RantWoman went to a university where major year reunions are a very big deal, and this is such a year for RantWoman. RantWoman is unlikely to attend in person but has decided that attending electronically, by filling in a bit of info including the above 6-word bio is reasonable homework. The bio is RantWoman's version for today of "Live what you believe."
RantWoman does not think she has any digital images of herself she likes any better than her Facebook picture. Maybe by the time the yearbook comes out RantWoman will have updated herself on Facebook, findable with the name in the yearbook.
RantWoman is meditating about whether to write an actual 1000-word essay too; in the meantime, RantWoman opted to leave links for her blogs in the space where the essay would go.
RantWoman thinks it was her college graduation yearbook where she recycled a piece of graffiti she had seen on campus: "I have a rather warped God. He is a bit of a sicko at times." RantWoman notes the continuity of her focus on matters of faith or struggles over same.
Things no one who knew or knew of RantWoman in college would predict about RantWoman:
--RantWoman got hooked on the Wall Street Journal in graduate school when she was adding a certain intercultural something to a course on International Business. The Wall Street Journal at least at that time had good writers.RantWoman and the professor both esteem such.
RantWoman used to read as much as she was interested in of the Wall Street Journal on the bus every day on the way to work, ironically also on a different Wall Street. This all kind of ended when DNA lotto led to further midlife meltdown of RantWoman's vision.
--RantWoman has a certain flair for publicity but still does not automatically want to make it easy for the interwebs to build links with people she refers to, people who might or might not want any connection to RantWoman.
--RantWoman was listening to one Famous Classmate speak of a longtime friendship she had with someone else, also a former child star. RantWoman has no opinion and especially no novel opinion about either child star. Well maybe RantWoman wonders whether this classmate ever took a Women's Studies class and what kind of papers she would have written if she did. RantWoman no longer has the xeroxed proof she used to have of having one interest in common with this Famous Classmate, but she was touched over the last year when events involving the other child star brought the friendship back into the spotlight. RantWoman always respects good friendships.
--Another classmate has become dramatically more famous over the last 2-3 years. RantWoman thinks she and this classmate likely breathed the same air at an event or two but to her knowledge has never met this classmate in person. It has not until this moment occurred to RantWoman to wonder whether this classmate ever took a Women's Studies course either. RantWoman is more interested in whether this classmate had the same interest that RantWoman and the other classmate and well over half the people on campus at the time had in common but RantWoman has no darn way of finding out.
--RantWoman at one point in a discussion during her Compost event mentioned a certain sit-in senior year and the topicality of stopped dialogue as part of the impetus for the situation. At least now RantWoman can articulate the relevance of stopped dialogue. RantWoman is NOT sure she is any better at good dialogue, but that may just mean she is still evolving.
(The other point of said sit-in: RantWoman's alma mater is the sort of place where everyone has to overachieve about something. RantWoman's sit-in-related overachievement was that the group house where she lived probably had by far the highest sit-in participation rate of any housing on campus.)
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Quaker Brinksmanship?
This week has included several momentous openings and RantWoman is grateful for a number of gifts today. RantWoman is going to start slowly and definitely suspects the first pass may bounce around a bit including contradictions and still present confusion.
RantWoman has withdrawn her nomination in parallel with our very wise clerk postponing it indefinitely. There two reasons, a short-term commitment outside Meeting well within the window of the next nomination cycle AND Dear Friend has FINALLY done something RantWoman suggested he do EIGHT MONTHS AGO: put his concern in email. But let us try to handle things in some kind of sequence.
First the bus schedule kinks RantWoman has complained about since September result, when RantWoman catches the earlier of her bus options in RantWoman being able to spend almost an hour in worship before Meeting for Worship for Business. RantWoman attends 11:00 worship; for a good while, RantWoman's Meeting has on second First days, been starting Meeting for Business out of worship at 11:30. This unquestionably results in better centered Meeting for Business; it kinks other matters, but we feel clear to stick with it for now.
One kink for RantWoman is that RantWoman REALLY needs a full hour of worship every Sunday. Thus RantWoman has come to see at least the part of her bus realities that gets her to Meeting early as a gift. The other gift from Worship was a message. One Friend had given a message about some kind of memorial with a "regular pastor." Another Friend then had a message about Quakers all being "irregular pastors." This Friend spoke about how, in contrast to worship where the room focuses on a designated leader such as a synagogue, in worship at Friends Meeting she focuses on everyone present as distinct individuals. RantWoman heard this message in conjunction with reading of a couple other accounts of people experiencing Meeting for Worship for the first time to similar effect.
