No fuss no muss sort of sudden sex offender accompaniment?

Lots and lots of things go right for a series of Meetings and a released sex offender. Released sex offender has a small trust fund and many skills. He quickly seeks out an appropriate therapist.

Also note the name of the committee involved : the Care of Meeting committee
http://www.afsc.org/friends/accompaniment-experiment-healing-justice


Mention in passing of issues to do with children

Mention in passing of people with survivor issues.

Hedningarna / Heathens Earworms

Why is a metaphysical question; RantWoman nevertheless wonders why she has Hedningarna earworms crawling around among concerns about public transit and digital inclusion.

RantWoman is unsure how Hedningarna came into her life.RantWoman recognizes that one should be cautious bisitng other cultures' folk traditions because one might wind up carrying along all sorts of associations one does not intend. RantWoman also recognizes that some in her circles will not want anything to do with a band whose name means "Heathens." And still RantWoman has earworms. Even worse RantWoman has earworms readers are invited to try for themselves without RantWoman intros to help pick! Try one. If that does not speak to you try another! It's the experience!

A Hedningarna instrumental.
http://youtu.be/gFLrrxH0st4


Nordic dance fave Pornopolka
http://youtu.be/-sHd9gGRgv8


Raven
http://youtu.be/CCHceyuKhFM


Min Skog
http://youtu.be/EX-qqPsAHtM


Tina Vieri
http://youtu.be/J8CBVcTamv8 



Tuuli
http://youtu.be/17NdsjD3FjA


Tass'on nainen, with lyrics and translation
http://youtu.be/usDgBw8oy-U

Spank Spitzer?

RantWoman presents the following seriously BAD Friend digression from her usual moral stewpot.

[Full disclosure (well, maybe not that full) RantWoman was a student at a certain Ivy League University during part of the time Eliot Spitzer was also a student. RantWoman has never met Eliot Spitzer but can attest that he was very active in the student government. RantWoman's only interaction with student government was to help student groups she was involved with panhandle the student government for money to support different speakers knowledgeable about issues and causes RantWoman was much more passionate about than the student government. RantWoman many times made successful pleas; other than that RantWoman has no opinion that she remembers of the student government.]

RantWoman learned recently that Eliot Spitzer used the name George Fox to book his room for the famous tryst that got him skadillions of dollars worth of free publicity. Okay, this was not particularly free publicity he might have WANTED, but it was free publicity.

Here  is the problem (one of RantWoman's many?): RantWoman has no idea whether Eliot Spitzer's choice of pseudonym was a conscious reference to one of the leading lights of Quakerdom or a CONSCIOUS desire to clothe himself in the mantle of Quaker integrity, but RantWoman would just like to spank Spitzer for making her have to think about the issue,even once, never mind over and over while he runs for office AGAIN.

Much as RantWoman could easily find righteous basis to spank Spitzer, she instead firmly, clearly directs her readers toward an item about double standards and the voice of women:

http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/07/we-pardon-spitzer-not-ex-sex-workers-like-me.html

Exercise, Families, Saturday Plenary, MONEY

RantWoman DOES have an I voice. If readers are lucky, RantWoman will preserve her I voice out of an edited email. This item summarizes some circumstances feeding into the famous Saturday plenary at NPYM Annual Session where God needed to rearrange the agenda as well as some points RantWoman heard or did not hear spoken out of worship.


RantWoman notes that God still seems to be organizing several points related to how NPYM conducts Annual Session in addition to the content questions connected with the items being discussed. In other words, RantWoman means to post a couple other pieces of the picture separately and pointedly encourages readers to hold all the pieces when trying to understand why Friends needed just to work with God.

