Jerusalem - Joan Baez

Highly on point despite geography of current Horrors in Gaza

Dear Quaker Publishers, Ebooks Pretty please!

Dear Pendle Hill (and sundry other Quaker publishers)

 

Could you please consider distributing Pendle Hill Pamphlets in pdfs or some other kind of e-book format as well as on paper?

 

RantWoman's meeting is organizing the upcoming Quarterly Meeting. We want people to read a Pendle Hill pamphlet as part of their preparation. Even though the website is kind of clunky, according to even other people besides RantWoman, we think someone can figure out ordering printed copies.

 But RantWoman does not want more paper to scrape eyeballs over, with our without magnification options. No. RantWoman craves simplicity. RantWoman would most like to find a link for an electronic version, step through use of a credit card, click a final authorization, and send an electronic copy into a device and have the document read aloud to her AND / OR have some choices about text size if she decides she does want to look at some visual rendition of the text. RantWoman is aware of numerous moral ambivalences embodied in these preferences. Tough.

 

(RantWoman notes that various recorded reading options might also be on point. RantWoman does not want to have to invent that wheel though.)

 And instead, in case anyone thinks RantWoman’s life is not already full enough of vexation and opportunities to lurch along toward spiritual perfection, here is a brief outline of RantWoman’s efforts so far:

 I could order. Website is a pain. Someone else gets to do.

 It's in paper. I want to apply screen reader.

 Oh look a scanned version, in email, from someone who already has the pamphlet! Look, RantWoman is telling you she is WILLING to pay for content, but if the scanned version will do the trick…

 Download file from email.

 

Apply screen reader.

 

Open file. Learn that need spiffy new OCR function only available in most current upgrades of screen reader software.

 

Use screen reader to read screen reader program help files to figure out what keyboard encantations are needed to use new OCR Optical Character Recognition feature which RantWoman has not used very much.

 

Insert + SpaceBar O W

 

Read help files to figure out whether it is possible to select and copy text. Oops. Lost patience with that for now.

 

Try my own scan on devices in my office. But where are the drivers and such needed to OCR the output?

 

Print and scan on OCR combo printer

 Email images to self to see whether OCR happened..

 

Still no OCR. Back to getting it from the screen reader OCR. Sure. Not today. Unplug. Get a life. At least feed the cat.

 

Oh heck. Save printed pages in case RantWoman does decide actually to scrape eyeballs ofver paper and go nuts scribbling notes in sharpie on the back.

 

Or see how much RantWoman absorbs from everyone else’s digesting.

 

Or….

 Go feed the cat!

Psychic pulse-taking: reading choices

RantWoman offers the following items from her daily media diets as a sort of psychic pulse-taking and free association exercise. RantWoman did the first NLLS download before Annual Session, wrote the blog post a short spell after Annual Session, and is clear to schedule posting a few days hence. So the material here may or may not reflect RantWoman's psychic state at time of posting.

1. RantWoman just got one of the new Digital Talking Book readers from the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped. In WA start at www.wtbbl.org  for more info. Key attractions: both books read by real humans AND the ability to control the playback speed so that it will not take 9 hours to read a whole medium-sized book. The device is also just a KICK designwise. One of these days RantWoman will go looking for a picture. In the meantime, cope.
One night after the device arrived in the mail, RantWoman sat down at the NEW computer (urk!) and tried to download books.

Since the first download, RantWoman has had another much more lovely session. Okay RantWoman was downloading memorial reading of Nadine Gordimer and Margo Adler

But the first time, did RantWoman mess around just in English? NO!
--First, RantWoman looked to see what served up in Russian: The Devils and The adolescent, by Dostoevsky. Um, NO!

--Spanish? Something RantWoman does not remember and Kafka, Metamorfosis y otros relatos. Sure. Why not. The voice is GREAT, but maybe another time with the Kafka.

--English: who to search for...Jon Krakauer, hmm, people falling down mountains or Mormons. RantWoman does not really want to read about people falling down mountains which leaves....Under the Banner of Heaven, for RantWoman's purposes also knowns as Quakers are really a little weird right now, but they've got NOTHING on the Mormons. What a thought!
Apparently, RantWoman WAS supposed to start from there: RantWoman fully intended to search for something cheerier but fell asleep before getting to it.


2. RantWoman is really grateful now both to be reading the NAdine Gordimer essays and to have scraped her eyeballs over the large print edition of Talking Book topics to highlight a bunch of things on a Maybe want to read list and MAYBE even one or two on an actually will get read list.

