Registration now open for NPYM Annual Session, link with detour to Planet RantWoman

Warning: unQuakerly language may occur. RantWoman is confident God can handle it. RantWoman invites readers disquieted by what language comes to comment but readers may instead want to consult their understanding of Spirit and consider other options for dialogue.

For readers who are not down for another wacky excursion to Planet RantWoman, RantWoman generously a shortcut bypassing RantWoman's reflections NPYM Annual Session Webpage 

RantWoman reads from the email announcing the opening of registration for the 2022 NPYM Annual Session:

Registration is now open for North Pacific Yearly Meeting’s 2022 Annual Session.

THEME

The theme for this year is Deep Hope in Optimystical Times and our Friend in Residence is Carl Magruder, palliative care chaplain and “cradle Quaker” from Pacific Yearly Meeting.  This is a time when we need to hear about “deep hope,” to be reminded that the Spirit is present and at work among us, and that we can listen for what we are called to do.  “What does it mean to live in a multifaith, multiethnic, multicultural society? It means celebrating difference, engaging radical inclusivity, and a continued dedication to Truth-seeking. Hate, bigotry, fear, xenophobia, and nationalism have no place in the beloved community.”

We will be doing that work when we consider several minutes brought to us from different meetings and seasoned throughout the yearly meeting and by quarterly meetings.  

RECOMMENDED READING

Carl Magruder recommends that we prepare for Annual Session 2022 by reading Thomas Kelly's A Testament of Devotion, 1941.  Copies are on the shelves at many meetings and in many Friends homes, and used copies are available so we should be able to borrow or acquire a copy without difficulty and expense.

"Optimystical time?" WTF is that? 

RantWoman, just get registered. Try to trust in that continuing revelation you are always talking about.

"...we can listen for what we are called to do.  ..."

RantWoman, I am pretty sure God would not call you to do  THAT (fill in the blank).

Please FriendS, let us listen further. RantWoman does not MEAN to make people's heads explode. Weill okay, RantWoman MIGHT enjoy a little too much. The point is RantWoman cannot apologize for needs she cannot help, needs that are the same at work--where SOME Friends might have opportunities to learn points useful for living in a single standard of Truth, in faith community, while trying to have fun.

"Multifaith?" 

What do we mean? Do we maybe need some vocabulary lessons here???? 

Ableism anybody? Ableism? Is "multicultural" supposed to cover it? 

Hate, bigotry, fear, xenophobia, and nationalism have no place in the beloved community.

Again, Ableism anybody?

And what happened to looking for that of God in everyone? RantWoman is called to ask for one thing while her inner blowtorch chews on a great moment from awhile ago when a young Friend presumed to tell RantWoman she shouldn't be somewhere, got huffy when RantWoman suggested the young Friend consult with God about the issue and then disappeared from any an all forms of communication with RantWoman. 

Friend, WHAT are you afraid of? RantWoman asks partly because RantWoman has heard comments from multiple directions such as "That Friend gets upset easily." To say the least, the road to "beloved community" is rocky.

But RantWoman, why you gotta put this stuff all over your blog? aren't there such a thing as clearness committees? Apparently not if people RantWoman asks for help either don't know the concept in the first place or wring their hands--FOR YEARS--claiming a clearness committee won't do any good. Or keep citing schedule conflicts. Or repeatedly define problems more narrowly than RantWoman has to. Or in general have LOTS of company about ...

RantWoman, you could just STAY HOME.

And miss all the FUN? Nope. Just add Quakerland to all the places RantWoman gets called, as a very educated white person, to say some version of "...and disability..." Besides, if everyone is lucky, RantWoman may be too busy during this summer to rattle everyone's cages because she will be otherwise consumed  bringing Quaker obstinacy, er centeredness(?), to a project that will ripple far beyond Quakerdom.

Next we get to the suggested reading: A Testament of Devotion by Thomas R. Kelly. Published in 1941 and now Out of print. 

Surely, it says right here, there are copies in Meeting libraries or homes? 

What if someone is new to Quakers and has no idea even who to ask?

Also, um, Out of print suggests paradoxically available only in print, through multiple used book channels if one wants to own a print version of their own. But, nope, no ebook. No Audio version. RantWoman has not checked every source of audio book she knows of but it definitely is not findable in the one RantWoman uses most often.

