Get the GOP the H*LL out of anything to do with sex ed

Feds give Montana a deadline to change language in sex education material

How many other states are dealing with this?

Are there Quakers with strong voices who can stand up...or do Quakers just get to include more responsible discussion of many realities in First Day School and youth programs?

I realize it is not very Quakerly to use hashtags like #GrandOldPedophiles but I am low on quakerese today.

There are no content warnings for life! 2023 edition

The short version of this post: RantWoman probably is going to change the title of an old blog post, add some headings to improve blind person navigability, and cite thie post to add context acknowledging that the older post could be problematic in a number of ways for different readers. RantWoman is disinclined to edit history, even though the older post like much on this blog could stand some editing. RantWoman INTENDS both this post and the older post as part of many conversations about child safety and individual life journeys.

In fine Quakerly way, RantWoman has seasoned this with two trusted members of the community. Neither of them interacted in depth with RantWoman's willingness to consider whether anything in the post might run afoul of Blogger guidelines. More below.

The slightly longer version: 

1. Recently RantWoman received email from Blogger informing her that a years old blog post has been "unpublished," rendered unfit for human consumption. The email comes with links to terms of service and content policy with an invitation to appeal and suggestions about options to address the concerns identified. 

Blogger Content Guidelines

     Why was your blog post unpublished?

     Your content has violated our Malware and Viruses policy. Please visit

our Community Guidelines page linked in this email to learn more.

Malware?

The technological elements of the post are no different than many other posts, plain text and a couple links either to blogger or to other sites. If the malware issue is another site, RantWoman is happy to hear suggestions about who and how to troubleshoot that.

So that leaves the community guidelines, which RantWoman step by step tackles here.

2. This post contains a lot of Quaker jargon. Non-Quaker readers are invited either to use your own search engines or to leave comments asking RantWoman to explain further. RantWoman only posts comments with the author's permission.

3. The original post was written before RantWoman began her practice of posting really blunt advisories about sensitive content at the beginning of many posts. RantWoman, honestly, also had not thought about content guidelines. RantWoman recognizes that the content of the old post is challenging but believes it needs to remain available in the interest of paths to continued discussion of things that affect many families.

4. RantWoman will leave the original frank title in the text of the post. The title is meant to acknowledge that people may for many reasons have sex offender issues on their minds a lot of the time and there are things that come of that. Despite the title, the old post is NOT an endorsement of sex offenders, an accusation that came RantWoman's way in a recent Twitter conversation about a messy family situation in the news. It is, however, part of one Quaker meeting's walk with questions about community safety, supporting a low-level sex offender, and intending also to walk alongside the complex experiences of individuals impacted personally by related issues. It is a long story. A lot about RantWoman's perspective can be found under the label Safest though that label also contains some other content related to general principles RantWoman considers relevant.

Events all started with a long ago conversation during coffee hour.

The post also contains a link about a Meeting for Business at another Quaker meeting where similar subjects are talked about.

5. The post was written at a time when people with titles implying they were prepared to help members of the community season different aspect of the situation were, for RantWoman, less than astute and less than helpful and also obtuse about another change occuring in RantWoman's life. (speaking VERY plainly, in connection with midlife vision loss, RantWoman was dealing both with a lot of generalized ableism and with physical and emotional abuse from one specific member of the community. This walk continues to evolve. Except for the point that any kind of disability can make people particularly vulnerable, RantWoman wants here to stick to questions of how to talk about experiences related to sex offenders) RantWoman very much appreciates currently having a sense of people she can ask to look at such things. 

One of RantWoman's advisors mentioned above just said "there are no content warnings for life."

The other said basically the same thing and suggested that people can just absent themselves from triggering material. Um, in RantWoman's experience, that is not necessarily possible. Sometimes job responsibilities require one to walk over the rocky territory of something from the past in order to do better going forward about keeping people and communities safe. In one case, RantWoman was able to add one appropriate line to an insurance policy. Doing more, like topical staff training was beyond RantWoman's light. RantWoman later gratefully ceded many topics to a non-profit much better equipped than RantWoman was, notwithstanding all the experiences connected with questions of worshipping with sex offenders and evolution of awareness about realities in RantWoman's family.

6. In the US national cultural war Zeitgeist both terminology and discussion of hot button issues are all over the place and definitely not in centered, well-seasoned form. RantWoman tries to offer thoughtful prayerful interventions but not to get sucked too far down rabbit holes or electronic time sinks. Some of the time RantWoman succeeds.

With all that in mind, readers who are not prepared to think about the day to day realities experienced by many survivors of sexual abuse and their loved ones, please either know what you are getting into by reading on or feel free to click away to something else.

In Light and Faithfulness

RantWoman

Oh no, not Dial a Tirade! Actually, SEVERAL tirades.

Threads of gratitude, continuity,
and querulousness come with this picture

(RantWoman composed this post a few days after the memorial for The Safest Sex offender on the Planet and now has let it sit. RantWoman is clear to post with the back date from when it was composed but there is a father's day resonance along with the tangle of other themes. Please do not tell RantWoman to get an editor. The need is self-evident; readers are advised just to be aware of what they are getting into. Also this post contains a reference to the word "ghoulish." That word will come back ) 

One of these days RantWoman PROMISES a tirade about how banishing RantWoman from EVERYTHING to do with a certain Monthly Meeting EXCEPT memorials is STILL just ghoulish. Also various other aspects of interaction with the subject of disability not only amount to treating RantWoman WORSE THAN A SEX OFFENDER and, since the banishment is, as RantWoman has experienced it, partly due to RantWoman's failure to kowtow to certain people who feel entitled to be Kowtowed to a really good way to make life MORE dangerous for any person with a disability who needs to speak up.

(RantWoman, why you gotta splatter this all over your blog? Why don't you call us all up individually and let us gaslight you and misinterpret the details of life on Planet RantWoman ..? Uhhh, perhaps you answered your own question... Plus, at this point RantWoman has just accepted the holy call from God that comes with daily need to traverse wormholes between Planet RantWoman and .... RantWoman owes it to herself AND to a lot of other people.)

(RantWoman, why this renewed backbone and adamant energy? The answer is a tag recently added to this blog but that is not getting attached to this post. RantWoman has a sense of "now what" about a recent program she participated in. RantWoman found the program extremely valuable. Now what? remains a question and RantWoman MAY actually manage to be cautious about branding. Maybe.)

(RantWoman, why can't you just let go and forgive? In some cases, RantWoman would like the whole planet to know what is being forgiven so NO ONE ELSE does it either. In other cases, why should RantWoman's forgiveness deprive others she cares about from the opportunity to learn how to Do Better Next Time? There's also that forgive 40x 40 times thing for anyone who reads the Bible. Oh, and make lemonade or at least lemon tea out of ...)

Anyway, RantWoman is SPEAKING for herself, has receipts, and is more than obstreperous enough to keep plugging away at DO BETTER NEXT TIME threads. RantWoman also needs help holding all the players in the circus in the Light.

