When to Speak Flow Chart

RantWoman stores by way of blog as filing cabinet. To RantWoman's blind readers, this is a flow chart with a series of Yes/No questions intended as one path for deciding when to speak. The text in the GIF is reasonably clear so if your screen reader does OCR you may be fine. RantWoman promises a blog post testing this questions along with some other questions in regard to actual messages which have come to RantWOman during Meeting for Worship and RantWoman's verdict about whether the message gets spoken aloud, addressed to individuals in various contexts, or further seasoned. Bear in mind the RantWoman spiritual amusement park.

Spirit Sucked Out? Straggling: still not entirely back from Annual Session

Okay RantWoman admits it: she is procrastinating and would rather be somewhere else than her current daily diet of only occasionally diverting dramas.

RantWoman is still trying to get her brain home from Annual Session, also known as Quaker summer camp. RantWoman admits, part of this mental straggling has to do with NPYM being a geographically large but very unevenly populated Yearly Meeting. Being together in person really means a lot for many Friends even if this means long distance travel or organizing ourselves to communicate a lot of the time in new media.

Remember how RantWoman wrote ad copy about "it's Quakers go to camp, Business Meeting every day?" RantWoman had a great time regardless. Here RantWoman pokes at dances of the Holy Spirit as more or less corralled into plenary business sessions and other kinds of intentional and unintentional activities.


Opening Musings:
Weighty Friend who teaches Clerking sometimes points out that one can be dealing with both issues of process and issues of content or agenda. For me the entire issue of doing business at Annual Session falls into that category. I would like to outline some observations and see where they lead.

The structure committee originally intended to facilitate both doingbusiness at Annual Session and spreading out the work of the community across more committees. I think both ARE occurring; some comments about the second before tackling the question of Business at Annual Session.

There were a couple diverse committees including many different names and Meetings created last year; from the sounds of their reports some of them did a lot of spirit-led work. A couple other committees needed to come to plenary even if all they found out is their work needs more seasoning.

It was wonderful last year to hear the number of different names of Friends led to work on the structure evaluation and the question of relationships with Friends from other groups of yearly meetings.

I have enjoyed hearing bits and pieces of the work done by the Committee on the Discipline including all the consultations the committee did at annual session this year with Friends of different ages.

I like that the Youth Committee was clear to act on pretty tight timeline and to bring forward a proposal to hire a children's program coordinator. I think exactly what gets assigned to that position needs some adjustment and I would like to have better understood some numbers points about who participates in Annual Session and the impact of adding a fourth day, but I like being able to make decisions even if uncertainty is involved! I like that there is a full slate of Friends led to work on Outreach and Visitation.

I am not necessarily distressed that a standing Peace and Social Concerns committee has not coalesced. Friends are active in so many different ways that creating a standing committee might draw energy away from all the other ways Friends are engaged. On the other hand, between the geographic coverage of the coal trains issue and the fact that Sen. Murray D WA is the chair of the Senate Budget committee, I am going to continue to season some thoughts related to FCWPP and FCNL andNPYM.

I have been VERY impressed with the work done by M&O over the past several years. Meaning no disrespect to the people newly nominated to M&O, I have a continuing concern that M&O really needs the gifts and Light of Friends from Meetings in communities of different sizes and I hope that Nominating Committee and M&O will discern about ways to work with that concern.

[Comment added as this goes to blog: RantWoman means to foward to Nominating Committee and Young Adult Friends a list of about 5 standing committees where RantWoman would be thrilled to see added the name of 1 or more Young Adult Friends.]

[Further reflections due at some point on RantWoman's experience arriving at her Meeting at YAF age but never with any strong leading or draw to connect to Young Adult Friends.]

Turning now to Annual Session, different topics might require different strategies as far as shared seasoning. Friends need to attend to a sense somehow among at least a substantial number of Friends that structure is threatening to squeeze out Spirit. What do we need to do to preserve a greater sense of Spirit moving among us?

Such Light as has arrived to RantWoman, subject of course to all manner of RantWoman-derived distortions:


Agenda items are currently presented in plenary with framing one day and action after a couple days and opportunity between for God to work and for Friends to season and talk amongst ourselves before things come back to Business Meeting.

I rode back from Annual Session in a car with two other Friends and we ALL talked about how we are only now starting to get the hang of the presentation, season, discern in plenary cycle and by extension how we hope work occurs between Annual Sessions.

One thing that I think would help Friends understand the logic of the scheduling at Annual Session is to remind Friends of this multiple times multiple ways, when stuff is emailed out, in plenaries, etc. One Friend in the car was not crazy about the term framing, but maybe something like "opening a container" would be an interesting option. The container is partly blocks of time, partly environment, plenary or otherwise, partly the contributions of Friends' seasoning. If one block of time container gets full, another is needed but if might be a different container as far as room, timeline....

A second thing I think would help is to be REALLY explicit about a time and place for people to meet outside plenary with the committee when further seasoning is needed.