Second, RantWoman thinks our Meeting has a very wise clerk. Our very wise clerk thinks the Compost matter has already taken up too much time in Meeting for Business. Part of the reason for that is multiple hideous communications screwups but that is exactly why to be cautious. Further, our wise clerk asked RantWoman for clear signs. RantWoman IS very clear about a number of points, about which more shortly. However, despite some astounding brinksmanship, RantWoman really is not clear that the Compost matter belongs in Business Meeting. Our wise clerk gets the point that, even though RantWoman has emotional and process red flags going off all over the place, RantWoman is also more willing than many in our Meeting to engage with Dear Friend. Our wise clerk gets that RantWoman values the friendship, and enough people get both the red flags and the fact that RantWoman is a grownup about what risks she decides to deal with. Our wise clerk listened to RantWoman's comments about an outside commitment and to a desire to get ongoing announcements out of Business Meeting and indefinitely postponed the matter which saved RantWoman having to withdraw her nomination, a point she sort of did anyway at the end in Concerns when she also thanked Dear Friend about the specific email.
Third, RantWoman just agreed to take on a commitment that is both highly topical to said pastoral committee and related to openings still connected to our Year of Discernment, coincidentally openings that will unquestionably involve many Friends besides Dear Friend and an area where RantWoman has specific and topical expertise, expertise and topics Dear Friend was quite dismissive about in our clearness committee, in private conversation, and in multiple emails.
RantWoman is already clear that Nominating Committee gets a few points on her mind from the whole ordeal. RantWoman thinks there were communications, process, and committee member handoff screwups--in addition to RantWoman's screwups in how Nominating Committee handled the whole situation. RantWoman has a VERY clear aha message in an email from someone on Nominating Committee and RantWoman is VERY clear that that aha moment alone is worth what has already occurred.
The aha moment: Nominating Committee until now has invited Friends with concerns about a nomination either to speak to the Friend with whom they have a concern or to speak to Nominating Committee. UNTIL NOW, it has never occurred to Nominating Committee that the person being talked to might have a problem specifically with the person doing the talking to.
Despite the fact that RantWoman and Dear Friend are good friends, RantWoman was having ferocious problems, both on Quaker grounds and on personal grounds being articulate with Dear Friend. RantWoman having trouble talking to Dear Friend did not of course translate into RantWoman finding it easy to talk to anyone else either. As Dear Friend pointed out tonight, in addition to multiple other miscommunications, no one so far has put RantWoman, Dear Friend and members of Nominating Committee in the same room to talk. The closest anyone came to that was points where Nominating Committee memebers met first with Dear Friend and then RantWoman. RantWoman was blunt about her feelings and could not even dialogue in person. HOWEVER, that got Dear Friend and RantWoman back to communicating, at least by group email. After the October Business Meeting, a Friend suggested a Clearness Committee, about which RantWoman has posted elsewhere. RantWoman thinks she COULD have been more insistent about needing someone from Nom Comm to come to the clearness committee meeting.
RantWoman has evidence from multiple conversations similar to ones others must have had, that other people find it not easy to talk about hard stuff. RantWoman has on multiple occasions had the experience or observed Friends who do not know how to handle some kind of emotionally intense information they are given. RantWoman notes that doing Quaker forms right requires real grounding, something that must be different from the work of trained therapists or people with pastoral care training. RantWoman also notes that a few people seem to think that lifelong experience with Quakers automatically mean they know how to do different forms such as threshing or clearness or, as Dear Friend notes simple conversation.
Ordinarily, RantWoman would think that attending to this sort of concern would quite obviously fall under the part of said committee's charge about deepening the spiritual community of the Meeting. These again are not ordinary circumstances so let's just sit further with the circumstances we have.
RantWoman is VERY clear that she is going on strike about seasoning the matter with only herself and Dear Friend. RantWoman is clear that the clearness committee is the wrong venue and that others are expecting too much of the clearness committee. The POINT of RantWoman's perspective is that HUGE swaths of everything that have gone on between Dear Friend and RantWoman is matters that should properly be seasoned by more people than Dear Friend and RantWoman. RantWoman is also blisteringly clear that all that is needed to decide on a nomination is inclination and willingness to discern how to go forward about such concerns, not resolution of them. What was said in the Clearness process and subsequent conversations only confirmed these points. At this point there are no clear questions for further meeting of a clearness committee nor a conflict that can be resolved between Rantwoman and Dear Friend without the voices of our community.
RantWoman was ferociously clear to do something NOW.
RantWoman is not sure whether the quaking and tremulousness leading up to today's events means some personal quirks definitely qualify her as a Quaker, just a devious bitch, or a ferociously seeking human still evolving.
On the quaking and tremulousness front, two data points:
RantWoman sometimes gets so upset she cannot talk but can write email. Email alone of course is NOT sufficient, but perhaps RantWoman's task is just to start from this point. For the time being, RantWoman will just stop laboring the point and put it on her Quaker behaviors shelf.