All that said, this post is a more or less daily opportunity to thank the Safest sex Offender on the Planet for all of his voluntary (putting up with...) and forced ministry of collision with the subject of sex offenders. 

RantWoman has two, well, actually more than two centers of comments today.

First, via Twitter, Book banning

This true story came from this article from @BookRiot https://t.co/IQD5vCZrNr

— Society of Secret Library Friends (@sslibfriends) May 20, 2023

"To quote one s*x offender, "Give me a kid who knows nothing about s*x, and you've given me my next victim.""https://t.co/7lkOeB4HuG https://t.co/vN8kHj2Eoc

— Miss T (@MissTomyris) May 22, 2023

There are a number of valuable threads in the responses and the Quote tweets. Readers should read as many as you like.


Next, RantWoman wades around in the Twitter techno swamp. Currently in culture war land many people are losing their minds over "grooming." Grooming" in some people's minds is defined as anything other than abstinence only sex ed, Drag Queen Story Hours, banning books about sexuality, any responsible science-based discussion of gender dysphoria and transgender people. RantWoman's policy is partly just to observe the phenomenon. 

RantWoman also allows one of her Twitter handles to troll, as lovingly as possible, the illustrious Rep. Lauren Boebert, R CO-03 brief commentary about her husband. Twitterati are absolutely brutal and irritatingly uninformed. Lauren's now soon to be ex husband was arrested for flashing teenage girls in a bowling alley before they were married though not necessarily before they were romantically involved. 

The situation was addressed in court. RantWoman has not looked up answers to all the questions that come to mind. In her book, Lauren writes that he sought treatment for alcohol issues. Despite all the name-calling on Twitter, there are no subsequent reports of similar behavior. Nor is anything known one way or another, but RantWoman hopes that the Boeberts' 4 boys know that Dad's behavior is inappropriate. AND, as with matters involving the safest Sex Offender... as original offenses recede time, focus all the attention on one person when there are plenty of other people in the world who ALSO merit attention, wariness.

Here, for more steps in a conversation., a recent article from Friends Journal

Friends Journal: Forgiveness, Trust, and Safety

RantWoman does not think it appropriate to comment about any one person's experience, except perhaps to wonder, what support would this Friend like from people around her?

Finally, a thought after  the memorial for the Safest Sex Offender on the Planet: one Friend expressed the thought that it might be interesting to have one cumulative account of different aspects of the whole story. RantWoman REALLY does not want to attempt group editing about such a thing. RantWoman thinks there are many stories, not only the core elements of Meeting's work, but also the walks of many different individuals.

 

Weirdly, RantWoman thinks it would be an interesting exercise to turn a group of psychology or social students loose, invite them to do an ethnography interviewing whoever is willing and then see what stories come back from that.

There. More than enough for one blog post.

PINK PANTHER Theme | double bass quintet | Božo Paradžik & students

The Pink Panther. RantWoman? Really?

From a contrabass quintet?

With news that RantBrother HAS A CELLPHONE that HOPEFULLY he will be able to hold onto?

Yes! 

COPE!

And if you don't feel like working too hard to cope, just replay the video and breathe.

But first there's a first grader in a district N of Seattle with an eye condition that messes up vision quite severely sometimes but due to the measurements of what really "counts" can be hard to get services about. There seem to be adults and competent professionals in the picture, but somehow RantWoman especially wants him to have adults he can talk to not only about whether it is hard to read but also when kids tease him in the lunchroom or on the playground.

Somehow it makes RantWoman cry even to have to type this even though RantWoman now knows a number of adults and another child with the same eye condition, not the RantFamily condition, who all do very visually oriented work or hobbies even though they cannot necessarily see  across a big room.

But RantWoman, why you gotta mix this up with your perpetual need on one hand to go near all sorts of pronoun wars and gaslighting of especially transgender identity in the media and on the other hand to want to scream EVERY time someone tries to sound all holy about God andparents' rights and  sex ed and whether drag queens are the ones doing the grooming or all the ways and places actual grooming really occurs.

Just leave this here, and play the video again.

Two girls and the adults who believed them

 

View from Zoom
of the in person half
of the memorial

This post is dedicated to two young girls and the adults who believed them. The girls are probably grown by now and RantWoman prays that they are surrounded by love and care as they as adults walk through everything that must have been part of their childhoods. Yes, the above is a weird visual; RantWoman hopes it reflects others praying as well.

 RantWoman greatly appreciates the message in the memorial for the safest sex offender on the planet who clearly was NOT safe but was a sex offender at the time he was babysitting his female friend's children. He only became the safest sex offender on the planet later after much back and forth and community awareness. RantWoman also has a sense of walking in some zone of well it helps one starfish even if a person walking along a beach cannot through all the stranded starfish back into the sea. In this case, the starfish is one offender who will get PLENTY more air time elsewhere and this blog is about two girls and the adults who believed them not about everything going on in and around the sea.

This post is dedicated to lots of other people struggling about gnarly childhoods and disability and mental illness and neglect. 

RantWoman is glad the girls came up at all.

RantWoman is touched they came up after this somewhat snarky  part of RantWoman's ministry:

"The date of the memorial was Orthodox Easter. If you didn't get enough resurrection last week come back for more this week.

"One time RantWoman and the safest sex offender... were in a spiritual sharing group together. We were kind of flailing about format and reading options. RantWoman suggested reading a poem by the Guatemalan liberation theology poet Julia Esquivel called in English 'They have threatened us with resurrection' 

This poem can be found elsewhere on this blog but here is the search result that first popped today.

They have threatened us with Resurrection

The safest sex offender...is the one who brought out of the poem concern not to repeat cycles of violence."

RantWoman has more to say but saying it here does not do justice to need for the girls to have their own space.

Rumi: The Guest House and Thomas Edison

Quakers don't usually do wakes, and certainly not wakes as a series of prose hiccups all over a blog. Yet, that is what we have.

The Friend RantWoman has called The Safest Sex Offender On the Planet passed away in the fall. His passing was well accompanied by many retired health professionals serving on a care committee. A memorial has now, in typical dawdling fashion, been scheduled. Between the memorial, the collision of multiple religious holidays on the calendar, the windup of an interesting project in RantWoman's life, state of society seasoning, the press of news streams, and Life, RantWoman's supply of spiritual popcorn kernels is running stronger than average. Probably holding it all in the Light  would be a good start. 

RantWoman does not promise a great deal specifically about the safest sex offender...more travelogue of RantWoman's experience on the journey

First, the prompt from a recent FCNL Witness Wednesday.

The Guest House

By Jalaluddin Rumi

 

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

 

And from a wrap-up event for The Blind Leaders Development program, paraphrasing:

Thomas Edison: It's not failing. Sometimes it just takes 10,000 tries to make things work.

RantWoman, WHY must you open the electronic wake with these texts? 

Stay tuned!?!?!

Hanukkah: and by accident of calendar Rest in Peace.

