will do the best I can.

please use the Raise Hand function. For people dialing in, the Raise Hand function toggles on and off with either *8 or *9, I will find the correct sequence before the interest group.

The longer back story.
That is RantWoman was idly going through the registration when her screen reader focus landed on "Lead an Interest Group. Ummmm, RantWoman has had tolerable success talking to kids of different ages at different gatherings about blindness (THANK YOU Wise Child Wrangler Friend who has multiple times offered important tips.). Things have not gone so well among adults. The last time RantWoman offered to lead an interest group, exactly zero people signed up, so what the heck.



RantWoman WILL post an offering. RantWoman will set a deadline and if no one signs up, RantWoman will be happy to think about someone else's interest group.

RantWoman checked the schedule. Leading an interest group will not conflict with Fourth Saturday Worship, also on the horizon.

Renaming? Righteousness? Dlscenment

Muddling and Complacency?

 

RantWoman is still sitting with her twitch about what to do with certain committee names—besides get rid of the dreaded O word.

 

On one hand, for the next few weeks to live out testimonies on Integrity, Equality, Community RantWoman feels called to urge everyone she knows to factcheck EVERYTHING and amplify the voices of people bearing the worst ravages of the current regime, to reach out beyond our bubbles, to encourage people all over the country to get out and vote, to know what voter suppression efforts are going on and to do everything possible to counteract them.

 

On the other hand, the renaming of a certain committee was delegated to said committee without suggestion to consult the Peace and Social Concerns committee or whatever the Ad-Hoc Committee on eradicating Racism is called. A timeline for making a decision is approaching. RantWoman has NO, zip ZERO leading to attend the meeting where a recommendation is expected to be approved. So RantWoman may just have to live at least for now with whatever decision emerges. (SIGH! Whine. Grumble! Murmur!) But RantWoman deeply wishes someone else might also be afflicted with RantWoman’s twitches to:

 

1. Think about what the words of a chosen name have meant historically and what they mean or conceal today. (Hint: changing a committee name alone does not win the battle for equality and against white supremacy / racism.)
2. Think about what message we want to be sending out into the world in choosing a new name.

 

RantWoman in fact prefers to think she would be perfectly fine with just leaving the committee name “The ? Committee” for now while friends are discerning. RantWoman says this in great humility because besides, the twitch above about witness and the midterm elections, RantWoman has lalmost no bandwidth just now to research and wordsmith about what other Yearly Meetings call said committee.

 

One reason RantWoman has no leading to show up at the meeting where the committee renaming is on the agenda: RantWoman will be attending a memorial for someone RantWoman has previously labelled Righteous Anger Friend. Righteous Anger Friend and his wonderful bride Mrs. Righteous Anger friend moved to Seattle partly, RantWoman has surmised, because of magnetic grandchildren—and their parents.

 

The couple earns RantWoman’s boundless respect though because they showed up every year until illness stole their ability to do so at Seattle’s annual Martin Luther King Day celebration, not something just every retired professor couple even thinks of doing.  In terms of people discovering our Meeting at many different stages of life, Righteous Anger Friend makes RantWoman smile. He did not feel particularly called to master the nuances of Quakerese. Instead one of his favorite comments was “My Spirituality is Music, Art, and Revolution!”

 

In that spirit, RantWoman is unclear how best to Let Our Lives Speak particularly as regards the name of certain (quarterly and yearly meeting) committees. Let the discernment continue?

 

 

 

[Yes, readers, RantWoman has fallen down on her promise to deliver daily disability related resources. Readers into the Twitter are invited to look up RantWoman’s Twitter name, read the Disability and Accessibility lists, check out any of the blogs mentioned in the profiles of people on these lists. Readers can also try the hashtags #CripTheVote #CripLit #PWD #DisabilityInChurch. That is enough or even too much for one day.[

Nurturing Our Light...as, um, "enhanced" by RantWoman with Headings and comments and queries

RantWoman is deeply humbly grateful to receive a couple documents ahead of time from the Quarterly Meeting Planning Committee. Readers, please though bear with RantWoman's need to "fix" things.

1. RantWoman made printed copies in large print. This will work better for RantWoman and probably for others around her than high-speed chatter splattering out of one of RantWoman's devices all over rooms because RantWoman hates headphones.

2. As long as RantWoman was fussing in Word, RantWoamn also decided to add headings and then experiment to see what Mr. JAWS finds in Word and when RantWoman makes an HTML file for pasting into the blog. Preview says what RantWoman has done will work.

3. As long as RantWoman was "fixing" some technological things, RantWoman OF COURSE was also called to enhance the content.

4. RantWoman actually found the need to add headings to the longer document helpful: in the process of figuring out where RantWoman would find it helpful to have headings, RantWoman actually got more of the document read than she might on the fly in an interest group.

Enjoy?

*Nurturing the Light in each other*

 

As Quakers, we strive to recognize and uplift “that of God” in ourselves and in one another. In addition, continuing revelation is central to our community. We are all in the process of learning how to support one another’s Inner Guide, as we each change and grow, too.

In that spirit, the Quarterly Meeting planning committee from University Friends Meeting wishes to offer several guidelines and reminders for this weekend:

 

*1.      **Ask before touching someone. *

Create a culture of consent by asking for permission to hug someone, touch their shoulder, etc., and by allowing the person space to say “no” without guilt. People may decline touch for any number of reasons, and nobody owes anyone an explanation for saying “no.”

 

RantWoman comment:

Ableism warning: if someone looks like they need help, ask whether help is needed ; if yes then provide the help requested. If the offer is declined, respect the person’s choice about how to do things.