Over the week, the question of what if anything should come to Business Meeting came up. RantWoman was fairly insistent that SOMETHING needs to go forward though shifting the conversation from Dear Friend and RantWoman to community matters would be highly topical.
RantWoman had conversations with the clerk; RantWoman wrote email to the list of Friends who have been reading so far. RantWoman sent fairly blunt comments to our clerk. RantWoman also posed a question:
Dear Friend keeps speaking of his issue in terms of a leading. RantWoman finds quite a bit of the way Dear Friend formulates his leading as personally insulting and disrespectful of herself and others. Dear Friend is clear of his leading and no one besides RantWoman has asked him whether he gets that RantWoman might find his phrasing insulting. That thought did not compute for Dear Friend in conversation with RantWoman. Nor has anyone addressed questions that might arise such as how the points Dear Friend is speaking of relate to qualifications for the job, let alone whether others might have different perspectives. RantWoman heard all this, concluded that her leading would be that God and the community need to weigh in; listening appears not always to be Dear Friend's strong suit.
Of course none of that matters yet because, the first question in true Quaker bureaucrat mode would be what would we do with this leading? In our Meeting this leading would be referred for further seasoning to the very committee that is the subject of the Compost thread. RantWoman's fairly blunt comments to our clerk about her perspectives, together with the point that RantWoman is having a massive stupid attack (well, a stupid attack as conversational device at least) created an opening where, RantWoman is guessing the Clerk asked Dear Friend to talk about his leading.
This, together with the firm point that as of the date of that exchange, the matter was still headed for Business Meeting, resulted in a brief but BRILLIANT illustration of exactly all the issues and allowed RantWoman to repose some questions to the to list. RantWoman has no freaking idea what should happen now that her nomination has been withdrawn, but RantWoman does sort of think SOMETHING should still happen. So we must again sit with next steps.
RantWoman several times seasoned the question of whether she might be too uncentered still to talk about this in Business Meeting. However, every time RantWoman addressed the question and tried to pick up the phone or send email about this point, she was stopped even though she also was ultimately stopped about a clear signal to go forward.
RantWoman hereby presents a list of people she thinks COULD have done better on multiple Quaker grounds:
--Dear Friend on seasoning his leading with more than just RantWoman at the very beginning and when RantWoman repeatedly told him she needed other voices.
--RantWoman
--current and past members of Nominating Committee
--the clerk
--other people who did not ask either Dear Friend or RantWoman very much.
So hold us all in the Light.
And forget whatever we ultimately need to solve global warming; we are struggling to talk to each other. Perhaps we need to start there.
RantWoman has withdrawn her nomination in parallel with our very wise clerk postponing it indefinitely. There two reasons, a short-term commitment outside Meeting well within the window of the next nomination cycle AND Dear Friend has FINALLY done something RantWoman suggested he do EIGHT MONTHS AGO: put his concern in email. But let us try to handle things in some kind of sequence.
First the bus schedule kinks RantWoman has complained about since September result, when RantWoman catches the earlier of her bus options in RantWoman being able to spend almost an hour in worship before Meeting for Worship for Business. RantWoman attends 11:00 worship; for a good while, RantWoman's Meeting has on second First days, been starting Meeting for Business out of worship at 11:30. This unquestionably results in better centered Meeting for Business; it kinks other matters, but we feel clear to stick with it for now.
One kink for RantWoman is that RantWoman REALLY needs a full hour of worship every Sunday. Thus RantWoman has come to see at least the part of her bus realities that gets her to Meeting early as a gift. The other gift from Worship was a message. One Friend had given a message about some kind of memorial with a "regular pastor." Another Friend then had a message about Quakers all being "irregular pastors." This Friend spoke about how, in contrast to worship where the room focuses on a designated leader such as a synagogue, in worship at Friends Meeting she focuses on everyone present as distinct individuals. RantWoman heard this message in conjunction with reading of a couple other accounts of people experiencing Meeting for Worship for the first time to similar effect.
Second, RantWoman thinks our Meeting has a very wise clerk. Our very wise clerk thinks the Compost matter has already taken up too much time in Meeting for Business. Part of the reason for that is multiple hideous communications screwups but that is exactly why to be cautious. Further, our wise clerk asked RantWoman for clear signs. RantWoman IS very clear about a number of points, about which more shortly. However, despite some astounding brinksmanship, RantWoman really is not clear that the Compost matter belongs in Business Meeting. Our wise clerk gets the point that, even though RantWoman has emotional and process red flags going off all over the place, RantWoman is also more willing than many in our Meeting to engage with Dear Friend. Our wise clerk gets that RantWoman values the friendship, and enough people get both the red flags and the fact that RantWoman is a grownup about what risks she decides to deal with. Our wise clerk listened to RantWoman's comments about an outside commitment and to a desire to get ongoing announcements out of Business Meeting and indefinitely postponed the matter which saved RantWoman having to withdraw her nomination, a point she sort of did anyway at the end in Concerns when she also thanked Dear Friend about the specific email.