Menorah from Freepic

To the person RantWoman has come to refer to as the Safest Sex Offender on the planet: Rest in Peace

RantWoman heard news of this Friend's passing by text. This Friend had a powerhouse care committee and seems to have passed away with staff of his hospice facility around him. There will be a memorial in due time.

RantWoman does not particularly feel grateful to be reminded in a low-key way of things going on in her life at the Hospitality Committee equals pastoral care plus knives and hot liquids moment during coffee hour when the long saga of this Friend's walk with University Friends Meeting began.

The things that inflame RantWoman's soul this time of year are in no way this Friend's fault and the things still inflaming RantWoman's soul belong in a different post.

RantWoman is happy though to say Thank You Friend. Thank you for doing your own work. Thank you for all the learning that came from walking with you. Thank you for surprising RantWoman regularly with vocabulary RantWoman did not expect to hear from someone more comfortable with fixing things conversations than with more academic patterns of connection.

Thank you by the way for all the Fixing Things efforts you contributed!

Perhaps that is enough for now.

So how's your sex offender, 2022 edition

Let's hear it for "Oops. Ouch Whoa?"

First, Readers are permitted to wonder how RantWoman ALWAYS finds some way to encounter sex offender issues in conversations at large gatherings

Second, no, RantWoman is not going to comment in detail about specific individuals beyond suggesting holding in the Light. RantWoman means to post separately about worshipping with...but one topic at a time.

Tonight after the suggested dialogue for this year's NPYM Annual Session Oops Ouch Whoa training had been tried, there was space and Friends present for RantWoman to blurt out something she has thought a lot about:

RantWoman exactly understands the systemic racism of the Criminal (in)Justice System. RantWoman understands horrifying statistics about how violence, abuse, and neglect replicate themselves from one generation to another. RantWoman also understands the horrible conditions which prevail in most "correctional" institutions.

AND

RantWoman wants to scream OUCH every time young Friends proclaim themselves prison abolitionists. 

1. As far as RantWoman is concerned, UNDER the jail would be a good place for the serial molester who victimized a Rant Sibling.

2. It is not hard, if one talks to Friends involved with Alternatives to Violence, to find people who will say honestly that prison was the best thing that happened to them.

3. Sometimes RantWoman finds it more fitting to attend to survivors' complex experiences than to spend too much time on offenders.

RantWoman is VERY grateful that a review of NPYM child safety practices has hopefully settled down. RantWoman is grateful to have heard consideration of the policy in more than one place. RantWoman is deeply grateful for committee members who endured complaints of racism and prouncements which sounded to RantWoman like unexamined privilege. RantWoman is grateful for the clarity and emphatic voices who share RantWoman's perspectives about responsible positions. RantWoman is grateful for efforts to create positive safe spaces for youth to talk and learn. 

RantWoman is not quite sure what to do with the reality that everything to do with sexual assault can plow into Yucky Topics zones SO RantWoman will digress to efforts to digest related conversations elsewhere.

CW / TW: abuse, sexual assault, racism homophobia

And in non-Quaker news, at #ACB22 while coping with elevators RantWoman bumped into a lawyer and ACB Board member and had a brief conversation about continuing efforts by the National Federation of the Blind, those other blind people, to address issues of sexual misconduct.

RantWoman has no detailed knowledge of anything beyond what is available in multiple published articles. RantWoman simply notes that as of 2022, insurance companies have a long list of best practices for helping ensure the safety of program participants, students, people involved in religious congregation activities. Problems arose for the NFB because for a long time they were doing exactly none of those best practices. Those best practices should be a minimum. RantWoman wants to appreciate very important progress and commitments to training. RantWoman is also vexed not to see training about some of those best practices explicitly included in the descriptions she has read so far.

Raising Expectations NFB PResident Marc Riccobono

NFB Sex Crimes Abuses Cover-ups

Former LCB students allege toxic culture

Who said the criminal justice system is fair.

 RantWoman, WHY do you need to go off about this story? And WHY do you need to do it now while you are also aiming to sound sane and centered about climate change, cap and trade, the transportation budget, and measures to cut back on pollution in the places it historically gets concentrated?

Furthermore, just because the story is punching about 17 of your hot buttons, why do you think other people will necessarily be able to identify all the hot buttons that might be getting pushed? 

And how many conversations about responsible organizational behavior need you to filter the hot buttons to make constructive contributions???

The story linked below came up on RantWoman's smart blind people Zoom call. Discussion on the call was minimal or had mostly happened before RantWoman joined the call. Also, RantWoman is a grownup. She did not HAVE to look. But it's the 20th anniversary month of one of RantWoman's great moments in coffee hour pastoral care. And RantWoman needs either distraction or reaffirmation, she is not sure which. There are a couple deeply disturbing moments in the article. Some readers will probably get enough out of what comes up for RantWoman without reading the article if that seems prudent.

OK rapist avoids prison due to legal blindness

The case involved a legally blind cook at a church camp, a 13-yearold girl.. The perpetrator was sentenced to two years of home monitoring and treatment and he was required to register as a registered sex offender. The perpetrator did not get sent to prison because of his blindness.

RantWoman wants to know:

--On the church camp side, does the church camp screen all employees? Since the incident described here is nominally the perpetrator's first offense. would screening matter?

--Do children who come to camp get information about resisting unwanted sexual demands?

--Did the church camp get sued and if so, the outcome.

For the child:

--Does the child also have any kind of disability or other personal factor that makes them more vulnerable to sexual assault? 

As to the legally blind rapist:

--Is this his only offense or the only one he has been caught for?

--Does his lawyer know how to make sure his client gets any training materials in a format accessible for him?

RantWoman would be interested to know a whole bunch of other  things about this case but is probably not even going to try to chase down everything she is curious about.

And how is your #pandemic going?

Alternate formats, exasperated shrieking optional

Alternate Formats: the tip of an iceberg

RantWoman is meditating about "alternate formats," non-print ways of accessing information In connection with various Quaker matters RantWoman has email in her inbox about the following:

--QuakerSpeak videos, one of RantWoman's recurring non-print go-to's when talking to people curious about Quakerism. Stay tuned for other riffs from this info stream.

--Hallelujah. Praise Jesus. Manifest whatever gratitudes neededas exuberanltly as possible: NPYM Faith and Practice is now online in a format RantWoman can actually deal with without all kinds of electronic standing on her head. Even better, part of the reason is someone else mentioned eBooks and even possibly in the future Audio! Not only is RantWoman not the only freak on the planet who needs this stuff, but there is that continuing revelation and Quaker materials in the media of this century and able to reach Friends of the electronic age.

--"For this workshop we will of course provide large print ..copy machine...." Friend, thank you so much for thinking of me, but in this case if you wait for me to ask for what works for me, life will be much easier. In the meantime, RantWoman will think about how to address items that really are not available in electronic format, as well as the option of suggesting some options that ARE available in electronic format.