At an earlier plenary the Annual Session had approved creating a 1/4 time paid position to coordinate the entire Annual Session children's program, carry out the requirements of the Youth safety policy, and find people to staff programs for all age groups at Annual Session. This proposal emerged from an ad hoc committee in late spring and was circulated among Monthly Meetings and Worship groups before Annual Session. The proposal included straightforward job descriptions and suggestions about how to fund the work but did not address some points which RantWoman speaks to below..
RantWoman's Meeting heard an announcement about it almost in passing at the very end of June Meeting for Business and the actual proposal was distributed electronically the next week with the weekly bulletin. RantWoman read the proposal including a proposal to fund the first year of the position out of reserves and a request later for about a 17% increase per capita in Yearly Meeting dues assessments and a proposal in subsequent years to add an outreach component.
RantWoman sent the clerk of the ad hoc committee some questions:

--Should the outreach component begin immediately if only so that the person doing the work can identify counts of children and of adults who might be recruited to support the work to be done?

--Should there be targeted fundraising so that assessments do not have to be increased so much, particularly for Friends who never attend Annual Session?

--Does the proposal need to take into account other issues such as the Great Recession, our Yearly Meeting's practice of changing venues every two years to reflect our geographic size, addition a few years ago of an additional day?

--How does this proposal relate to several questions about attenders, identity as members of a Friends' community, membership coincidentally being thought about as the Committee on the Discipline works to describe current practice and to revise our Faith and Practice.

RantWoman did not expect a reply to her questions any sooner than Annual Session; RantWoman did not hear her question about numbers addressed at all one way or another in the plenary discussions of the paid children's program arranger position.

RantWoman remembers speaking to support the general thought of investng in youth programs. RantWoman also remembers urging Friends to go forward in faith about money even though for her some money parts of the proposal did not compute; at the time RantWoman was assured that discussion of the Ad Hoc Committee on affordability for families committee work would address RantWoman's concerns. This turned out not really to be feasible.

The Ad-hoc committee on Family Affordability was the focus of the agenda for the Saturday plenary when God and several young Friends rose to speak. There had been various questions about how the committee proposed to work to better understand the issue, what it was trying to accomplish and other ways to understand priorities. Process, content, how to listen to movements of the Divine were all muddled in Friends' questions about the proposal and ministry on the topic.

This was the point where a Weighty Friend spoke to a sense of unease in the room and a whole sequence of Friends spoke before a suggestion was made simply to go into worship and allow Friends to speak out of worship for the remainder of the time for that plenary. RantWoman spoke of her sense that the question before the group was how best to use our resources to draw our community closer to God and to each other.

(RantWoman also led a worship group. Email among Worship Group leaders after Annual Session indicates that several of the Saturday Worship Groups, though not RantWoman's were led to speak of the plenary within their worship groups.)

Here is RantWoman's email after Annual Session, in the spirit of Minutes of Exercise edited only minimally, and offered with RantWoman's name attached even though she is NOT the Recording Clerk: This is such Light as has come to RantWoman and RantWoman is specifically NOT speaking on behalf of the whole group.


This message is topical to the paid children's program discussion and to the Family Affordability committee. Friends are welcome to ask for clarifications or to forward. I do not want to make a blanket offer, but would also be willing to discern whether I have additional increments of time to devote to this work.Other than that, I am happy just to feed my thoughts into others' work and not necessarily expect responses right away.

As a process point, I am aware that I may be suggesting things other than decisions made in plenaries and I would remind Friends that Coordinating Committee (the representative body which meets a couple times / year between Annual Sessions) might be a place to consider adjustments to charge, scope of work, objectives for the newly approved position of children's program arranger.

Here I want to outline some stuff I heard, some stuff I did not hear, questions on my mind, and see how my thinking feeds into next increments of work.


To Friend Clerk of the Ad hoc committee on children's program coordination:

I did not hear ANYTHING in my report about your committee's request for numbers. I was hoping someone else would have the same thought in plenary; they did not so I am raising it here. I asked for data about numbers of people of different ages at Annual Session different years, different locations with a couple other before and after points in my ask.

To me a bunch of people looking at numbers CAN be really valuable and that is the kind of thing I wish Friends could wade into when an issue is framed. My request may or may not have been easily doable in the time between when I made it and annual session, but it's something to think about. In fact, in the car on the way home, I jotted down some other thoughts about making an analysis dataset from historical registration data. MAYBE I will elaborate especially if anyone else is interested in this idea.