Third, RantWoman just agreed to take on a commitment that is both highly topical to said pastoral committee and related to openings still connected to our Year of Discernment, coincidentally openings that will unquestionably involve many Friends besides Dear Friend and an area where RantWoman has specific and topical expertise, expertise and topics Dear Friend was quite dismissive about in our clearness committee, in private conversation, and in multiple emails.
RantWoman is already clear that Nominating Committee gets a few points on her mind from the whole ordeal. RantWoman thinks there were communications, process, and committee member handoff screwups--in addition to RantWoman's screwups in how Nominating Committee handled the whole situation. RantWoman has a VERY clear aha message in an email from someone on Nominating Committee and RantWoman is VERY clear that that aha moment alone is worth what has already occurred.
The aha moment: Nominating Committee until now has invited Friends with concerns about a nomination either to speak to the Friend with whom they have a concern or to speak to Nominating Committee. UNTIL NOW, it has never occurred to Nominating Committee that the person being talked to might have a problem specifically with the person doing the talking to.
Despite the fact that RantWoman and Dear Friend are good friends, RantWoman was having ferocious problems, both on Quaker grounds and on personal grounds being articulate with Dear Friend. RantWoman having trouble talking to Dear Friend did not of course translate into RantWoman finding it easy to talk to anyone else either. As Dear Friend pointed out tonight, in addition to multiple other miscommunications, no one so far has put RantWoman, Dear Friend and members of Nominating Committee in the same room to talk. The closest anyone came to that was points where Nominating Committee memebers met first with Dear Friend and then RantWoman. RantWoman was blunt about her feelings and could not even dialogue in person. HOWEVER, that got Dear Friend and RantWoman back to communicating, at least by group email. After the October Business Meeting, a Friend suggested a Clearness Committee, about which RantWoman has posted elsewhere. RantWoman thinks she COULD have been more insistent about needing someone from Nom Comm to come to the clearness committee meeting.
RantWoman has evidence from multiple conversations similar to ones others must have had, that other people find it not easy to talk about hard stuff. RantWoman has on multiple occasions had the experience or observed Friends who do not know how to handle some kind of emotionally intense information they are given. RantWoman notes that doing Quaker forms right requires real grounding, something that must be different from the work of trained therapists or people with pastoral care training. RantWoman also notes that a few people seem to think that lifelong experience with Quakers automatically mean they know how to do different forms such as threshing or clearness or, as Dear Friend notes simple conversation.
Ordinarily, RantWoman would think that attending to this sort of concern would quite obviously fall under the part of said committee's charge about deepening the spiritual community of the Meeting. These again are not ordinary circumstances so let's just sit further with the circumstances we have.
RantWoman is VERY clear that she is going on strike about seasoning the matter with only herself and Dear Friend. RantWoman is clear that the clearness committee is the wrong venue and that others are expecting too much of the clearness committee. The POINT of RantWoman's perspective is that HUGE swaths of everything that have gone on between Dear Friend and RantWoman is matters that should properly be seasoned by more people than Dear Friend and RantWoman. RantWoman is also blisteringly clear that all that is needed to decide on a nomination is inclination and willingness to discern how to go forward about such concerns, not resolution of them. What was said in the Clearness process and subsequent conversations only confirmed these points. At this point there are no clear questions for further meeting of a clearness committee nor a conflict that can be resolved between Rantwoman and Dear Friend without the voices of our community.
RantWoman was ferociously clear to do something NOW.
RantWoman is not sure whether the quaking and tremulousness leading up to today's events means some personal quirks definitely qualify her as a Quaker, just a devious bitch, or a ferociously seeking human still evolving.
On the quaking and tremulousness front, two data points:
RantWoman sometimes gets so upset she cannot talk but can write email. Email alone of course is NOT sufficient, but perhaps RantWoman's task is just to start from this point. For the time being, RantWoman will just stop laboring the point and put it on her Quaker behaviors shelf.
Over the week, the question of what if anything should come to Business Meeting came up. RantWoman was fairly insistent that SOMETHING needs to go forward though shifting the conversation from Dear Friend and RantWoman to community matters would be highly topical.
RantWoman had conversations with the clerk; RantWoman wrote email to the list of Friends who have been reading so far. RantWoman sent fairly blunt comments to our clerk. RantWoman also posed a question:
Dear Friend keeps speaking of his issue in terms of a leading. RantWoman finds quite a bit of the way Dear Friend formulates his leading as personally insulting and disrespectful of herself and others. Dear Friend is clear of his leading and no one besides RantWoman has asked him whether he gets that RantWoman might find his phrasing insulting. That thought did not compute for Dear Friend in conversation with RantWoman. Nor has anyone addressed questions that might arise such as how the points Dear Friend is speaking of relate to qualifications for the job, let alone whether others might have different perspectives. RantWoman heard all this, concluded that her leading would be that God and the community need to weigh in; listening appears not always to be Dear Friend's strong suit.