Refuses to change

RantWoman is meditating about an item from the newsletter about "RantWoman refuses to change her behavior." RantWoman is trying to be faithful to her Light as kindly as possible. RantWoman truthfully does not understand what behaviors a certain Care and Accountability Committee was hoping to change, whether or not it is in her Light to do so for instance if the Care and Accountability Committee repeatedly claims their charge does not include dealing with disability for a Friend with a disability, and whether she can in fact do as desired. So far, RantWoman's sense of integrity keeps hitting full stops.

One full stop: RantWoman is pretty sure there are some behaviors Friends would prefer she NOT change.

The same information as everyone else: testimony on equality?

Consider a quest awhile ago for a presentation handout in electronic format. The persentation was part of Meeting's annual educational effort related to sexual abuse awareness. RantWoman forgot to ask in advance but afterward inquired whether the workshop handout was avillable in electronic format. No. However, RantWoman got two email responses to her quest for access to the same content as everyone else. One Friend had torn up the handout and thrown it away but offered to retrieve it, tape it back together and scan it. Ummmm, aside from the technical difficulties likely from this approach, RantWoman found herself wonering, um Friend, you are on a pastoral care committee (and the Care and Accountability committee as well). RantWoman might hope these roles mean you have some sense of what is needed for community resources, and since the topic of the workshop sometimes makes RantWoman's head explode due to issues in her own family, RantWoman will just be breathing deeply for a good long time so she does not break out in shrieking or have her head explode. RantWoman has practice about  head  NOT exploding issues around this Friend. Shrieking from said experience optional?

Another younger Friend who is NOT on a pastoral care committee had the handout and access to a scanner. and the document was shortly in RantWoman's email inbox. OCR capabilities are now built into lots of screen reading software,and it was fine. RantWoman had access to the same content as everyone else. The content in question a checklist of indicators someone may have been abused is probably available lots of ways on the internet, but the POINT of shared experience is everyone having access to the same content.

RantWoman wrote back thanks but no thanks for the tape together offer and profuse thanks for the option that got her the material. RantWoman assumes Friends would NOT prefer that she add more shrieking to the Friend with the tape it together offer?

Nostalgia?

Late-breaking news: RantWoman realized she should add another moment to these meditations, another rant related to being creeped out by a sense RantWoman gets from some Friends that she is much too freaky to talk to about life now as opposed to life in the past. At a recent memorial, the Subcommittee on Interpersonal violence came up. This subcommittee as created when the person RantWoman sometimes refers to as teh Safest Sex Offender ont the planet first came to the UFM community, with a stop along the way for one of RantWoman's several Hospitality Committee / Coffee Hour is pastoral care plus knives and hot liquids moments.. Find tangled narrative and RantWoman's reflections on this blog tagged "Safest." 

One of the things the Subcommittee on Interpersonal Violence did was creat a big thick notebook of printed resources from the ear related to sexual assault, trauma recover, and other topics the community collided with while supporting one offender's treatment program, caring for people surviving their own experiences of sexual assault and educating ourselves and our children about safety, empowerment. Repeat: in print. From now almost two decades ago..Oh, yes, and the next increment of electronic presentation was, when the offender's various legal obligations expired, to scan all the materials in the notebook and put them online as one big file. RantWoman has looked at the file but not recently.
RantWoman expects that some of the material might be out of date but NO, RantWoman did not shriek about everything on her mind when the notebook came up at a potluck. One Friend who had served on said subcommittee as being her usual plainspoken forthright self about how the committee work resonated with her life experiences. She was also gushing about having the notebook online but somehow, maybe it was the curried chicken, RantWoman decided that that particular audience was probably not the best place for her current resource concerns.

For no reason RantWoman feels compelled to explain, places to start for resources:

https://www.adwas.org

https://wscadv.org

In light and Faithfulness.

RantWoman

Desfile / parade Dia De Los Muertos?

RantWoman missed her Friday afternoon tactile graphics fix--for the second week in a row! Sigh. RantWoman instead, in honor of The Day of the  Dead / El Dia de los Muertos offers a linke in Spanish about the celebratory parade in San Miguel De Allenda, Guanajuato, Mexico and an awesome image that unfortunately probably would not make good tactile graphics. And there is more. Stay tuned after the link and the pic. Link provided opartly to ensure proper attribution

Dia De Los Muertos Parade, San Muiguel De Allenda, Mx 2019

Come now random RantWoman thoughts about memorials. Rantwoman has been asked not to come to anything at Meeting except memorials. RantWoman pledges to be true to her Light and cannot predict how that is going to look on ahny given First Day.

Memorials?

Literature brain could have REALLY a lot of fun turning all kinds of events into memorials.

Lead us not into temptation.

Or at least lead us into MORE QUAKER PROCESS experiences first, hope, pray. pretty please with Day of the Dead sugar on top, so much more culturally interesting than Halloween sugar.

For now, RantWoman's highly idiosyncratic observations about a memorial for a Friend RantWoman will call Bees and Bulletin passages friend. Basically it was a lovely memorial with a good selection of cookies after and no mention in the memorial of this Friend's funky hip brace that made her look like a StarWars storm trooper.

A Friend (who should be horrifed by the nom de Blog RantWoman would assign( did nice intro but RantWoman does not think there was anyone there except the late Friend's sons who was unfamiliar with Quaker memorials.

A Friend mentioned elsewhere with multiple noms de blog did a nice job of reading the excerpt of the memorial minute in the program. He also toward the end had one of his sort of standard
it's the Light messages.Ordinarily RantWoman finds he talks well and listens poorly and other people find him more scintillating that does RantWoman but this time somehow he was fine.

--The subcommittee on interpersonal violence came up multiple times along with library committee. Readers who want to know what RantWoman is talking about, put "interpersonal" into the search bar. The committee has now been laid down and its role rolled back into Care and counsel, sort of.. Rantwoman still finds the name of the committee sort of odd: is the committee for or against interpersonal violence or do they just talk about it? Further thoughts possibly available elsewhere; No, that moment of snark does not do justice to the intent of the committee but oh well.

--RantWoman thinks all three of the Bees and Bulkletin Passages friend's sons were there. Two of them spoke, one about a swarm of bees and RantWoman does not remember the other. Rantwoman opted not to go fogging up to ranom people she did not recognize and ask. That would be one of those points of social difficulty when visual cues do notwork...

--RantWoman liked whoever it was who said Life is for the living and enjoyed the images from the message about the swarm of bees.

--RantWoman was kind of a zombie aft er her weekend away so she just closed her eyes and has NO idea how her  message came across. People at least tolerated:

    --Appreciation that we are having the memorial because RantWoman misses seeing polly on the bus

    --It was sweet to learn she was friends with this blind guy who used to live in Rantwoman's building and who RantWoman is certain tuned the RantFamily;s piano long ago when we lived in CO. They probably had Bible interests in common.
   --RantWoman  loved the little passages that Bees and Bulletin moments Friend put into the bulletin and
loved that she read contemporary stuff not just old voices.

   --RantWoman mentioned that we read Julia Esquivel's poem "They have threatened us with resurrection" one time in a spiritual sharing group but passed up the opportunity to make everyone listen to her  phone read it aloud.