Don't Quakers believe in continuing revelation? Hasn't anyone written anything topical since then?

Cue Youtube

Mahalia Jackson: Give me that old time religion

The Heartland Singers: Give me that Old Time Religion

The Macedonia Youth Choir Gimme that Old Time Religion in 1987

The Plantation Singers: Gimme That Old Time Religion

Dolly Parton Give Me That Old Time Religion

Jim and Jesse and the Virginia Mountain Boys Give me that old time religion

John Cash et al Give Me That Old Time Religion

Pete Seeger: Give Me that Old Time Religion

RantWoman What are you trying to say here, like maybe find some way to read as asked? Isn't there someone who might read aloud to you? 

RantWoman is NOT ready to deal with that question.

RantWoman,  Just STOP. The playlist is getting repetitive. Don't you know when to quit? Doesn't this playlist belong more with your buddies the Blind Prayer Warriors? 

--The playlist is NOT repetitive. Listen carefully to the different versions. Extra credit if you recognize the Paul and Silas new Testament reference.

--RantWoman quits when God says to. Since RantWoman can't see people squirming and grimacing, it's prolly gonna take longer than you think it's 'sposeta. 

    Besides, RantWoman has been known to go all Testimony on Equality at odd moments. If one Friend gets to go on, as once happened during Meeting for Worship, about forgiveness, for 2.5+ minutes not counting the time before RantWoman started timing and never say a word about WHAT is to be forgiven or what is to be learned, RantWoman is not even going to apologize for claiming more than a different Friend's wish for 30-second soundbites.

--God is bountiful and usually delivers RantWoman words out loud around the Blind Prayer Warriors. RantWoman is pretty sure they can pray fervently around one large Protestant denomination and around a LOT. And RantWoman is not sure they would go for the Pete Seeger version. Hold that point in the Light.

RantWoman, we get your point about out of print means only in print but continuing revelation does bring search engines and an assortment of bite-sized excerpts.

Quotes on the Friend of Silence site

Friends Journal article 5-1-2011

Heavily documented piece on Emerging Scholars Network

Will these tidbits be sufficient?

Um, RantWoman will try to make the most of whatever bits others digest.  RantWoman has been to grad school and knows how to go on at length. Plus if some other nuggets make it into the Daily Bulletin or into worship sharing queries, that MAY be plenty of spiritual sustenance anyway.

But LOOK. Waggling the search engine just a little bit more yields

 PDF version available through a page called scribd

RantWoman, can you read this? Can you? Can you?

1. Scribd is an interesting looking services. Readers can get 14 days of free reading and downloads and then the services wants $11.99 PER MONTH. cancel anytime before the fees kick in. Word.

2. The actual download is an image file, two book pages per PDF page. The print is too light to be easily readable even if RantWoman invokes one of her blow things up, oops, screen enlargement tools. Text will not be  readable by a screen reader without further OCR and reformatting.

Stay tuned.

Ooh, Ooh. Ooh. Another PDF and one the screen reader even easily reads

From QuakerThomasKelly.org

The screen reader reads it. Now, as to all the other things that make it easy to navigate and easy to match up what one reads with what other read. Ummmm

Fascinating arrangement of 'Hallelujah' performed at Madeleine Albright's funeral, with light for more local memorial matters

RantWoman offers this musical meditation on the occasion of the memorial for the Friend who first recruited RantWoman to serve as Recording Clerk.

RantWoman thinks poetry was more this Friend's jam than music, but music is what RantWoman has.



RantWoman is also meditating about how, somewhere in the course of many memorial intervals, there is just going to be a family fight. 

Michelle Obama n her book "Becoming" writes of what she calls her first and only adult family fight with her brother over their dad's passing. RantWoman is happy to tell anyone who wants to listen or who wants spiritual accompaniment for their own grieving about a couple moments while memorializing RantDad.

So WILL RantWoman grab opportunities that come with the occasion?????

Stay tuned?

What RantWoman REALLY wants to do is send sincere condolences about circumstances she is not supposed to know or care about:

--A friend recently lost her mother.

--A friend's brother was killed in a car crash.

Stuff RantWoman DOES know about.

-A Friend was able to be present at her grandmother's passing. 

--A Friend and two other Friends' mothers are in hospice

There is still PLENTY to figure out about LIFE and RantWoman is clear in the call to keep at it.