Especially tirade-worthy:

“grab the blind person and bless them.”

Query:

Are there other sensory, disability or touch-specific points Friends might wish to share?

 

*2.      **Respect people’s pronouns and bathroom choices. *

Over a year ago our Yearly Meeting approved a Minute of Inclusion that reads, in part:

 

“We recognize that when we embrace the Light within the full spectrum of gender identities in our meeting, our worship deepens and our community is enriched. As part of our evolving struggle to live our testimony of equality, North Pacific Yearly Meeting minutes our commitment to becoming and affirming, safe, and nurturing place for everyone to live fully that which the Spirit is leading them to be. We extend our loving care to people of all genders... We will continue to educate ourselves and our communities and take appropriate action to bring about a more equal world.”

 

There are many ways to support trans and gender non-conforming people: one way that we can do this is by honoring people’s preferred pronouns  (e.g. “she/her/hers,” or “he/him/his,” or “they/them/theirs,” or “zie/hir/hirs”). Please consider including your pronouns on your name tag, and correcting yourself and others when you notice someone being referred to with the wrong pronouns. It is not the end of the world to make mistakes, and we all do it occasionally; it’s usually best to offer a quick apology and move on with the conversation.

 

Men’s and women’s bathrooms can be physically and socially dangerous (and therefore anxiety-provoking) for trans and gender non-conforming folks. If you are using a bathroom with someone who doesn’t seem to be in the “right” place, please keep your thoughts to yourself. Everyone deserves to pee or shower in peace.

 

RantWoman Comments:

Please bear with the possibility that some Friends, especially Friends who have studied more than one language or lived in more than one culture regard the subject of pronouns as an essay question.

If you really cannot bear sharing a bathroom with someone for any reason please consider finding another restroom or visiting at a different time.

Query:

Is anyone besides RantWoman interested in conversation / discernment / meeting for worship with attention to howling about how bad bathroom design is bad many ways?

 

*3.      **Take care of yourself. *

The concepts of white supremacy, justice, and punishment have deep historical roots and intense personal and spiritual implications. We will likely have disagreements and difficult conversations. Pay attention to the difference between discomfort and danger. You are strongly encouraged to maintain boundaries that keep you safe, while also leaving yourself room to grow and learn. Please do your best to respect others’ boundaries as well.

 

RantWoman Comment:

If mentioning God or colliding with the phrase “What does God require of you?” or any other language for someone’s spiritual and worship experience is going to distress you, please consider yourself held in the Light. Please also realize that the problematic language is not necessarily just going to disappear.

Query:

What language do we personally use for difficult situations?

What helps us hear that of God in others?

Quarterly Meeting prep as probably no one has tried before

WTAF?????

Did RantWoman EVER promise anyone 100% palatable language?

NOPE. Absolutely NOT!

RantWoman, CHILL OUT. Give the problem to God. It will work out.

Are you kidding? Some of these people do not even believe in God and we will not even talk about that non-consensual Old Testament God who does all sorts of wacky things  that HIS People interpret all kinds of ways. Or the God(ess(es)) people carry around in their heads....

RantWoman what ARE you talking about?

It is Quarterly Meeting time and Friends from RantWoman's Meeting are busy planning it.

The WTAF links

Fall 2018 Quarterly Meeting Flyer for your Meeting or Worship Group

The flyer with a technological digression as follows:
RantWoman is totally into world domination. If every document she ever received and every website she ever touched were perfectly accessible, RantWoman would not be the least bit displeased. RantWoman would not even mind if Friends can bear with her need to wax unbelievably appreciative some more about Headings  But today's meme is "How DO you do that?" This is the second PDF document in a week where instead of the screen reader moaning "Alert empty document," the screen reader reads a tiny part of the available text. RantWoman will OCR. Then RantWoman will wonder in the earlier document why even OCR does not find all the text. We will not even discuss Alt Text for pictures. Then we will return from exotic Planet RantWoman to plenty of circuses on the rest of the planet.

Selected Reading Links:

• The Canada Yearly Meeting Minute on prison abolition
• The Case For Abolishing Juvenile Prisons
• Towards the horizon of abolition: a conversation with Mariame Kab

WTAF indeed?

RantWoman is having several problems with the proposed readings:

Yep, RantWoman THINKS she gets a whole bunch of things about racism and the criminal justice system, but isn't it a little bit racist to make criminal justice the main path to talking about race?

Crime is NOT all about race. This is one of those fractal threads where if one jumps on a single thread, suddenly the scope of words needed will expand enormously, more expansion than RantWoman even wants to try to comb into manageable strands tonight.

Ah, hell! On RantWoman's mind of late:

A Twitter thread where besides abortion politics (Could we maybe please try to agree about taking better care of the actually living children???), Catholics were trying to fast and pray and arrive at their own right spiritual state while digesting the latest PA grand jury findings.

A seminarian on the radio saying "now we are taught to call the cops." (And a digression to a long ago civil disobedience action in NY where the police academy cadets handling arrests were falling all over themselves having to cope with arresting Daniel Berrigan in his clerical collar and everything)

A thread on the radio about starting school at XCatholic institutions whereeven there views seem to have evolved at least somewhatin sensible directions.

Today's clickbait about #scotus nomination, #IBelieveChristine...

Annual cycles and new family threads to stir up....

And moreover:

RantWoman needs more "spiritual beings" forgiveness, grace and moral transformation language as well as boring social science buzzwords such as "evidence based" and lousy fiscal and public policy. In other words, RantWoman is NO DANG FUN.

This tangle is probably only one reason RantWoman needs to CHILL OUT for the evening and hold the upcoming weekend in the Light.

Holding...


praying....