Of course none of that matters yet because, the first question in true Quaker bureaucrat mode would be what would we do with this leading? In our Meeting this leading would be referred for further seasoning to the very committee that is the subject of the Compost thread. RantWoman's fairly blunt comments to our clerk about her perspectives, together with the point that RantWoman is having a massive stupid attack (well, a stupid attack as conversational device at least) created an opening where, RantWoman is guessing the Clerk asked Dear Friend to talk about his leading.
This, together with the firm point that as of the date of that exchange, the matter was still headed for Business Meeting, resulted in a brief but BRILLIANT illustration of exactly all the issues and allowed RantWoman to repose some questions to the to list. RantWoman has no freaking idea what should happen now that her nomination has been withdrawn, but RantWoman does sort of think SOMETHING should still happen. So we must again sit with next steps.
RantWoman several times seasoned the question of whether she might be too uncentered still to talk about this in Business Meeting. However, every time RantWoman addressed the question and tried to pick up the phone or send email about this point, she was stopped even though she also was ultimately stopped about a clear signal to go forward.
RantWoman hereby presents a list of people she thinks COULD have done better on multiple Quaker grounds:
--Dear Friend on seasoning his leading with more than just RantWoman at the very beginning and when RantWoman repeatedly told him she needed other voices.
--RantWoman
--current and past members of Nominating Committee
--the clerk
--other people who did not ask either Dear Friend or RantWoman very much.
So hold us all in the Light.
And forget whatever we ultimately need to solve global warming; we are struggling to talk to each other. Perhaps we need to start there.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Compost goes for a walk
RantWoman has had a momentous few days. RantWoman is going to put most of the story in a separate post. Here she needs to share a link about walking with Dear Friend. The post is data collection about one of RantWoman's non-Quaker fixations with walkability and transit. This fixation is a lot of making virtue of necessity, but then RantWoman is a versatile girl.
Today, after a momentous Business Meeting RantWoman did a serious spell of walking with Dear Friend. Considering that the whole Compost thread started from RantWoman NOT wanting to go for a walk with Dear Friend, this was an interesting evolution. The walk OF COURSE include more data points on RantWoman's clanging Proceed with Caution meter, but RantWoman has been reading in some Pendle Hill pamphlet she downloaded about concepts such as risk and be vulnerable, concepts she is finding A LOT more congenial than others such as submit and surrender.
http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2010/01/planes-trains-boats-crosswalks-oh-my.html
Another topical update: Dear Friend filled RantWoman in on some more details of the long and windy process of getting permis and clarifying this and certifying that and environmental impacting connected with the composting toilet Nasturtiums in Salad Friend spoke of last month.
Today, after a momentous Business Meeting RantWoman did a serious spell of walking with Dear Friend. Considering that the whole Compost thread started from RantWoman NOT wanting to go for a walk with Dear Friend, this was an interesting evolution. The walk OF COURSE include more data points on RantWoman's clanging Proceed with Caution meter, but RantWoman has been reading in some Pendle Hill pamphlet she downloaded about concepts such as risk and be vulnerable, concepts she is finding A LOT more congenial than others such as submit and surrender.
http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2010/01/planes-trains-boats-crosswalks-oh-my.html
Another topical update: Dear Friend filled RantWoman in on some more details of the long and windy process of getting permis and clarifying this and certifying that and environmental impacting connected with the composting toilet Nasturtiums in Salad Friend spoke of last month.
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Silence in Practice
RantWoman just wants to file this wonderful statement about Quaker silence in case she needs to cite it sometime.
http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=8171
http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=8171
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
The Gifts of the Magi
RantWoman is embarrassed to realize she still has some holiday email she has not interacted with, let alone interacted appropriately with. RantWoman realizes a small number of recipients will not fully have reason to be miffed until tomorrow, which is Orthodox Christmas. That is not an excuse, but for the moment RantWoman is going to focus on Gifts of the Magi in her Compost thread.
RantWoman sent Dear Friend a really, really good temper tantrum by email a couple days ago in response to his Reindeer droppings missive. RantWoman thinks she REALLY needs to call Dear Friend about some of the contents. RantWoman also has many other things in queue and is a little afraid of conversations with Dear Friend making a giant sucking sound about all of RantWoman's emotional energy. This is a BIG problem because of the next round of messages about Business Meeting coming up.