I DID NOT hear ANY mention in either the Annual Session affordability or the Paid childcare arranger discussion of the survey done at the beginning of 2012 about families and Annual Session. The survey was HOPEFULLY going to collect input from people who do not attend annual session. Since the survey was done, even the fact of there being only a few respondents might be important in thinking about next steps. I heard LOTS of people talk in plenaries and otherwise about the value of Annual Session.

I heard some amorphous thoughts about care of Quarterly meetings as an idea not attached to particular actions. On the way home a Young Adult Friend mentioned Young Adults' interest in travelling among different Quarterly Gatherings. I wonder what opportunities there are for synergy with Outreach and Visitation, information sharing....

I heard and share a concern about sucking out Spirit either with too much business or in how we do business. I will send some thoughtsabout my Quakers go to Camp / Business Meeting EVERY DAY theme and will write separate emails about these thoughts.
I heard complete lack of clarity about a whole bunch of questions to do with assessments, various charges for Annual session. I think complete lack of clarity is actually a helpful place to start. I would find it valuable for the family affordability committee at next year's Annual Session to present a few different scenarios addressing both the length of Annual Session and apportionment of costs between assessments and things charged to those who attend Annual Session and even some different per person breakouts. For instance, I think it might be fine to ask all annual session adults to help subsidize children / families.

I heard voices of Monthly Meetings saying "ask us what we need, don't just ask us to keep seasoning stuff." (This is a reference to our evolving standing committees, all of whom seem to be sending out queries asking Monthly Meetings and Worship groups to season various questions.) I do not know whether there is a disconnect about the ask here but the "ask us what we need" is important.

I heard mention of lots of interest from Monthly Meetings in educational curricula and help with children's programs. I am not sure where that comes from but I have heard it before and for instance the paid children's program coordinator job description as written does not address that concern right away. Would anyone besides me find value in reconsidering elements of the job description?


Friend, Clerk of the Ad Hoc Committee, you talk about wishing more of your Meeting would come to Annual Session.

--Why do you think they don't? Are they not interested? Does no one do anything to promote? Is it only cost or are there other barriers?

--What if anything would a paid children's program arranger position contribute to getting more people specifically from your Meeting to attend Annual Session? Do Friends feel any call to think about this question with respect to other Meetings?

--Here is a blog post with my take on some possible barriers:
http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2013/07/annual-session-ad-copy-too-late-and-too.html

--I always have a reflex to try to spell out some "how do we know it works" criteria. I know God showing up is--and SHOULD BE--hard to measure, but things like numbers, repeat attenders, finances that balance might suggest some basics.

I hope these comments are helpful. I would be interested to hear Friends responses if led but I am also happy just feeding thoughts into the work.

Thank you all for your work.

In the Light.

(RantWoman)

Memorials, evaluating

1. RIP Manila envelope.

By the end of Annual Session this year, RantWoman's manila registration envelope was full of important things like:

--the Annual Session program

--extra query sheets and the worship sharing guidelines for her worship walking group

--a half-completed evaluation form

--copies of the Daily Bulletin under new editorship

--a stack of new FCNL bumper stickers. RantWoman occasionally meets people with bumpers to put bumper stickers on. More importantly RantWoman goes about taking notes in different meetings on different legal pads. FCNL bumperstickers are among the things RantWoman in "Let our lives speak" mode likes to paste on the back of tablets. Note to self: probably there are lots of ways to get more bumperstickers.


2. RIP Evaluation?
Alas, RantWoman's manila envelope somehow did not make it back to Seattle with her. RantWoman is not afraid to attach her identity to most of her opinions. RantWoman also tends to have more to say than fits in the spaces on evaluation forms but there is no electronic option available. So in the interest of the "how do you do that" thread of Quaker gatherings, RantWoman feels called to share more evaluation elements here.


3. "Let the dead bury their dead?"
Today's topic: Meeting for Worship for Memorials.