Indigenous Assimilation Centers: Reading that IS NOT out of print and IS available in a format accessible independently

RantWoman is seasoning a REALLY GOOD RANT about "radical inclusion" that draws on a book that is out of print and only findable online in a PDF with additional hurdles ahead of an actual download.

In the meantime, RantWoman commends to Friends considering witness with and about indigenous people

Bureau of Indian Affairs report about Assimilation Schools--Part 1 

For everyone with a long list of reasons to be disgusted with the current administration, REPRESENTATION MATTERS. Thank you to Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland for bringing this report to light. RantWoman is sorry it is so badly needed.

Worship with Kyiv Friends; also Bringing the truth to indoctrinated Russians | Misha Katsurin

RantWoman is surprised and humbled by worship late late at night Seattle time with Friends in Kyiv.

Tonight: seven Friends,, mostly silent except for a prayer about bombs raining down in eastern Ukraine.

Other bits offered in hope and realism

The Telegraph podcast for 5/23: wheat and possible russian debt

Jacinda Ardern on NZ helping Ukraine

Boris Bondarev resignation

Anthony Beevor on Russian History

Tearing oneself away from....and warming up for Annual Session

 This item has been gestating since March. Just stop there RantWoman.

Speaking (only partly)
of cycles of growth and renewal
as tended by
Nasturtiums in Salad Friend

RantWoman has been bathing herself more than is healthy in the muddied info streams that are war in the social media age. Rather than add half-digested commentary to the media glut though, RantWoman is going to take an early look at ...summer vacation, aka NPYM Annual Session, this year hybrid and moved from Missoula to Monmouth OR. RantWoman feels a separate rant coming on about hybrid but tonight RantWoman is going to offer a few off the cuff comments about items to be seasoned as currently shown at NPYM

RantWoman's initial draft probably needs to pass through a snark and sarcasm filter but in the event that does not occur before RantWoman hits Publish, PLEASE hold this in the Light.

And if the Snark and Sarcasm filters don't take, WILL RantWoman get to a voice of "Criticize to Lift Up, not to tear down."

Here we get to "RantWoman, are you just personally irritated by specific individuals and WHAT is needed to hold growth and learning????"

Okay, okay can we at least aim for "what will help nourish fruitful discussion before and at Annual Session?

Comments offered more or less in order of RantWoman's capacity quickly to say something concise and hopefully constructive.

1. GOOD ON YA to everyone connected with posting things IN FORMATS RANTWOMAN HAS THE TOOLS TO ENJOY and in time for people to read, reflect, and HOPEFULLY have more centered discussion than when everything is handled in a rapid-fire slam-bam who shot Sam rush either in person or in Zoom boxes.

2. Epistle Supporting Amending the 13th Amendment

RantWoman so wants just to celebrate the Light of the young Friends who have done the research behind this epistle. RantWoman wants Friends to consider carefully how to distribute this epistle and how Friends might take up the work this epistle hopes to evoke. RantWoman is VERY humble about "great idea" and "no, I personally cannot add very much work on it to my plate, but please receive the bearers well and listen attentively to their ideas."

3.Minute on Ending hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Excellent Quakerese. It is trite to say nobody ever asks for MORE hate crimes against anyone. RantWoman's bigger problem with this minute based on an informal RantWoman observational census of Asian American and bicultural families she is aware of in local communities is that the minute totally erases these Friends. RantWoman would like to ASK them what wording would matter and then to suggest some kind of addition about we stand with ... in our own Quaker communities and in the larger society. RantWoman does appreciate the specific ally behaviors suggested.

4. Minute in support of the Quaker Statement on Migration

Brief, precise about what action is requested and on-point. So how many hours can discussion take up in Meeting for Business? NO taking bets. Remember Quakers don't gamble.

5. Report of Earthcare Minute revision discussions

Again excellent Quakerese. Still, RantWoman is having some Quaker process hiccups. 

