Purple Chicken Presente with FGC Gathering evening video postcards

 They're HERE. A link to a single page with links for all the event plenary events and to the morning bible study days.

FGC 2021 Gathering Evening Plenaries and Daily Bible study

The Fluffy purple chicken
still with the same Mocha mug

The Fluffy Purple Chicken, RantWoman's visual standin for Divine presence and elder for her month of almost nonstop Zoom events has  not exactly invited RantWoman to opine. RantWoman decided to trust her Light anyway. For full Light to arrive RantWoman will have to revisit the videos again but a few postcard-sized notes.

June 28th, Lisa Graustein. 

Sometimes Artists talking about their craft are deeply inspiring. Sometimes. RantWoman needs to hold the point in the lisghtand listen again.

June 30thL Niyonu Spann and the Niyoni singers.

RantWoman likes the singing a lot. RantWoman remembers really wanting to capture some pithy things in the chat but that did not happen. This clip is only 5 minutes of a presentation of more than an hour. There was an interruption in the middle that sounded to RantWoman more like an attender's technological glitch. RantWoman's screen reader offered RantWoman's never sleeping inner tech support nerd a window into first a locked meeting, a concept which sounds sort of police state, the sounds of tech troubleshooting tests and then the relief of hearing names read as people were again able to enter the Meeting. RantWoman's instinct in such high visibility stress moments is to life up the techies, to offer prayers for a swift pathway to solution.

July 1, Clinton Pettus and Friends

Clinton Pettus is an African American Friend, now a member of Baltimore Yearly Meeting. He spoke of many moments of lived experience. He also spoke of the Trust Circles Baltimore Yearly Meeting has been working with as a path to talk about racism. RantWoman means to look up more information about trust circles. The other interesting moment was Friends speaking of their own encounters with how race matters are spoken of the the US. RantWoman was struck by a woman from India who said she never thought about race ir "BIPLC" until she came to the US.

July 2 Tara Houska

Line 3 protests. Water. Powerful statistcs RantWoman needs to listen to again, Passion.

Faith without works is dead: Online Conversation on themes from Jose Santos Woss of FCNL 8/17 at 7pm Pacific

RantWoman's summer visitations to many Quaker gatherings leave her both well-fed and stimulated. They also leave her with housekeeping challenges and a jumble of seasoning about What Next.

One clear What Next? How to continue the badly needed discussion about racism in the US. RantWoman recommends: 

Jose Santos Woss Keynote at Intermountain Yearly Meeting

The ministry speaks of family background, lived experience, and evolution in faith.

Continue the Discussion online August 17 at 7 pm Pacific

Compline Masked

 RantWoman penned the following comment as email in connection with a discussion in Meeting for Worship for Business:

"Apropos the discussion today in Meeting for Business of Singing, sometimes I pay attention to the 9:30 Compline service on Sunday evenings at St Marks Cathedral. Sometimes the words remind me why I am a Quaker. Sometimes I just sink into the music and don't worry too much about the words.

Anyway tonight I am watching the livestream. Everyone is masked. They are not 6 ft apart. They are indoors. I assume everyone must be vaccinated.

Something to consider.

Compline on the Feast of St Mary the Virgin | August 15, 2021 | Saint Mark's, Seattle from Saint Mark's Cathedral Seattle on Vimeo.

In Light and Faithfulness

RantWoman

Let's talk about 3000 headed back over there....

RantWoman does not know where to start about everything to do with US troop withdrawal--after TWENTY years there--from Afghanistan so RantWoman is going to start with this BBC item that came to RantWoman via Twitter.

BBC segment on Anisa Shaheed, female journalist who won't give up

No, the video is not entirely accessible. The interview audio is in one of the languages of Afghanistan and there are subtitles in English so some readers many need sighted help.

On a more military-oriented note

Beau of the Fifth Column on what are 3000 troops doing back in Afghanistan

Think of the women. And read Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns. And then what?

RantWoman is fascinated by Beau of the Fifth Column. Okay RantWoman is so relieved to hear someone with a Southern Accent who is not spouting utter nonsense that she is going to listen to what is here and see who else has anything to say about Afghan internal politics. RantWoman also notes that Beau of the Fifth Column says he started his Youtube / social media presence at the request of public school teachers wanting to living up the teaching of history.

Neither of these pieces in any substitute for a full-scale rant and the best RantWoman can do tonight:

Afghanistan, for all its tribalism has been defeating would-be foreign occupiers for centuries.

The US  got all upset when the then Soviet Union  now Russia invaded Afghanistan. RantWoman means to go look up why the USSR invaded but thinks the why had something to do with propping up a Communist leader.

For the Russians' trouble they got the same thing the US got from Vietnam: a lot of returning troops with PTSD and serious opium addictions. They also inspired the US to team up with Middle eastern partners to create the Taliban, rabidly Islamist opponents to the Russian-back regime.

RantWoman should go look up what made the Soviets/ now Russians pull out, other than collapse of the Soviet Union under the weight of its military engagements. When the Russians pulled out the US secured an invitation from the new government elected with a new Constitution. There was also the matter of Afghanistan serving as safe haven for Osama bin Laden of 9/11 fame.Oh, and there is a geopolitics of Conoco Oil pipelines angle too. Again, RantWoman should look up the details. 

RantWoman went so far as to summon this Soviet Afghan War Wikipedia page--which she would still fact check with other sources, but says more than enough.

Maybe the details are unnecessary though:

--Think of the women, to say the least RantWoman is not overflowing with confidence that the possibility of more US airstrikes will keep girls in school and save woman from attacks on the street.

--There are plenty of Afghans who have risked their own lives and put their families at risk by serving as interpreters, translators and culture brokers for the US military and other arms of the US presence. Media reports are that their evacuation and processing as refugees is at about the same level of care and responsibility as were Iraqis who served in similar roles. In other words, lousy. 

So now what?

 

I've No More F***s To Give!

no, OF COURSE this ns not Quakerly language. 

Yes, OF COURSE readers who laugh heartily probably need to wash their brains out in the purifying power of worship, either that or respond favorably to pleas from Nominating Committee.

Enjoy.

Amazing Grace with more than 200 bagpipes; live in Berlin

Apparently RantWoman has YouTube well-trained.

"Show my something quirky!"

How about a bagpipe flash mob performing "Amazing Grace?"

"Flash mob? these people are more precisely costumed than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir!"

Point taken. Now schedule this post so people offended by the post immediately following will have something to wash their brains out with!

Done!

The Draft for Women: Beyonce, Cher, and Madonna Could Be at Risk | The A...

Women's Equality day is approaching.

Something to think about.