3. Somehow while trying to find the Not Amish QuakerSpeak video, Youtube decided to offer this one to RantWoman. RantWoman has NOT watched the whole video. Perhaps the title and a few moments at the beginning will be sufficient for others as well.

.

Mind-altering substances: worshipfully and otherwise

RantWoman is glad her body is safely home from Annual Session but is not so sure her mind has completely made the trip. Plus RantWoman always travels with the queries what am I bringing along and what am I bringing back?

As a point of departure consider closing worship.

Give oneself the option of stopping NOW and just holding in the Light.

If you are brave enough to continue...

Closing worship at #NPYM2014 was a wild ride.
1. A young adult Friend opened resolutely:" dear parental generation. Things WILL be different. They just will. God will be there, and things WILL be different. Okay RantWoman is maybe not transmitting 100%  accurately. For instance RantWoman is pretty sure global warming wandered into the message somewhere. But RantWoman definitely got the WILL BE DIFFERENT part.

2. RantWoman is aware of conversations and emotional upheavals about addiction both during and after Annual Session. Odd form of communion, that.

3. At closing worship, there were MANY references to mind-altering substances, pharmaceutical and otherwise, addiction, experimentation, self-medication. There were other strands of messages but they have receded behind the label "Buckets and buckets of popcorn." RantWoman THINKS it is well that messages on her heart are not quite ripe to make it out of her mouth in worship. But RantWoman IS clear to leave this post in the tangled state it is emerging from her fingers as well.

RantWoman did tell the presiding clerk that if worship had gone on one second longer, several dead bodies and some horses and zebras were going to show up too.

--The dead bodies are lots of RantWoman loved ones' death anniversaries in the month, and some big year anniversaries. Two of them had already shown up somewhere in worship at Annual Session, Bonnie Tinker and Mr. Nasturtiums in Salad Friend, the timid voice who first persuaded RantWoman to sign up for something from the Quaker roster and then had the misfortune to decamp to other realms on RantWoman's birthday. Sigh. To the extent that love is an addiction and one relapses from one's coping mechanisms for different reasons, RantWoman could PROBABLY fit the dead bodies into the meme of the day but for now is clear to relegate to the blogosphere.

--Likewise the horses and zebras. The basic point: RantWoman spends a lot of time around lots of zebras in her life. RantWoman also sees badly, and hit a 10-year-anniversary for seeing especially badly due to DNA lotto and midlife vision meltdown.  Even if something really is just a horse, there is a decent chance RantWoman will be finding its inner zebra. Hold that problem in the Light.

Also hold the language problem in the Light: the horses and zebras showed up when RantWoman is not under the influence of anything but her daily blood pressure meds. But readers are forgiven for wondering what the hell RantWoman is talking about.  RantWoman is not going to try to precisely specify where the quote she has in mind came from. It's about looking at horses and seeing zebras.

But back to shared mind-altering in worship. One Friend spoke of abstaining from alcohol because that is safest for a brother who has a problem with it. At one point RantWoman's mind wandered away from a long and naturally uncentered message featuring both pharmaceuticals and psychedelic self-medicating. When RantWoman's mind wandered back after a message of considerable length, much of the room was standing and the Friend with the long message finally subsided.
And RantWoman is feeling blunt:

Earth to RantWoman: you know how you recently suggested that someone who shares DNA with someone who benefits from pharmaceuticals might also benefit. Um, have you considered taking your own advice?

Earth to RantWoman: Consider your siblings. Consider how many times you exclaim, "Would someone please prescribe (RantMom) valium on my behalf?" How is it possible you have evaded ... so far...? Have you ever considered that maybe possibly....?

Um, have I considered...? Self-medicating has NO appeal; RantWoman has more than sufficient experience...; most of the time even alcohol just puts RantWoman to sleep.
RantWoman has nothing to say, not even any fresh email about RantBrother who RantWoman HOPES is still maintaining comparatively recently-found sobriety.. He appears to be alive and working and recently phoning RantMom from MT, but ...Sigh.

RantWoman definitely has a big giant "I am way better off than Little sister" thing going on. Little Sister takes a whole terminologically mind-boggling pharmacy of long-acting, short-acting, anti-anxiety, antidepressant, muscle-relaxing, anti-inflammatory and RantWoman has no clue what all else chemistry. RantWoman is, perhaps understandably, terrified of winding up in the same boat.