RantWoman is VERY clear not to withdraw her nomination. RantWoman is VERY clear she is sorry about some big communications screwups. RantWoman really cannot season Dear Friend's interventions in her life by herself any longer. RantWoman is not sure what is ripe for Business Meeting and RantWoman has various other quibbles and grumbles. RantWoman is also seasoning a message to our Clerk that is almost as argumentative as Dear Friend at his best. RantWoman is surprised by this last inclination and not at all sure she is or wants to be called to that role, but she is having trembling to the effect that she may have to do until someone better suited is available. What a peculiar problem.
But back to the gifts of the day. RantWoman exchanged email with Absent Friend who is not around our Meeting much right now but who is very good friends with Dear Friend. RantWoman learned that Absent Friend has almost exactly the same list of serious aggravations with Dear Friend as RantWoman except for a couple each topical to one person's life but not the other. RantWoman would again repeat that the planet really probably does not need more aggravations under any circumstances. However, the mere fact of having a long list of aggravations in common is SO liberating.
RantWoman has been completely freed of any and all obligations to take anything personally. RantWoman is still weighing how to interact with some of Dear Friend's perceptions of her. To the degree that others--including occasionally RantWoman herself, for better or worse--also detect traits, to the degree that a couple colossal RantWoman screwups certainly fall far short of the standards RantWoman would like to set for herself, RantWoman has to take a number of grumbles seriously. In RantWoman's peculiar estimation, one point of a proper faith tradition though is that one can ship any and all contrition, repentance, regret off in the direction of the Divine like an overdue Christmas package. RantWoman is not saying one must do that, let alone must do so precipitously without fully letting such emotions wash oneself clean at least for the moment. RantWoman is simply grateful to have the option.
RantWoman supposes she is being glib and grossly oversimplifying, but then comes the next gift. RantWoman has been reading the word "surrender" in more than one Quaker blog of late. RantWoman has this nudging that the word is somehow for her, but it keeps setting off all kinds of theology as women present alarms and flashing lights and blaring buzzers and red alert error codes. Today while seasoning the messages from Absent Friend, RantWoman thinks it will have to be enough to surrender any and all expectations that people--starting with RantWoman herself--can necessarily control themselves or interact rationally or at times even converse sensibly.
Again, RantWoman may WISH such of herself or especially of others. RantWoman may even be forced to admit that her list of things that push all her buttons way past pathetic is, compared to others' long and much more horrid lists, a bare blip. This bare blip, alas, is more than enough for RantWoman. More to the point, RantWoman gets immediately to surrender commitment to any expectation wishes as above will materialize. RantWoman then gets to live on Planet Earth with God present among us in all our peculiarities and peccadillos. RantWoman half always expects to be struck dead for paraphrasing a certain former Secretary of Defense: you go to life with the God you've got, not the God you might want, and that goes double for that of God wrapped up in all kinds of strange and difficult human packages.
As a side note, RantWoman is also stuck about the word "healing" in Ashley W's Welcome Prayer and the comments accompanying it. RantWoman thinks "healing" may be too presumptious a word, but in keeping with her Compost theme, growth is to be noted. RantWoman is really not there yet about thank you for such opportunities for growth, but then there would always be continuing revelation, evolution at glacial pace....
The final gift in connection with Absent Friend's words: she noted that she is pretty doubtful about Dear Friend holding it together a lot of the time but that she often has this powerful sense of him being Held. RantWoman realizes the first person she better get that point about is herself, followed immediately by Dear Friend.
RantWoman sent Dear Friend a really, really good temper tantrum by email a couple days ago in response to his Reindeer droppings missive. RantWoman thinks she REALLY needs to call Dear Friend about some of the contents. RantWoman also has many other things in queue and is a little afraid of conversations with Dear Friend making a giant sucking sound about all of RantWoman's emotional energy. This is a BIG problem because of the next round of messages about Business Meeting coming up.
RantWoman is VERY clear not to withdraw her nomination. RantWoman is VERY clear she is sorry about some big communications screwups. RantWoman really cannot season Dear Friend's interventions in her life by herself any longer. RantWoman is not sure what is ripe for Business Meeting and RantWoman has various other quibbles and grumbles. RantWoman is also seasoning a message to our Clerk that is almost as argumentative as Dear Friend at his best. RantWoman is surprised by this last inclination and not at all sure she is or wants to be called to that role, but she is having trembling to the effect that she may have to do until someone better suited is available. What a peculiar problem.
But back to the gifts of the day. RantWoman exchanged email with Absent Friend who is not around our Meeting much right now but who is very good friends with Dear Friend. RantWoman learned that Absent Friend has almost exactly the same list of serious aggravations with Dear Friend as RantWoman except for a couple each topical to one person's life but not the other. RantWoman would again repeat that the planet really probably does not need more aggravations under any circumstances. However, the mere fact of having a long list of aggravations in common is SO liberating.
