Today's #NDEAM meditation, at risk of telling too much of the truth.
Please forward if you know anyone in the target age group who might beinterested.
...a faith-based lobby group, but people definitely do not have to be .. to apply. ... signed onto the Disability Mobility Initiative and the recent effort in support of continuing to have opportunities for remote testimony. The website lists some past accomplishments and the 3 working groups list issues they are currently working on. Participants in this program would be working with someone involved in one of the working groups.
RantWoman does NOT promise the experience would be free of ableism, microaggressions, condescending or patronizing comments. RantWoman does promise there are people who care, people who get it at least some of the time, and even people willing to learn. In other words, a realistic workplace situation.
...if this is the right opportunity for someone in the disability community. Because the opportunity is all remote, maybe it's also a good match for someone east of the mountains.
And yes, there is a stipend, not a huge one but greater than zero.
This program of Quaker Voice brings young adults into contact with issues in the state legislature, encouraging their active engagement in the legislative process in ways that reflect Quaker values. The model for the program is the Advocacy Corps of the Friends Committee on National Legislation.
Quaker Voice recruits the Voices among young adults ages 16-30 and trains them on the legislative process. Each Voice joins a working group, develops background materials, and tracks legislation on an issue. The Quaker Voice legislative advocate provides training for the participants, along with Quaker Voice citizen advocates, on the state legislative process and lobbying visits. The YQVs extend the capacity of the working groups to follow issues but they do not engage in lobbying as part of the program.
Who is SCYMF
Check out the People link for a list of congregations at SCYMF website
From the Contact Us page
Join us in building an inclusive coalition that uses Quaker process to discern who we are, to find common ground, to help us identify the continuing steps in our life together as part of Sierra-Cascades Yearly Meeting of Friends.
The Quarterly Gathering
Friends: It’s time to register for our October 23, 2021 Zoom Quarterly Gathering. Registration is required since we will not be publishing the Zoom link to the public. Send your name, email address and church/meeting affiliation to registrar@scymf.org or reply to this email. The schedule for our Quarterly Gathering is:
Saturday, October 23rd
10:00 to 10:45 am – Music and worship led by Ruba Byrd, Eugene Friends
11:00 am to 12:30 pm – Workshops
12:30 to 1:30 pm – Break for lunch
1:30 to 3:45 pm – Business session
4 to 5 pm– Small group sessions
Workshops
1. Singing Your Prayers
Workshop Description:
We will create a safe space to experience different ways to pray through spontaneous singing. We’ll explore prayers of joy, gratitude, grief, and healing for ourselves, others, and the world. You can choose to sing in your own private space, or with a few others (or both). ALL levels of singing ability are welcome. Just be open to listening to the Spirit and letting song-prayers arise.
Workshop Provider:
Ruba Byrd is the pastor of Eugene Friends Church, a faith community where singing together has been sorely missed this past year! She’s learned some nourishing ways to sing together on ZOOM and looks forward to sharing them.
2. Why we cannot be silent about Palestine
Workshop Description:
A brief history of Palestine and then discussion guided by participants' interest on a variety of possible targets including home demolitions, US unrestricted aid to Israel, the arrest and detention of children by Israeli forces, annexation, illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank, Boycott-Divest-Sanction, Apartheid.
Workshop Provider:
Cynthia Gilliam is an Arab-American advocate for Palestinian human rights. She formerly attended Reedwood and West Hills Friends. She is affiliated with Multnomah Monthly Meeting in Portland, Oregon, which is a member of North Pacific Yearly Meeting.
3. Approaching mission from the bottom up - building friendships and ministry through language learning
Workshop Description:
We will examine non-colonial missions - approaching missions as a learner. We will discuss five roles that follow the model of Jesus as we build cross-cultural relationships.
Workshop Provider:
Dr. Betty Sue Brewster and her late husband Tom are the authors of the LAMP book (Language Acquisition Made Practical) and have taught language-culture learning to cross-cultural workers in over 7o countries around the world.