Even RantWoman and needed pain meds is a zone of trepidation, though a time or two when RantWoman has gotten the directions right or made strategic decisions even about over the counter options, RantWoman has felt MUCH better. Sigh.

RantWoman can definitely attest that, after a years-long schlep to get there,  appropriate use of pharmaceuticals means Little Sister's life is way more functional than without pharmaceuticals; RantWoman also notes the motivating and even insisting help from RantMom and Brother-in-Law. 

By "more functional," RantWoman means for instance the following: recently Little sister unintentionally conducted one of her endless gravity revalidation experiments. The latest one involved old wheelchair, failing seatbelt, gravity, the sidewalk near a bus stop, lots and lots of soft tissue damage and yet more distress for an already distressed body. And RantWoman will TRY not to digress about collecting data among all the zebras around her about long, long, hassle-prone efforts to replace totally worn out wheelchairs.

Little Sister wound up spending several days in the hospital, with discharge and extra dollops of chatter about delivery of long-delayed new wheelchair and hospital bed issues brilliantly timed also to take up RantWoman's birthday! Reflecting now, though,  RantWoman thinks it is remarkable how lucid and grounded Little Sister was most of the time. RantWoman considers it important that at one key point Little Sister's version of her status and issues lined up VERY well with what RantMom said. Sometimes this has not been the case. Blame the drugs?
So far, here is RantWoman's Light on the issue of medication for herself:
RantWoman has considered one category of such chemical help. Someone asked RantWoman whether she has a diagnosis; if anyone is to get paid for the mental health services RantWoman is getting, RantWoman has to have a diagnosis and is guessing what it is.The first category of chemical help would be consistent with that diagnosis.  RantWoman has to be careful because of compatibility issues with absolutely necessary eye meds. SO FAR, RantWoman manages stress with lots of walking and exercise, regular worship, vast capacity to pray at all hours and in all circumstances on the bus, occasional infusions of music and even pipe orgrans, never mind that God clearly did not talk to George Fox through pipe organs. In other words,RantWoman still has not gotten clear to research in more detail.
In the shoe store of common reasons for mind altering prescriptions, RantWoman has been mentally testing two other diagnosis options. By testing, RantWoman means kind of like shoes, testing against the compost heap in her head. RantWoman has a sense of needing to pay better attention to what her body is doing and feeling at certain points. RantWoman in meditating about the what is body doing issue realized that supplying mental health practitioner data would be on point. Still neither of the labels tested seem to RantWoman anything like a clear fit.
But RantWoman continues to massage the question, to talk to people she knows have experience with such help, and to pray. Especially Pray. And do morning stretches. And try to figure out a space for yoga and ....
Sooner or later, RantWoman's briain also better get back to town. Sigh.

Friends 1, 2, 3

Dear Friends 1, 2, 3

 RantWoman wants to thank you for your offer of time in the current difficulties. RantWoman wants to thank you, AND RantWoman is seasoning whether she needs to be true to her Light about people wearing too many hats and to say “Thank you but no thanks” or “no thanks in the form proposed.”

 RantWoman realizes that she is reconsidering something she previously said Yes to. And RantWoman is to be true to her Light and requests that         all hold the situation in the Light.

 

Friend 1

1. Thank you for the queries for the upcoming meeting. RantWoman is likely to prepare written responses to some items and is unclear that all responses will be appropriate for this blog. RantWoman needs to request clarification. RantWoman also needs to request that we adjust our process. See below.
 

2. You have another major role in our Meeting and RantWoman has prioritized a need related to that role over expecting very much out of you in your role on Care and Counsel.

 

3. When RantWoman raised a a concern in Meeting for Business about multiple Friends both wearing too many hats and repeatedly refusing offers of help, you not only were glib about your own capacity, you spoke of assumptions about others. RantWoman is NOT asking you to speak for others. In fact, RantWoman was objecting to one nomination both because of the appointing himself to wear too many hats issue and because that Friend had not taken any time to respond to RantWoman’s question either before or after the Meeting for Business in question. If that Friend cannot respond himself, how on earth can you presume to speak for him?  
 

4. You have commented two different years in Business Meeting when matters to do with RantWoman have come up. RantWoman hears these comments as “I don’t really know what is going on and I do not really know what RantWoman has gone out of her mind, (and I have not really talked to RantWoman either) but I think we should steamroll ahead anyway. It is possible this track record is the best Care and Counsel can do in its present form, but can you possibly imagine how this history might not be the best footing for a conversation about RantWoman and trust in Meeting?