RantWoman has been completely freed of any and all obligations to take anything personally. RantWoman is still weighing how to interact with some of Dear Friend's perceptions of her. To the degree that others--including occasionally RantWoman herself, for better or worse--also detect traits, to the degree that a couple colossal RantWoman screwups certainly fall far short of the standards RantWoman would like to set for herself, RantWoman has to take a number of grumbles seriously. In RantWoman's peculiar estimation, one point of a proper faith tradition though is that one can ship any and all contrition, repentance, regret off in the direction of the Divine like an overdue Christmas package. RantWoman is not saying one must do that, let alone must do so precipitously without fully letting such emotions wash oneself clean at least for the moment. RantWoman is simply grateful to have the option.
RantWoman supposes she is being glib and grossly oversimplifying, but then comes the next gift. RantWoman has been reading the word "surrender" in more than one Quaker blog of late. RantWoman has this nudging that the word is somehow for her, but it keeps setting off all kinds of theology as women present alarms and flashing lights and blaring buzzers and red alert error codes. Today while seasoning the messages from Absent Friend, RantWoman thinks it will have to be enough to surrender any and all expectations that people--starting with RantWoman herself--can necessarily control themselves or interact rationally or at times even converse sensibly.
Again, RantWoman may WISH such of herself or especially of others. RantWoman may even be forced to admit that her list of things that push all her buttons way past pathetic is, compared to others' long and much more horrid lists, a bare blip. This bare blip, alas, is more than enough for RantWoman. More to the point, RantWoman gets immediately to surrender commitment to any expectation wishes as above will materialize. RantWoman then gets to live on Planet Earth with God present among us in all our peculiarities and peccadillos. RantWoman half always expects to be struck dead for paraphrasing a certain former Secretary of Defense: you go to life with the God you've got, not the God you might want, and that goes double for that of God wrapped up in all kinds of strange and difficult human packages.
As a side note, RantWoman is also stuck about the word "healing" in Ashley W's Welcome Prayer and the comments accompanying it. RantWoman thinks "healing" may be too presumptious a word, but in keeping with her Compost theme, growth is to be noted. RantWoman is really not there yet about thank you for such opportunities for growth, but then there would always be continuing revelation, evolution at glacial pace....
The final gift in connection with Absent Friend's words: she noted that she is pretty doubtful about Dear Friend holding it together a lot of the time but that she often has this powerful sense of him being Held. RantWoman realizes the first person she better get that point about is herself, followed immediately by Dear Friend.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Mary Daly 1928-2010
This news is very fresh and the post is intended partly as a prod to look for other obituaries. Here are the items that landed in RantWoman's email and that popped out of her first search engine check:
http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2010/01/mary-daly-death-of-feminist.html
Subject:RE: [Water-l] Mary DalyDate:January 3, 2010 6:34:05 PM EST
This is indeed a loss for spiritual women. I met Mary Daly in Boston. She was brilliant, insightful and a pioneer in feminist theology/thealogy. Her books, "The Church and the Second Sex" and "Beyond God the Father" were powerful works that changed lives as well as thought. She had a gift for wordplay and a wicked wit--one of the funniest women I've ever met (she also had two Ph.D.'s). Her Wickadery and her book Gyn/ecology are wonderful, as are her later books. She was kind--made herself part of the group she was in, not a star. She was insistent on defining and demanding women's space, something that did not endear her to the priests at Boston College, where she taught until she was 70 and where she drew students internationally who wanted to study with her. Google her name and enjoy. And say a prayer of thanks for her life.
Nancy Whitt
________________________________________On Behalf Of Mary E. Hunt Sent: Sunday, January 03, 2010 3:59 PM
Subject: Mary Daly
With a heavy heart, yet grateful beyond words for her life and work, Ireport that Mary Daly died this morning, January 3, 2010 inMassachusetts. She had been in poor health for the last two years.
Her contributions to feminist theology, philosophy, and theory weremany, unique, and if I may say so, world-changing. She createdintellectual space; she set the bar high. Even those who disagreedwith her are in her debt for the challenges she offered.
When I return from vacation at week's end I will post more. But I wantWATER colleagues, of which she was a stalwart one, to know this now.She always advised women to throw our lives as far as they would go. Ican say without fear of exaggeration that she lived that way herself.
May her spirit soar and her ideas endure.
Mary E. HuntHoechenschwand, Germany
Mary E. Hunt
WATER
8121 Georgia Ave. #310
Silver Spring, MD 20910 USA301 589-2509. Fax 301 5893150
RantWoman had two extended intellectual encounters with mary Daly. One time RantWoman met a bunch of Catholic Worker women at a protest. They were all very hot about Mary Daly, whom they had been referred to by their nuns!
The other encounter was in college when RantWoman and some of her peers organized a studen initiated seminar in The Theory and Practice of Nonviolence. A very game professor from the philosophy department agreed to sponsor the course. We composed our own reading list and course requirements.
(RantWoman remembers writing a lot in a class journal. Lonstanding logorrhea anyone?)