4. What is People Care All About?
Workshop Description:
This workshop introduces the work of the SCYMF’s People Care Committee, starting with a brief background of the committee’s origins, and an explanation of our work. We will then lead participants in a spiritual care exercise. Then the workshop will explore ways churches/monthly meetings provide care to people in need of healing. We hope to hear participants’ thoughts about how our committee can support that work
Workshop Provider:
Norma Silliman attends Camas Friends and is clerk of People Care.
RantWoman is no longer a #link21 Virgin. RantWoman also needs another exercise in geeking about about walking directions / wayfinding. RantWoman will also be too happy to remind reders both of her personal fixation with sidewalk issues and of her ability to talk about the connections between sidewalks, climate change, racial equity...
Remember, this is blog as Quaker journal. Polish and sequential think are not necessarily to be expected.
RantWoman forgot to mention that she is THRILLED that Link is finally open. RantWoman remembers conversations in the early 2000's about routing of the train and siting of the University station. The 2004 discussions included one version that would have connected tracks somehow to the I 5 ship canal bridge and then run an offramp right through UFM property. That option proved unfeasible on multiple grounds. So at long last we all get to be thrilled with the new tunnel and station location.
RantWoman is likely to continue just to ride the bus to the U district. However, if RantWoman just wants to go visit RantMom, the train may be just the thing.
RantWoman's previous meditations on travel options and walking routes
It was a cloudy and cool morning. RantWoman decided just to take the train for a first visit to the UNIVERSITY Station.
It was a cloudy and cool morning and RantWoman did NOT get hit by a very quiet (Boo electric cars) SUV making a left turn into a fast food restaurant driveway.
It was a cloudy and cool morning and as is consistently to be hoped the needed elevator was working.
All hail Mariners fans. RantWoman wondered why the train into downtown was full. The train emptied out a lot at Stadium station. Ah yes. Header to the playoff or no? No it turned out later, but that is as much as RantWoman understands of this point in the baseball season. RantWoman understands that the ability to be conversant about baseball can bean important social lubricant. RantWoman also believes God is fine about RantWoman having deficits in this area; RantWoman is unsure about many humans.
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| Selfie |
The ride to the U District was uneventful. It's much easier to find one's way around a new thing if there aren't crowds and crowds of people. RantWoman easily found her way to the NE 43rd St exit. The first corner to the west, Brooklyn Ave has no curbs but instead quarter circle installation of yellow domes on all four coners of the intersection. RantWoman has no idea what mobility teachers tell totally blind people about ways to deal with this practice, but there it is.
RantWoman decided on a whim to start with Google's suggestion to walk S on Brooklyn Ave, but RantWoman planned only to walk as far as NE 42nd St and then walk her own directions to Meeting.
Brooklyn Ave NE is indeed MUCH quieter than Roosevelt way NE. RantWoman walked S on the west side of the street. The sidewalk is indeed acceptable, new for part of the block and acceptable all the way to the end of the block and NE 42nd St. This week the construction fencing along the N side of 42nd between Brooklyn and 12th Ave NE has been pulled back away from the sidewalk so it's easier to walk without fear of tripped over the bases of the fencing.
RantWoman should tweak some details of her previous post above but the main point is that RantWoman found a routing that is more elegant in RantWoman's eyes than the one suggested by Google.
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| The Meetinghouse |
Later on a return trip to the station, RantWoman retraced her route to NE 42nd st and the walked N on the W side of 12th Ave NE. It's a pleasant walk with grass on the L side of the sidewalk most of the length of the block though there is one driveway between buildings toward the N end of the block.
RantWoman does not recommend having to cross NE 43rd here because it seems like sometimes there could be a lot of traffic and there is no traffic signal. RantWoman did successfully cross both directions at ND 43rd and did find the station for the next leg of her trip.
From Gleamings: In-Person Brown Bag Lunch
October 3
The Community Building Committee is organizing a brown bag lunch for the greater UFM community outdoors at the meetinghouse. It is open to everyone who wants to attend, even if they do not attend in-person worship. We’ll gather on October 3 at the rise of 11:00am Meeting for Worship. We have elected to do this brown bag style (i.e., bring your own lunch) so that there is minimal prep and clean up.