5. Your queries talk about some months when RantWoman is more agitated than other months. Is it possible that some months Meeting for Business more completely discerns the will of God? RantWoman suggests we identify the months and topics associated with agitation and review minutes and other circumstances and see where we are lead from there.

 

Friend 2                               
1. You have just accepted a major Yearly Meeting role. RantWoman admires and respects you deeply and must be true to her Light about people wearing too many hats.

2. You are the subject of RantWoman’s “How do you prefer to be eldered? Posting. RantWoman recognizes that one point of community is for people to share work when people are allergic or challenged for time or….

3. RantWoman has REPEATEDLY encouraged you to STOP FILTERING and please facilitate people talking to RantWoman directly. RantWoman reminds you that she cannot read minds. She cannot read faces. RamtWoman realizes it sounds incredible, but RantWoman's capacity to miss communications is ENORMOUS. RantWoman apologizes for this problem but cannot necessarily fix it. Even if everyone says the same thing, RantWoman can interact much better with the intensity of complaints simply by hearing them in people’s own words. RantWoman also values individual conversations because they frequently come with information or digressions that allow room for improved connection even if nothing can happen immediately—or at all—on other concerns.

 

Friend 3

1. RantWoman cannot work with your schedule being the most important constraint in the selection of dates for meetings. RantWoman realizes it is presumptious to expect input for herself upstream in scheduling meetings, and RantWoman is VERY clear to do so.
 
2. RantWoman tartly notes that deferring to your schedule sends two messages RantWoman thinks neither of us want to send. First, there is the message that you are the only person who can solve whatever problem we are working with. Considering all your other involvements, RantWoman repeats her suggestion that you consider whether this one really is yours to help solve. Second,  RantWoman has problems all the time, not just when you are available to address them . RantWoman is wondering how we can get to a process that identifies a few simple principles that LOTS of people know rather than placing ANYONE in any kind of a gatekeeper role.

 

3. RantWoman appreciates that you at least GET language about disability when RantWoman uses it around Meeting; RantWoman is still clear that it is important to hear back that others get that language too and is unclear what kind of process would lead there.

4. RantWoman has eldered you more than once about circumstances where you as a person without an obvious disability make decisions based on your preferences, not on realities or preferences of people with disabilities. Again, noting this problem may be the best anyone can do for now, but it is still a problem.

 

May we all please hold these concerns in the Light and talk further.

 In hope and care

 RantWoman

Adore this!

From this week’s bulletin filler used when there is space, for example because there are not enough announcements either about Meeting activities or about change / peacemaking in our community or even exhortations to SPEAK UP and directions about how to find the footstools.

 

Worship is the adoring response of the heart and mind to the influence of the Spirit of God. It stands in neither forms nor in the formal disuse of forms; it may be with or without words, but it must be in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). We recognize the value of silence, not as an end in itself, but as a means toward attainment of the end, which is communication with God and fellowship with one another.
Faith and Practice of NPYM

 Dear World,

Channeling Miss. Piggy: Adore THIS! RantWoman is NOT doing well about adoring, adorable, adoration this week.

 As another Friend says on Facebook, I do not enjoy daily barrages of simulated aerial attack. Thank you ever so much Blue Angels.

Rantwoman IS physics geek enough to think that flying IN one of those planes might be really, really fun—if all the extra G forces and dynamics did mot clobber what is left of RantWoman’s vision. But Adoring has NOTHING to do with what RantWoman is likely to be doing abut this during Meeting for Worship or Meeting for Worship for Business. Trying to transform fury. Trying to draw the poser of God into some kind of topical thunderbolts. Tryingto cover everyone in RantWoman’s vicinity with centering Light and insulated sanity. Sure. All of those. Adoing, not so much!

 Then there would be the usual churning of RantWoman’s spiritual compost heap in the Light of God and these our Friends, inventorying and attempting to purge the newest additions to the endless list of candidates for RantWoman’s multilingual multiconfessional flogging bureau. Still not a lot of just adoring though?

 How about adoring the opportunity to grumble about repetitive Faith and Practice excerpts and exhortations  and wishing someone would MAYBE possibly see whether there might be other inspiring passages to mix in.

 

Just sayin

 

RantWoman

How Quakers Make Decisions: Quaker Speak. God DOES care about the carpet.

A holy sacred.....



...where we get ugly with one another...?