This year Meeting for Worship for Memorials bumped against the plenary where God needed to rearrange the agenda. RantWoman PROMISES to say more of what came to her from that but today she needs to start slowly. The main point for now: Meeting for Memorials was shorter than average anyway.

This year instead of reading the full memorial minutes, the Meeting for Worship for Memorial opened with someone reading the list of names, which for various reasons including a very recent death of someone who was not a member wound up not being complete. RantWoman is glad to have heard names added. RantWoman was glad to have a sense of time and space for Friends to offer more individual ministry in remembrance. RantWoman  (urk!) came in late and was grateful someone reread the list of names again towards the end of the time.

And...

RantWoman misses the "let our lives speak" aspects of reading Friends' full memorial minutes. RantWoman often LIKES the things she learns about people's lives, even people she does not know. Posting memorial minutes in tiny print on a wall in a noisy plenary room is not a substitute. RantWoman definitely assumes she is not the only one put off by tiny print on a wall or who just needs to hear something out loud and held by the whole group.

Also, RantWoman thinks offering at least something from each Friend's memorial minute would create a fuller sense of these Friends being present to those who attend. RantWoman wonders whether it MIGHT be possible to read a paragraph or two from each minute at the Meeting for Worship for Memorial.


4. RantWoman is seasoning a list of tweaks to suggest about various aspects of the Annual Session program. One that comes to mind is just to have a space somewhere during every time slot for open worship. RantWoman MIGHT think to put notebooks full of memorial minutes, epistles, and state of society reports in this room on a table so that people might have an opportunity to sit, read, hold worshipfully.

There.

Thank you for reading.

In the Light.

RantWoman

YAR on Trayvon Martin

From Young Anabaptist Radicals, about the Trayvon Martin verdict, with other references

 http://young.anabaptistradicals.org/2013/07/21/groanings-too-deep-for-words-the-zimmerman-verdict-and-the-dividing-wall-between-us/

Random Reflection Rising from NPYM Annual Session: Let's have a Party?

RantWoman thanks a Junior Friend in her worship-sharing group for the message from which the leading to pose this question arises:

If becoming a Quaker automatically came with your choice of tatoo and location for the tatoo, what would you tatoo and where on your body would you tatoo it?

RantWoman is VERY high. RantWoman's nerves are zinging with ideas.


God(dess) showed up at NPYM Annual Session in the middle of Quakers go to Camp Business Meeting EVERY DAY. God(dess) showed up in the voices of young adult Friends who have grown up in our Yearly Meeting, in the form of seasoned Friends who spoke Truth, who held silence, and who worshipped together. God(dess) showed up in business between plenaries, in learnings, and in muddle.

God(dess) showed up in an Interest Group about the Quaker Language Barrier, that sociological / anthropological line between jargon fetishism and group coherence. The group did only some on Quakerese and did even more about some of the same big Meeting challenges in RantWoman's Meeting: transportation, scheduling meetings, varying comfort zones about electronic communication. Knowing one is not alone is a mixed blessing.

God(dess) showed up Sunday when Breakfast Bible Study could not stay on topic. Topic was I Kings and all sorts of dramatic doings with Ahab, Elijah, Elisha. RantWoman can ALWAY stand to shore up her Biblical knowledge but God(dess) saw fit to require Annual Session to share our dining space with Really Different people headed to a classic car show. Blame the car show people? Slaughter a yoke of oxen? Oh, there are still 11 more yoke so we're still rich and let's have a party. Jesus comes back after, as one group participant put it, "getting tortured to death:"  don't messa around about revenge; let's just have a party (?!?!?!)

RantWoman hopes other bloggers who were there will provide a more detailed account of the exact turn; RantWoman wants to concentrate on sharing the Light which has come from the plenary, subsequent events at Annual Session, and the ministry of car ride conversations.

Regarding the car ride conversations, God(dess) has a twisted sense of humor:
http://rantwoman.blogspot.com/2013/07/five-volcanoes-65-hours-and-finally-home.html

The ONLY excuse for it to take 6.5 hours to go from Forest Grove to Seattle is that God MUST have needed more work out of Annual Session! Stay tuned.