This is also just before the Pastoral Care Committees retreat, so we encourage those attendees to join. We hope to see you there!
Oh Hell. RantWoman was already feeling all trippy and time-travel-ly about a previous pastoral care committee when what to RantWoman's wonky and variably itchy eyeballs should appear but the above announcement. RantWoman is not sure the announcement is an invitation to a historical inventory of many Do Better Next Time themes, seasoned with the terms life-changing medical events, vocational rehababilitation and faith communities as SOMETIMES fertile grounds for the kind of recovery implied by rehabilitation.
RantWoman found it frighteningly easy to rattle off just such an inventory. RantWoman will now season whether to dump here, to email selected participants, or just to leave things be.
But first RantWoman offers Light as it arrived in connection with Quarterly meeting, in connection also with time and Zoom connectivity allowing RantWoman to sojourn among many geographical clumps and theological flavors of Friends, but mainly her local Quarterly Meeting.
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| Take me to your virtual Quarterly Meeting. Try, try, try to catch up on sleep |
One of RantWoman's time travel zip back and forth hiccups involved communications about accessibility matters for an event to be held before a previous Quarterly Meeting. One Friend in the picture, notorious for in RantWoman's experience being hard to reach, perhaps not realizing what the conversation needed to be about suggested holding the needed conversation at Quarterly Meeting. Perhaps for now we file that history with the messages that kept coming to RantWoman AT this year's Quarterly Meeting about the need to figure out how to get along better in order to deal with climate change.
RantWoman has written previously of how Quarterly Meeting drew on the work of Joanna Macy. One exercise sent people away to worship for 20 minutes with some non-human being and the let Zoom pair people up to talk about the conversations. RantWoman asked one Friend afterward and that Friend shared that she had talked to a cherry tomato plant that had borne enough fruit to feed the Friend's household as well as many neighbors, but that the cherry tomato plant was done for the year.
RantWoman was paired with a Friend whose cherry tomato plant had gotten all spindly and dried up but had borne some fruit. The plant told the Friend that its pot was too small and the Friend had not watered it enough, but it too was done for the year and the Friend would do better next year. RantWoman is grateful for mention of eyes and glasses and Zoom and also for resonance with "Do Better Next Time" themes even though RantWoman is CRYSTAL clear that some of the Do better next times need more people that the Zoom pairing.
Long after the exercise was done, RantWoman had a conversation with a cherry tomato plant she had grown on her balcony, years ago when RantWoman had a building manager who tolerated growing things on balconies. RantWoman's plant also had too small a pot, got spindly, bore a little fruit. Mostly it told RantWoman that 4 floors up there are no pollinators and RantWoman didn't hand pollinate well. In the realm of do better and new openings, RantWoman realizes there are new staff and as the community comes out of COVID, maybe some energy could coalesce about growing and respectfully tending plants in big pots on the patio. That would require serious neighbor skills. But it could be better than now.
RantWoman, to be honest, did not even note the words of anyone else's cycle except her own.
RantWoman stated an intention to continue to be a pain in the ass about accessibility and disability inclusion.
The voice of doubt: What makes RantWoman think she can do good trouble? This Friend has previously basically also used the term "good trouble" about exactly this topic. The short answer: RantWoman is doing plenty of trouble. Now can we try and get to Good trouble? The longer answer: the call does not go away even when RantWoman desperately wishes maybe she could just stop caring.
But RantWoman, National Disability Employment Awareness Month? Some of this soap opera is definitely not up to what you would like to expect of yourself, right? Um, well, if workplaces were up to the standards RantWoman hopes the entire Diversity Equity Inclusion industry would also disappear. Since we're not talking ideal on either side and the problem is NOT GOING TO DISAPPEAR, let's keep at it.
Yeah, yeah and There are still two voices: Disabled people should have equal access to jobs and fulfilling careers. Also, no one's ability to survive should depend on their value to capitalism?