--The have everyone mob the speakers' area thing that has gone on for two years is really hard for anyone with physical limitations. Having a specific time and place announced is inviting, not exclusive, maintains a sense of worshipful space not just friendly mob. The idea would be that more seasoning is frequently needed but not by a whole plenary.

--Or if a new adhoc committee is needed, having an open meeting space gives a way for people to gather in person and worship briefly even if they wind up working a lot by conference call over the next year.

A third thing to think about: A Friend from the Youth Committee mentioned that the Presiding Clerk did a conference call with the people needing to present in plenaries before Annual Session I think this in general is a good idea. Maybe I misheard as far as who participated in the call though: the people presenting already know their topics well and the question of how to present in plenaries MIGHT benefit from fresh ears. Maybe a set or two of fresh ears would just offer questions that the Clerk or those presenting could listen for. Maybe the fresh ears would suggest that some items might need more time in plenary than others. Who knows? The idea is just to have some fresh ears to think about and uphold during sessions.

This year, ironically, one agenda item where I clearly saw the seasoning between plenaries pay off was the Relations with other branches of Quakers committee, the one that got postponed because God needed to work on Saturday. I heard the co-clerk's frustration about having done a lot of work to fix concerns which arose during framing and being disappointed that they could not present on Saturday. I am sorry their co-clerks had to leave, but I think we were well-served even when the plenary attempted some word smithing. Also, RantWoman heard one Friend talk about the work of the committee over the year and how she felt it had been rewarding to stick things out and work through some rough spots as a committee.

Where would time for open committee meetings come from?
One option that comes to mind is to have one or more meeting rooms during interest group time. People might have to give up an interest group but see an additional idea.

Another option: during service project time even though that also is a conflict.

A third: get rid of a plenary.
--There is one day where there were 3 plenaries. Cut back to two and do open committee meetings, several at once during that the time that would have been the third plenary. That means people can only go to one. Oh well.

--Have a separate space or maybe use the main plenary room for open worship and people holding the work in the Light. OR do a mix of open committee and interest groups so that there are three time slots with interest group options. ALWAYS make an open worship option during Interest group times.

--Also consider some kind of intergenerational freeform craft activity where people can get together and DO and talk at the same time but also in a way that is a break from other busyness.

--Part of the thinking is explicitly to take advantage of Friends all being together and to do at least some Business in smaller groups than the whole plenary.


What would I subtract from the plenary agenda if we cut back by one?
--There should be at most 1 or two Quaker alphabet soup presentations at plenary. Everyone else gets interest group options or the Quaker fair. MAYBE spend some time thinking about ways to make the Quaker fair a little bit less of a mob scene.

--One interest group option: the Alphabet soup interest group with short presentations by several groups. Maybe ask people who present in plenary what their efforts yieleded this year and whether they are satisfied. Then use those thoughts in planning how presentatins are done next year.

--Another option, just repeat some of the interest groups and maybe create room for one or two more, especially if way were found for a third interest group time.

Another important discipline is just to focus on decisions that absolutely have to get made such as approving the budget.

Money

This year, I heard great lack of clarity about financial concerns including tradeoffs of different choices regarding length of Annual Session, whether Annual Session is covering its costs, financing Annual Session partly through assessments or expecting it to be self-supporting, how to ensure that different parts of our community are able to attend, spending from reserves and general budget balancing.

Some of the time I think it is reasonable for Finance and Legal to prepare one budget; sometimes I think it would be more helpful to present a couple alternatives with tradeoffs clearly spelled out in the first framing session and then expect people to have gotten clear about recommended choices in time to approve at a subsequent plenary.

For myself, I come from a large Meeting but I think a smaller percentage of our community regularly attends Annual Session than from other Meetings. This is a point I think about when thinking about large dues increases and how to finance Annual Session vs other choices of activity for the Yearly Meeting. I have no clear answers but I do think about it and I am grateful for time to season big changes with my Meeting in time to offer meaningful input over a series of years at Annual Session.

Thank you all for your work.

In the Light

(RantWoman)
Link to apage full of documents, including epistles from other Yearly Meetings.
http://www.npym.org/as/index.html

Marine Maj. General Smedley Butler converted

RantWoman greatly esteems unambiguous statements of one's Light. RantWoman received the following from a neighborhood peace group near her.

Marine Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler would be 132 years old today, were he still alive.

He was twice awarded the Medal of Honor, for his heroism during several combat tours in Central America. He took part in World War I, the Banana Wars, and the Boxer rebellion in China.

Consequently he became quite the anti-war activist in his older age. He even put a stop to a real-life potential military coup against F.D.R.

If Butler were around today, engagements like Iraq would have him simply astounded.

Not only is it the most violent since the middle of the American invasion, but it's also grown to become the second-leading nation for oil production in OPEC (first would be Saudi Arabia).

The irony would not be lost on Butler, who toured the U.S. in 1933 giving a speech he called "War is a racket."

Eventually he turned the speech into a book.

Here's an excerpt:

"War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.
It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."