    --RantWoman offered a hold in the Light thought because The late friend alluded to
tensions among her children. Decades after RantDad's passing, the RantFamily is still sorting out...

Other people were not as lengthy or multi-threaded and not everyone even fathoms that of God aboard Metro.

Miscellaneous additional moments
--Is it possible to make sign up to help set upand clean up for memorials for people you don't know sound like fun, and maybe people who helped with the prep found ti part of the memorial process, but RantWoman repeats her thought from another memorial that there would be some point about inviting newcomers into the
process.

Other than that, it really creepsRantWoman out that the only thing people think anyone should have to handle around RantWoman is talking about dead people. There would be that part about FIGURE IT
OUT as far as living!
In Light and Faithfulness.

RantWoman

This week in blindness tourism

Currently playing on Planet RantWoman: Blindness Tourism, with a side of Quakerese, and giant spiritual striptease. RantWoman may explain in another post and an AWOL editor leaving lots of conceptual tangle which RantWoman may or may not at some point be called to edit further. RantWoman humbly acknowledges that this post is almost as cryptic as another blog RantWoman most frequently finds obnoxious but occasionally culls important Light from.

Sleep

RantWoman and sleep have a singular dance right now. Saturday night RantWoman had no trouble writing and writing. RantWoman did not try to tightly edit and for once thought not to post. until it was almost 6 am. RantWoman still woke up before 8. RantWoman, somewhere between prayer and inertia seriously considered not going her regular paths; RantWoman made her usual bus.

Ministry of Moving Large Muscles and Banging Things.

RantWoman is glad she went, for idiosyncratic reasons. Especially when running on nowhere near enough sleep, it felt good have ministry of moving large muscles and banging things while setting up tables and chairs for light lunch.

Nasturtiums in Salad Friend was funny. She wanted RantWoman to have help from the community. RantWoman told Nasturtiums in Salad friend she definitely did not have to do the work; Perhaps RantWoman undersold the concepts of community and tending the many gardens at her (and RantMom’s) retirement community. Perhaps RantWoman should have told Nasturtiums in Salad Friend that she could supervise.

RantWoman did not really tell Nasturtiums in Salad Friend that the most useful "help" while RantWoman is moving furniture is for people just to stay out of her way unless they are large enough for the likes of RantWoman to see easily or to handle it if RantWoman plows into them. RantWoman did most of the work herself blessedly free of collision possibilities. RantWoman got help with a few tables but definitely delegated the cleanup furniture moving.

The Microwave

Heating up the new Clerk’s fried rice was easy. Tow Truck Guy mansplaining about plate from the Right Cupboard to counter and where to find the serving spoons was amusing, particularly since RantWoman has known where the serving spoons are for a LONG time since before... No one noticed what a random experience RantWoman and flat panel microwave controls can be. RantWoman pretty much just punches some random time and then find the Start button. The fried rice got eaten—and enjoyed. So did RantWoman’s brussels sprouts.

Da Tech stuff

RantWoman is learning a new browser, Chrome instead of Internet Explorer. (What’s a browser? RantWoman will explain.) RantWoman’s fingers need new muscle memories. RantWoman is also trying to learn more of the browser without touching her mouse. Say no more? Not even about screen readers? Or software accessibility or… RantWoman is humbled to find herself somewhat on the same technological footing as many tech novices even though RantWoman is speaking of different products.

In other Planet RantWoman news

RantWoman has been reading minutes, particularly a large section of 2019-06 minutes again in fine all RantWoman all the time devoted to RantWoman. These minutes involve the Recording Clerk’s grasp of a report that RantWoman contributed to. RantWoman would appreciate seeing a copy of the original report because the minutes do not reflect everything RantWoman said; RantWoman has no basis for knowing what actually got said and RantWoman is shortly going to repeat a point to the effect that relying on minutes is nowhere equal access to the content delivered in Meeting for Business.

RantWoman may even remark tightly about Meeting for Business not being in charge of God. It is of course the other way around to start with. RantWoman DOES NOT mean she has carte blanche to wreck all kinds of havoc, only that she is NOT called to go away and is seasoning how best to nurture the possibilities she sees.

WARNING: Extreme Sarcasm Alert!

RantWoman feels deep affection for the people she writes of here. RantWoman does not dispute that the interwebs are way to full of way to much scary harsh content from RantWoman. RantWoman is VERY sorry for hurting people, particularly when she cannot even tell she has done so. Here RantWoman definitely holds the Friends who evoke these comments in the Light and RantWoman hopes her readers understand the sarcasm as frustration, not something personal.

RantWoman thinks the report missed several important details. Why oh why didn’t the former clerk throw in “we were really baffled because RantWoman came to us trying to talk about easy ways to evaluate app accessibility, but we had no idea what she was talking about and we are glad she was led to ask how she came across. But still, please add our voice to the RantWoman should just stay away from Business Meeting” crowd. Did the bafflement just not register enough to comment?

Similarly, the Care and Accountability committee might have enhanced its contribution to these minutes by saying something like “Our eyes just glazed over when RantWoman tried to speak to us of accessible documents or why a Clerk might benefit from observing blind people in Meetings. RantWoman even spent a chunk of time on this topic in a committee meeting and our eyes glazed over so please add our names to…

But no. Nary a word about topics that are HUGE in RantWoman’s life! Can anyone imagine, in the face of such huge culture gaps alone, why RantWoman is just not going casually to sign onto whatever rattles out of others’ heads?

 

“…crazy stuff on blog…”

Fair enough to muse about people who are curt to RantWoman on phone, do not want to receive email, commit giant lapses of language in person and then wonder why RantWoman stashes her exasperation on her blog. RantWoman would love a sense of a different path and would not mind having enough confidence in … to see whether someone else could maybe help. In the meantime, readers who feel seen and do not like the view are invited to reconsider need to commit…

Go talk to your therapist

RantWoman, are you talking to… about…?

1.   RantWoman has the problem she knows other therapy clients have of the really important stuff spilling out five minutes before the end of the session.

2.   RantWoman really needs to see whether her therapist would find it worthwhile to get into the provider network that could help RantWoman pay more than the bottom of the sliding scale out of pocket.

3.   Besides money, RantWoman really cannot deal with too many therapy appointments and really needs the space between sessions to process the work.

4.   RantWoman IS actually talking to her therapist about the issues underlying… RantWoman has both sent at least one email to this point and grasped that possibly others get some of what is going on. Some of it.

That has to be enough, possibly more than enough for today.

In Light and faithfulness.

RantWoman

Ministry Seasoned with Pizza?

Warning: this post is tangled. RantWoman is completely sober and the post is still tangled. Perhaps RantWoman and everyone mentioned just need to be held in the Light.

 

 

New Material at the bottom of the weekly bulletin with our material about sex offenders.

 

(RantWoman is omitting the material specifically about sex offenders. RantWoman deeply appreciates the person willing to be a phone contact for people with personal concerns but would slightly prefer that a person willing to be a phone contact list professional credentials. [RantWoman has a very able mental health professional whom she sees as often as she can afford; RantWoman is not clear that phoning the Meeting contact person will be helpful for what is on her mind about Meeting] Here though, what is on RantWoman’s mind, RantWoman thinks may cause enough consternation just by reporting data about following the instructions in the invitation below.)