Does RantWoman have a clearness committee? RantWoman burst out laughing. Life in community is one long clearness committee? That is a good thing considering RantWoman's experiences with actual clearness committees. But maybe part of Good trouble is to help grow community capacity to DO actual clearness committees, to DO BETTER NEXT TIME.
The Ancestor Voice left RantWoman with the words: less belligerent more civil as well as questions. Does RantWoman really INTEND to be a pain in the ass (or is that a side-effect of the call)? The ancestor voice suggested aiming for humor, lightness. RantWoman's immediate reaction "there's NOTHING funny about...(and RantWoman WILL in fact flirt more with standup comedy)."
RantWoman also has ancestor voices in her head that make her say, Friend, elder, you keep missing my point and ducking things RantWoman is pretty sure would help but let's try for teamwork to share the load. In that vein, RantWoman is grateful to have spent all week zooming with early to mid-career professionals speaking climate change fighting for equity building inclusivity nurturing Truth to their professional elders.
Apparently RantWoman did not make clear enough that the call to make Good trouble starts closer to her community and THEN extends outward. The Voice of the Future said past generations have screwed up transportation royally. Thank you for recognizing need to change trajectory about how to get around without less price for the planet. Perhaps it has to be okay that nothing had particularly made it out of RantWoman's mouth about generations of disability experience and the lurches and faltering steps of progress and learnings and relearnings and continuing revelation. RantWoman will also grab the phrase "stay in relationship" and not worry that RantWoman had in mind many spheres when voicing her intentions.
RantWoman has been sitting for a long time with how easy it was to pen a "Do better next time" email, with comments from various Friends and with what to say before today's pastoral care retreat.
RantWoman, why you gotta post this stuff all over your blog?
Because one on one conversations are exhausting.
Because the community needs to be held in the Light.
Because George Fox said be patterns, be examples but did not say if you are being bad examples, just Stop it. NOT everything is a bad example but there are some TERRIBLE moments and RantWoman does NO ONE any favors by pretending people are going to figure that out on their own.
Because one conversation about burning bridges made RantWoman think of a job interview question where the right answer was burn the box, burn the box of limited thinking. Be open to new thinking. The first part of a definition of accessibility is people being willing to talk about it to open their minds. Besides, the University Bridge near meeting is a drawbridge. Drawbridges go up and down.
Okay, okay, RantWoman is going to distill two emails and put the most incendiary language in a cover email.
I exactly get that some of my communications have been AWFUL. I feel very badly that more than one thing I would characterize as trying to grow community awareness or capacity has been taken personally and not succeeded as intended. I get that a number of people do not fee appreciated and in a sense they are correct: there are points I absolutely DO NOT appreciate and think the community can do better about. I am glad the world is bigger than a number of individuals and I am NOT CALLED TO GO AWAY
--various other professional and family experiences, some of which I can predict flare up for different reasons at different times of the year and for other reasons.
....
I am grateful for a response any response and the Friend who responded offered several comments that made me want to expand and clarify a few thoughts.
1. I have a therapist. She is very good. I see her as often as I can afford and pay out of pocket in preference to the options covered by my insurance. In terms of working out complex situations therapy timeis limited and not the right venue for circumstances involving otherpeople.
2. Friend, I asked about a process described as "Composting for Renewal" because people make choices about who to speak to about concerns and because then I get to discern what needs to happen further with the information supplied.
3. There are several points here that relate to officers responsibilities and nonprofit basics. I will say more about what I have in mind in another message
4. The phrase Truth and Reconciliation came up in FLGBTQC worship. It seems on point along with the general point that when someone makes accommodations requests, the time to deal with them is promptly, not when some other organization muddles through a process. I would welcome an invitation to expand on what I am talking about.
5. I said September is hard for me and simply holding in the lightmatters. That was one of the points behind my message at the close of worship at QM but not of course the only point since I mentioned others who need to be held in the Light.
And RantWoman AGAIN posts the following links
On Eldering, to be held in the Light
And finally, this week's item from Johan Maurer
A post on conflict, worship, community, history
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