- Rainier Valley Neighbors for Peace & Justice

Let's not have a party.

RantWoman is still picking over moments from this year's NPYM Annual Session. RantWoman is in Tells too much of the Truth mode regarding certain customs at NPYM Annual Session that it would be hard for newcomers to find or hard for parents of young children to participate in.


1. Bible Study at Breakfast.

--A Friend has a continuing leading to lead this; other Friends have continuing leadings to show up. Some years, announcements about this make it into the Daily Bulletin. This year, a table in the dining room filled by word of mouth without ever listing it in the Daily Bulletin. RantWoman thought of mentioning the listing, but then kept silent.

--This year's readings were from I Kings, chapters 17-19 or so. RantWoman GOES to Bible studey to learn more bible stories and this year's readings rocked in that regard.
--The hard for parents point: it's a time when there is no childcare. A single mom had a grandmother in her circle supervise her 4-year-old. Note to self: Accessibility to Families Committee could ask people who have been attending Annual Session since infancy or people who have brought young children to Annual Session what coping strategies they used.



2. Meeting for Worship with Attention to Chocolate

This event customarily includes both chocolate and stories of brushes with Fame.

--The event occurs on either Friday or Saturday of Annual Session and is oe of those only by word of mouth occasions that RantWoman gets invited to when she happens onto it but that otherwise no one would have any way of finding. This comment is in no way any opinion about whether eating chocolate at 10pm is GOOD for RantWoman.

--The Brushes With Fame must refer to the Brusher in some indirect terms. For instance if RantWoman were to speak of the story behind this blog post http://rantwomanrsof.blogspot.com/2013/07/spank-spitzer.html, RantWoman might says something like "my grandparents' oldest grandchild" went to school with the former governor of NY now running for other public office.

--The hard for parents point is just that Meeting for Chocolate usually occurs when kids should be headed toward bed and in fact around 10 pm Quaker Midnight, the witching hour when even many Quaker adults (not RantWoman) also head off to bed.

--Some years attendance at Meeting for Chocolate is greater than other years. RantWoman is meditating about why she even feels entitled to be invited or to have the event widely enough known for newcomers to participate in, but she does. Cope!

Scratch that. RantWoman thinks if God is supposed to be accessible to all, the chocolate should be too. RantWoman further thinks that what Friends have to offer the world is a lot bigger than Meeting for Chocolate, but if we cannot even invite ... into Meeting for Chocolate....

--RantWoman tends not to think of the event in advance for instance to contribute some chocolate. So RantWoman is putting this on her maybe try to remember for next year list.

Protest and Survive

RantWoman's febrile mind is hovering somehwere between Protect and Survive  and a slogan she is considerably more familiar with, Protest and Survive. RantWoman permits herself to wonder in passing about applicable theology but for now RantWoman is just collecting imagery

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_for_Nuclear_Disarmament

RantWoman does not have any imagery from activities on this side of the pond; RantWoman does suspect her collection of moldering protest T-shirts probabluy include a couple iterations of the slogan.

RantWoman hereby includes a link to something from her past.
http://peacecampherstory.blogspot.com/
In particular, RantWoman in the summer of 1983 was interning in our nation's capital, doing data things for campaigns to stop the MX missile. At a certain point, RantWoman became really clear that her calling was not particularly that flavor of lobbying but instead to GO TO PEACE CAMP.

RantWoman honors the anniversary of her arrival at peace camp, along with the peculiar opportunity to recognize a certain heart racing  head pounding panicky feeling sometimes when beset by many not very friendly people waving US flags on pointed sticks in her face.

RantWoman learned and learned of many things at Peace Camp.



And today, RantWoman needs an assortment of other spiritual sustenance.
Hope, Part 3
http://quakeroatslive.blogspot.com/2013/07/hope-part-3.html

My people, with links to two very different additional voices
http://questforadequacy.blogspot.com/2013/07/my-people.html



http://www.lambswar.com/practicing-the-presence/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LambsWar+%28The+Lamb%27s+War%29


http://gatheringinlight.com/2013/07/31/mysticism-revolution-or-suicide/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GatheringInLight+%28gathering+in+light%29

Protect and Survive

RantWoman thanks her public radio infostreams for calling to mind to strands of thinking from RantWoman's past: Protect and Survive, the British government's civil defense initiatives related to the possibility of nuclear attack, and Protest and Survive, a slogan adopted by many nonviolent activists in the US during the 1980's. Protest and Survive gets its own post. Protect and Survive: a sampling of web links for Friends' amusement. And PLEASE be amused. There is much of seriousness to contemplate; a healthy sense of the absurd is also a gift, especially since history has marched forward with a whole new tangle of issues.

A wonderful archive of materials: http://www.atomica.co.uk/

Some graphics for the sake of nostalgia

Hiding out from fallout under a bridge, from this archive:
http://www.missourah.com/2009/12/28/protect-and-survive-disturbing-british-nuclear-survival-videos-1980s/

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.