 

Invitation?

“University Friends Meeting is also a place where individual behavior may not always live up to the ideals of community and peace that are at the heart of Quaker life. You may experience individuals whose comments, ministry or other communication appears aggressive, harsh, or rambling.

[ Excerpt from a Care and Counsel committee member email awhile ago comes to mind: “Please take good and gentle care of yourself. This is going to be painful and I do not even want to hear until after Business Meeting…”]  

Some in our community may misuse Quaker process, speaking their minds without the full light of the Spirit.

[Does anyone on Care and Counsel maybe MAYBE have challenges in this regard TOO?]

We are committed to engaging with these Friends from a place of love and spiritual discernment.

[If there were no love involved, RantWoman should have run away screaming a LONG time ago. PS How about matters of lawand administrative practicality on Planet Capitalism, single standard of Truth for Friends where awareness of the ADA and or really welcoming diversity and inclusion statements are part of their work lives and Meeting is a glorious learning opportunity?]

We are also resolved to hold these Friends accountable for their words and actions in the interest of protecting the integrity and spirit of our meeting. If you experience or witness harassment, either in person or online, please notify Care and Counsel Committee. [Who does RantWoman contact if the word silencing leaps out from…; can we maybe possibly just think “Opportunity to Grow. Oh Goody! Opportunity to Grow?”]

 

“If you have questions or concerns about how University Friends Meeting creates a safe and welcoming environment, please feel free to speak with the individual closing meeting for worship. […University Friends Meeting creates… How about movements of the Holy Spirit? Any room for that?] You may also bring questions or concerns to a member of the Care and Counsel or Worship and Ministry Committees. The co-clerks are …(Friend who usually embodies other nicer noms de blog than the email above and Friend whose Nom de blog RantWoman is trying NOT to reconsider.”

 

 

RantWoman offers the following data.

Vocal Ministry from Couples Counseling Friend

Recently Couples Counseling Friend offered vocal ministry. Couples Counseling Friend frequently does drama presentation well. This was true this time too but parts of her ministry just creeped RantWoman out.

 

Couples Counseling Friend, a member of Care and Counsel, acquired her nom de blog because she is attached in RantWoman’s mind with terminological landmines related to a conflict resolution effort already freighted with  vexed elements.  RantWoman one of these days will just write a Giant I FORGIVE you characterizing a number of circumstances, but that is neither here nor there for the ministry (ministries?) discussed here.

 

 

The ministry as RantWoman heard it, after children had entered worship.

First a bit about Benjamin Lay and whether he was difficult on purpose. RantWoman has no basis for knowing but would consider the possibility that Benjamin Lay lived in a cave because that was what he could afford. RantWoman also imagines, since Benjamin Lay was a person of short stature, that his cave might not have been large enough for people of normal height to stand up in but that it probably was a much-needed refuge from the ableism of people around him. Well RantWoman imagines.

 

The next part of the message mentioned Couples Counseling Friend’s former professional work with many children who have been sexually abused. The first part of the message was about something wonderful coming with something terrible.  RantWoman is not unfamiliar with the concept of unexpected blessing.  Something though about the delivery together with Couples Counseling Friend’s refusal to respond by email to a simple email inquiry “Do you remember what you said?” Do you remember what you intended?” somehow gave that part of the ministry a creepy edge.

 

Pizza?

 

Couples Counseling Friend, as RantWoman heard it, next talked about asking her young clients what they wanted on a pizza so they could forget the bad things forever.

 

Huh??? What kind of treatment modality is that? How does that work neurologically? Does the pizza also whack things one wants to hold or only bad stuff? It’s not one RantWoman remembers from her stint as a behavioral health bean counter. How does that work? Is God just showing off some weird sense of humor showing up with this message?

 

More to the point, eat a lot of pizza (or whatever) and just try to forget… pretty well encapsulates the emotional atmosphere a good bit of the time in the RantFamily household. That eat and forget and never mind emotional nuances or skills atmosphere also contributed  to between 0 and 2 threads of sexual assault per kid among the 3 RantChildren. RantWoman is the 0 which still leaves plenty of work for a mental health professional and plenty to keep washing away in the well of good spiritual practice. . Pizza and /or the possibility that no one has figured out the kid is violently allergic to pizza, is its own digression. Expectations about forgetting are, on Planet RantWoman completely unrealistic and also a little beside the point: If expectations of forgetting are to be part of the therapy, should one just run screaming from the room, even if it has been a lot of trouble to get into the room in the first place? If one is not going to forget, understandings and healing “I see you” conversations can evolve over time.

 

That is where RantWoman has gotten to while seasoning her creeped out reaction. By seasoning, RantWoman means a group email including Couples Counseling Friend and others who were present or not. Besides the inquiry above to Couples Counseling Friend, RantWoman also asked others what if any elements they remembered. RantWoman did not have high expectations, but now simply notes data collected.

 

Couples Counseling Friend repeated a frequent request of RantWoman, basically not to email her except regarding matters related to Couples Counseling Friend also being Recording Clerk.

 

Helpful? Uhh, today the Benjamin Lay reference has sent RantWoman’s recollections of many matters to do with disability and Minutes so guess what, RantWoman in her role as serial recording clerk to many Quaker bodies invited Couples Counseling Friend back into the picture. [RantWoman also notes at least two batches of minutes where Couples Counseling Friend either ignored RantWoman’s words entirely or seemed quite at sea with what RantWoman was trying to present. In the second case others were at sea and conversations continue.]

 

Friend Whose Nom De Blog RantWoman is trying not to Reconsider generously told the entire recipient list they do not need to respond to RantWoman’s honest questions. RantWoman’s excessively plain English to Quakerese language filter may yet melt over this Friend’s presumption to know more about the intent of RantWoman’s choice of recipients than RantWoman does. People are adults. They can take responsibility for managing their email. This Friend also offered an opinion about inquiries as to the meaning of Vocal ministry that RantWoman is having trouble squaring with the invitation listed in the bulletin.

 

RantWoman then wrote back that often for her inquiries as to something about her ministry are often very welcome and deepening; Madame Clerk also wrote back even more movingly than RantWoman AND expressed unspecified disquiet with the previous Friend’s response. Another Friend wrote back also noting disquiet and expressing various strands of blessing.

 

Back in Worship

RantWoman returns to the Meeting for Worship in question.

 

RantWoman offered the ministry summarized here.

https://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2019/01/benjamin-lay-comes-to-worship-and.html

 

 

Than another Friend offered the ministry from Corinthians about “love is kind, patient…”  And Meeting closed AND RantWoman needed to ask in person to be held in the Light.

 

Sure. Now what?

 

In Light and Faithfulness

 

RantWoman

 

 

 

Many Shitty First Draft Moments: sex abuse prevention training and document format circus.