The class was somewhat less than half female. For RantWoman's alma mater at the time the ratio was notable. It was the dawn of Women's studies as an organized discipline. Somewhere midway through the course the women in class all mutinied and decided we needed to add Mary Daly's Gyn/ecology to the reading list.
The women all thought it was brilliant and wonderful. Well RantWoman thought it was a really fun read and it was good for getting a clear alternavie line of thinking into the conversation. Are there much better feminist perspectives specifically on nonviolence. Heck yes. Are there other better, less incendiary analyses of gender-based differences in conversational dynamics, constructions of social priorities, and multitudinous other question. Oh heck yes too. Did all the perky college guys trying gamely to use the book as a basis for dialogue survive the encounter. Last time RantWoman checked...
RIP
http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com/2010/01/mary-daly-death-of-feminist.html
Subject:RE: [Water-l] Mary DalyDate:January 3, 2010 6:34:05 PM EST
This is indeed a loss for spiritual women. I met Mary Daly in Boston. She was brilliant, insightful and a pioneer in feminist theology/thealogy. Her books, "The Church and the Second Sex" and "Beyond God the Father" were powerful works that changed lives as well as thought. She had a gift for wordplay and a wicked wit--one of the funniest women I've ever met (she also had two Ph.D.'s). Her Wickadery and her book Gyn/ecology are wonderful, as are her later books. She was kind--made herself part of the group she was in, not a star. She was insistent on defining and demanding women's space, something that did not endear her to the priests at Boston College, where she taught until she was 70 and where she drew students internationally who wanted to study with her. Google her name and enjoy. And say a prayer of thanks for her life.
Nancy Whitt
________________________________________On Behalf Of Mary E. Hunt Sent: Sunday, January 03, 2010 3:59 PM
Subject: Mary Daly
With a heavy heart, yet grateful beyond words for her life and work, Ireport that Mary Daly died this morning, January 3, 2010 inMassachusetts. She had been in poor health for the last two years.
Her contributions to feminist theology, philosophy, and theory weremany, unique, and if I may say so, world-changing. She createdintellectual space; she set the bar high. Even those who disagreedwith her are in her debt for the challenges she offered.
When I return from vacation at week's end I will post more. But I wantWATER colleagues, of which she was a stalwart one, to know this now.She always advised women to throw our lives as far as they would go. Ican say without fear of exaggeration that she lived that way herself.
May her spirit soar and her ideas endure.
Mary E. HuntHoechenschwand, Germany
Mary E. Hunt
WATER
8121 Georgia Ave. #310
Silver Spring, MD 20910 USA301 589-2509. Fax 301 5893150
RantWoman had two extended intellectual encounters with mary Daly. One time RantWoman met a bunch of Catholic Worker women at a protest. They were all very hot about Mary Daly, whom they had been referred to by their nuns!
The other encounter was in college when RantWoman and some of her peers organized a studen initiated seminar in The Theory and Practice of Nonviolence. A very game professor from the philosophy department agreed to sponsor the course. We composed our own reading list and course requirements.
(RantWoman remembers writing a lot in a class journal. Lonstanding logorrhea anyone?)
The class was somewhat less than half female. For RantWoman's alma mater at the time the ratio was notable. It was the dawn of Women's studies as an organized discipline. Somewhere midway through the course the women in class all mutinied and decided we needed to add Mary Daly's Gyn/ecology to the reading list.
The women all thought it was brilliant and wonderful. Well RantWoman thought it was a really fun read and it was good for getting a clear alternavie line of thinking into the conversation. Are there much better feminist perspectives specifically on nonviolence. Heck yes. Are there other better, less incendiary analyses of gender-based differences in conversational dynamics, constructions of social priorities, and multitudinous other question. Oh heck yes too. Did all the perky college guys trying gamely to use the book as a basis for dialogue survive the encounter. Last time RantWoman checked...
RIP
Holiday Obituary 1
RantWoman is still processing holiday email including obituaries for two singular women.
RantWoman offers with warm regard for a passionate woman scientist and friendly trepidation about many points:
http://www.huldaclark.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulda_Regehr_Clark
http://www.huldaclark.net/
and for another view
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Cancer/clark.html
RantWoman admires Dr. Clark for her grounding in science. RantWoman recognizes that she really did help many people. RantWoman also acknowledges the reasons her name shows up on QuackWatch. Enough said.
RantWoman offers with warm regard for a passionate woman scientist and friendly trepidation about many points:
http://www.huldaclark.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulda_Regehr_Clark
http://www.huldaclark.net/
and for another view
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Cancer/clark.html
RantWoman admires Dr. Clark for her grounding in science. RantWoman recognizes that she really did help many people. RantWoman also acknowledges the reasons her name shows up on QuackWatch. Enough said.
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