Bless us oh Lord and Please hold this entire circus in the Light. RantWoman means it about Hold in the Light. RantWoman CANNOT deal with the fiascoes here alone; RantWoman has faith that publicly holding in the Light will find needed paths.

RantWoman, your whole community--including you--is traumatized by recent doings in Meeting for Business and you are writing about document formats.

Yep! and there are MANY strands of confusion. So be forewarned: this entry IS complex and RantWoman reserves the right to join everyone else who  loses it in conversation, tell others just to read the post, write down questions, and THEN talk to RantWoman.

Let's start with the 3 documents on RantWoman's mind.

--Two one-page handouts from the most recent Sex abuse education event at RantWoman's Meeting

--A notebook in the Meeting library full of pamphlets and handouts about a number of topics related to abuse and domestic violence . At least RantWoman assumes the topics she remembers are still there since RantWoman has not been in a position to do more than put her hands on the notebook in more than a decade.  Has the notebook been checked for updates, question RantWoman was TRYING To communicate years ago....? Even if a lot of contact info may be out of date, should there definitely still be something people can put their hands on in the library? Does RantWoman even care since RantWoman knows plenty of topical search strings and resources and is likely just to use her search bar anyway? PS Someone at the event mentioned a website; RantWoman did not catch the url. Somehow a request to have that url got lost.
PPS For anyone besides RantWoman who might care, REWA.org has downloadable and easy to pring PDF's in a number of languages.

--The report on the Meeting's website 
http://ufmseattle.org/home/reports/

2013 A Quaker Ministry on Sexual Abuse and Interpersonal Violence: An Historical Notebook from University Friends Meeting, Seattle, 2

This 350+ page PDF compiles excerpts of minutes from walking with a specific offender through treatment. In retrospect kind of excruciating reading at several points. Headings help for screen reader and RantWoman definitely recommends reading the table of contents and knowing how to skip to the corresponding pages, but of decidedly limited use if one is looking for resources in a crisis.

Now to today's document format saga.

Blame the technology, or blame the Official Bogeyman of RantWoman's Meeting. Either way, there is WAY too much data and RantWoman should intone a moment from a long ago eldering conversation: if you're in a hole, stop digging. (RantWoman was thinking the same thing in the direction of her counterpart, but  let's just say the thought took time to ripen and mercifully did not tumble out of RantWoman's mouth at the time.

Recently RantWoman's Meeting held its annual sex abuse prevention training session. RantWoman is duly grateful for a presenter who donated her time. RantWoman is grateful for participants new to UFM's ministry who had a lively discussion. There were other moments RantWoman collected data about and will hold in the Light.

Now we come to what Breme Brown calls the shitty first draft SFD interpretation of several data points, the initial frequently wrong first pass analysis  we all do leaping to conclusions never mind how many people might also be around discounting lived experience

Data points. RantWoman goes to public events all the time staffed by people who understand the phrase reasonable accommodations and most of the time when RantWoman remembers to ask, needed documents are forthcoming. RantWoman thinks that would be a minimal courtesy though Rant Woman does not really care to argue the applicability of ADA for religious organizations here except to note that the topic needs more reflection. In any case, RantWoman did not think to request electronic copies of handouts before the event and was peeved after the event to be told that electronic copies were not to be had.

SFD interpretation: RantWoman is a flake who communicates poorly and has unreasonable expectations that people might know her needs without being told.

SFD interpretation: Lots of people know RantWoman is blind and might think to ask for handouts in advance when planning an event.

SFD interpretation: RantWoman has been doing a poor job of educating people about her needs.

SFD interpretation: even if RantWoman had been doing a better job of educating...

Data point: why would RantWoman not think to ask the person organizing the event about electronic copies of handouts? Well for one thing because event organizer acts personally affronted when RantWoman asks her pretty much anything. And for another thing because one of RantWoman's  standard SFD stocks in trade is that if she asks for what she needs the world will fall apart and people around her will explode, and not even in a funny cartoon way.

Sometimes RantWoman HATES collecting data.

2. RantWoman received a copy of the handouts but gave them away thinking it would be reasonable to ask afterward for an electronic copy.

SFD moment: RantWoman was being Dork blind person and failing to use her technology. Ummm, RantWoman does not have the spiffiest OCR phone app. In general RantWoman's experience, app or no app, is that OCR of cellphone camera text images is not by far her favorite technology.path to accessibility.

3. When no electronic copies of the handouts were to be had, RantWoman emailed several of those present and asked whether anyone still had the handouts and could just scan them and route to RantWoman.  In short order RantWoman got back quite usable images from one of the younger participants and RantWoman was able to read the documents sufficiently to read that one of them contained a request not to copy without the presenter's permission, a request that needed commentary in the email about copying for accessibility

In keeping with a promise not to do reply/all more than once in 24 hours, RantWoman did not tell others that she had what she needed. Possibly doing that would have been preferable to learning that another person present had torn the handouts up for scrap paper but was willing to tape them back together if that would help RantWoman. How to say it kindly: taped together images are about as useful as smartphone camera images or maybe less so. Or just say "Thank you," as RantWoman practices many times a day for all kinds of unhelpful help.

SFD interpretation: RantWoman is ungrateful for one person's efforts.

SFD interpretation: no one on Care and Counsel thinks about such handouts as a community resource.

4. Possibly RantWoman should have just quit, but RantWoman asked a question in email about updating the Notebook, meaning the big thing full of resources in the Library. RantWoman expressed the value of lots of people understanding the same resource.

SFD response: For RantWoman's trouble a request was made to someone to scan all the (probably outdated pamphlets in the resource notebook and send them to RantWoman.

NO! That was not anywhere near what  RantWoman had in mind. That would take hours and possibly leave RantWoman with a whole library of documents of varying visual quality needing to be read. Thankfully, RantWoman's NO was heard.

But no, we are NOT done with confusion. In another conversation about Friend Who taped things, someone else asked whether the resource notebook in the library was the thing on the Meeting website. Noooo!

And for still more achievements in the realm of Quakers at their very, very best, one of the conversations about taped together handouts came with a spectacular tirade about how RantWoman is the abuser and abusers are not to be tolerated in the age of Trump.

Please excuse RantWoman. A bunch of pissed off people with
disabilities standing up for themselves and getting themselves
arrested in Congresspeople's offices all over the country is a big
part of what at least for now derailed Trumpcare. So maybe possibly if
RantWoman heard in said conversation any sense of who exactly is directly under attack
needing to stand up for themselves and frankly needing all the help we
can get in the current regime, RantWoman MIGHT also be better able to extract meaning from other threads of the whole day's conversation. MAYBE.

Actually someone's "I'm concerned about YOU" matters and that has to be enough for now.

Bless Your Heart Dennis Hastert

Festive Rant in honor of the sentencing of Dennis Hastert. Vivid illustration of reasons RantWoman could use an editor and MAYBE should try a different PR tack about life in her own Meeting.

Obligatory text-in-graphic, via @DaveWeigel

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/prosecutors-add-crushing-details-hastert-allegations


RantWoman, how are your sex offenders?
[RantWoman does in fact sometimes field questions like this. usually there are multiple interesting threads of the conversations.]

 

MY sex offenders? You mean the formerly incarcerated known offenders who are now valued members of our community?  Meeting’s sex offenders? Guess what they get to wait in line for attention while RantWoman’s inner blowtorch shines in other directions.

 Bless your heart Dennis Hastert. Thank you so much for being sexual abuser of the day. How refreshing to have you a male politician interested in boys are available to take our minds off the nauseating trail of disgusting history that now tumbles out every time RantWoman hears the name Bill Cosby.

 Bless your heart because my Twitter feed says it’s National Child Abuse Awareness Month, which of course covers a whole bunch of things besides sex abuse, but it’s perfect alongside news about your court case.

 Bless your heart, sir, for trying to pay hush money, for trying to structure the payments to evade banking reporting requirements and for telling stories that did not add up.

 Bless your heart for the young men who have come forward and who get to relive your behaviors toward them every time the prosecutors have to detail the facts behind what you have been indicted for.

 Bless your heart for walking us all through the painful experience of facing behavior that should not be hidden, abuse of trust and authority, betrayal of responsibility to youth. 

 Bless your heart for making RantWoman wonder whether this history of abuse somehow played out in how you served the country as Speaker of the House, third in line for the Presidency. Hasta en las mejores familias.

 RantWoman is sorry you are now ailing, and Bless your heart is the best RantWoman can do for prayer.

 But bless your heart because your story also reminds RantWoman of sex abuse very close to RantWoman, of enough threads to keep a large number of mental health professionals in yachts, that is assuming anyone receiving services could sustain yacht payments. And that does not count one mental health professional who, RantWoman has learned, ai-yi-yi, was arrested awhile ago in connection with a creep one out internet sting.  

Bless your heart for one person dear to RantWoman who has an official “crazy letter” but who has come far enough in her spiritual work  to recognize both that she is well off and that others need to be held as they continue their recovery.

 

Bless your heart for email and other electronic emanations from someone else: threads in the narrative have shifted in ways RantWoman has to guess indicate encounters with mental heal services that actually help. And please excuse RantWoman for being an arrogant bitch around people who find the Still Didn’t Get the Memo Committee on Email Immoderation daunting: yep. The ONLY reason RanWoman draws the conclusions she draws is because she takes the time actually to READ and consider responses to the communications in question.

 Bless your heart for RantWoman’s longtime school friend who really thinks she ought to be able to read Nabokov’s Lolita, on account of it is supposed to be great literature and all. Never mind that RantWoman’s friend received decidedly inappropriate attention from the Jr. high band director and that somehow is for better or worse saving her from what is in fact a pretty creepy piece of literature.

 And Bless your heart for the choir director from the other high school. RantWoman wonders whether the community might actually have been able to handle him being gay; they definitely should not have had to deal with him molesting students. RantWoman has other friends, male and female who have been abused by teachers. Bless your heart for reminding RantWoman of their stories.

 And bless your heart for showing up in the news around RantWoman when RantWoman isstill trying to dodge a call to truth telling. RantWoman has in fact told many of these truths many times. RantWoman has collected SOME evidence both of being heard and of her Lightalso speaking to things others’ hearts. And yet, RantWoman is called AGAIN to…to SOMETHING, something more than clearness committees with people who have repeatedly silenced her. Please hold RantWoman and everyone in the vicinity of her psychic blowtorch in the Light.

 Bless your heart, Friend around whom RantWoman spent MULTIPLE months trying to get you to hold worship sharing with a certain committee about what it means to be in her Meeting’s sex offenders among us announcement. For RantWoman’s faithfulness to her Light, RantWoman got to listen to said Friend debrief about a small part in another Situation involving end or relationship Drama as well as a teenager caught up in his adults’ challenges. Trust RantWoman, what you needed to debrief about was a SMALL part of the situation. RantWoman is happy to have listend to your distress but still pissed off basically to RantWoman’s ear to have been told to go away afterward. Oh, and said committee was removed from the official announcement. Upon reflection about rantWoman's own experience, Rantwoman would also say that tidings of such matters do not automatically seek out or find the committees officially designated as responsible, a point RantWoman's psychic blowtorch is being more present about that is suitable for this blog entry.

 

There is such a long trail of further silencing connected with all that, RantWoman is pretty cluntly just in “shit happens” mode, with further allusions to Ben Pink Dandelion’s observations: sometimes people who have absolutely NO gifts in topical areas should collide with roles every now and then so people appreciate the value of having the roles filled by people with the right gifts. RantWoman also notes that said Friend is so clearly called to some strands of witness Rantwoman considers really really important, particularly teaching environmental science to students from countries with no tradition of environmentalism that RantWoman feels particular call to forebearance about other shortcomings. RantWoman feels call to forebearance but RantWoman so far is not entirely successful about actually extending it. Shit happens --and people keep coming to worship together!

 

Meanwhile,

--RantWoman is still holding in the Light the story behind RantWoman’s recent post about the Queen of spades and pastoral care.

--RantWoman continues to wonder what is it about her face that causes people to be able to tell her about their restraining order issues.  

--RantWoman guesses she is supposed to be grateful just to have language for the problem of getting quite triggered recently when a former physicist, a deceased member of RantWoman’s Meeting came up in conversation on one of RantWoman’s non Quaker email streams. The former physicist went to work in a social services role. List memories included words that exactly matched RantWoman’s memory and the name came up because of circumstances when the person who first mentioned the Friend was a child, in particular something that probably looked entirely reasonable to all the adults but that made one set of issues worse for the then-child. RantWoman sorted all this out and then filed it in her “gee this is one reason this person is hard to work with and why it is important to keep including what she contributes” file. RantWoman also took note, when checking history for another reason: the then child as a young adult was one of the founders of the Friendly Neighborhood Center for Extreme computing. Talk about more call to truth telling and crip solidarity.

 

But seriously, how are your Meeting’s sex offenders, the ones you know about?

 One has a very sweet love story: he and hs wife recently celebrated their 26^th wedding anniversary. Other than that, this Friend is part of a group of released offenders who regularly speak in the community. They speak with COMPLETE integrity of their past and also of the critical need for prison reform in WA. RantWoman hopes others will feel called to join this work particularly since the work will also involve a call to show up for racial justice, including working with burning concerns for different communities.

 

And the other one you know about? He is now a registered voter and a member of Meeting. For reasons having NOTHING to do with any violations of all his different conditions, discussions of his situation has a couple times gotten entangled in circumstances he has nothing to do with. RantWoman has no sense of whether there is anything to try to smooth over about those circumstances. RantWoman also thinks this thread is not the best place to speak of other gifts, except for one point: RantWoman is glad other people have FINALLY also indicated encounter with the point that it is not reasonable for anyone to expect this Friend to solve everyone’s anger trigger restimulation issues ever. But help with such problems does sometimes happen sometimes well, we are all ministers of God!