For one thing, RantWoman herself is all about saving the planet with better sidewalks, less driving and more urban greenspace. So far RantWoman has not sufficiently honed the kind of elevator speech that might easily be used to elicit more than blank stares from many people who advocate from a faith community perspective.  RantWoman admits to being a little insufferable in her zealotry about less driving, especially around people who drive more than is remotely fathomable to RantWoman and arrive at meetings all flustered and irritated because of terrible traffic they have just been out contributing to. RantWoman is grateful for some around her who have the gift to hear when RantWoman intones one of her mantras about "safe continuous travel routes for all modes."  RantWoman HOPES she has not reached abolitionist talking to slaveholder level of contentiousness but sometimes RantWoman surprises herself in such realms. This minute is not necessarily the vessel RantWoman would seek for talking about these challenges of hers. 

Next, the Friend who has offered to collect more thoughts a weighty Friend in many rolodexes as living commitment to nonviolence but this Friend is somehow missing important discussions in their own meeting. Although RantWoman is at present definitely not supposed to know or care about the life of this Friends Meeting, RantWoman specifically remembers said Meeting, in conjunction with the opening of new Light Rail stations in the neighborhood approving a minute embracing the new transportation developments as part of Earthcare, the battle against climate catastrophe, etc.  

RantWoman also remembers and invites Friends to find the 2018 or 2019 State of Society report from said Meeting speaking of great grief about the mother whale who carried her dead calf around on her head for weeks before finally doing whatever whales do to release their dead. 

And even before that, RantWoman has vague memory of that Meeting seasoning some kind of Green Congregation minute which disappeared into a minute book never to be heard of again until RantWoman brings it up NOW.

There is, of course, always room and urgency about doing more, more, more. Maybe, please, though, are we allowed to lay off the self-flagellation, honor work Friends are already doing, and see what next steps that might lead to?

6.DRAFT Minute in Support of Indigenous People

RantWoman, say it 10 times. What will help nurture discussion between now and annual session and / or beyond? What will help nurture discussion between now and annual session and / or beyond? What will help nurture discussion between now and annual session and / or beyond?

RantWoman, HOW much of what you are trying to say is personal irritation?

Can we maybe just let RantWoman go off and hold the needed seasoning in the Light?

Word has reached RantWoman, unsolicited and from multiple directions, of a tumultuous Meeting (for worship???) for Business in one Monthly Meeting  where voices who might have had something to contribute to the seasoning were silenced on threat of severe eldering. WTF??? (Okay, rantWoman is relieved to learn whatever tides are roiling organizational equilibrium do not only come from RantWoman. RantWoman is also invoking her much recorded experience seasoning a minute decades ago before the World Trade forum ministerial in Seattle: sometimes minutes that come before larger bodies do in fact come out rather differently than when they started.

How many indigenous elders have been consulted in formulating this minute?

But RantWoman aren't we supposed to work on educating ourselves before troubling those who are marginalized? 

Sure, if our only task is amusing each other without endeavoring to walk alongside people with lived experience or to use our privilege, or to care about doing what is most needed. RantWoman is thinking of a tweet she saw recently by a Black Woman "We asked you to stop killing us and you renamed the pancake mix"

Doctrine of Discovery? Arrrrgggh. RantWoman is not used to seasoning minutes that have entire bibliographies appended. RantWoman can easily fathom an action item in a minute that says "learn more about the Doctrine of Discovery and here are some suggested study materials. Renounce the Doctrine of Discovery??? RantWoman is having a time-warp problem. RantWoman most assuredly is NOT getting how renouncing something from centuries ago translates into doable action in this century.

Also, frankly, sometimes RantWoman needs to put specific faces to issues and minutes. As it happens, the interwebs have brought to RantWoman's attention a young fashion designer of Crow/ Northern Cheyenne heritage named Bethany Yellowtail. RantWoman commends a  journey to Wikipedia or via the search engine of one's choice.

Bethany Yellowtail Wikipedia

RantWoman especially thanks Wikipedia for the information that Ms. Yellowtail's Crow name means "Overcomes through Faith" and her Northern Cheyenne name means "Sun Road Woman."

Ms. Yellowtail's fashion design house currently has a problem about another fashion house copying her designs. RantWoman has no opinion about whether Ms. Yellowtail sits around thinking "Oh, I wish those Quakers would write another minute about the Doctrine of Discover when they could be standing up to help me protect my trademarks!"

RantWoman is having parallel thoughts about tracking the lives of missing and murdered indigenous wormen. Doctrine of WHAT now?

Speaking of discovery though, it seems entirely on point to speak somehow of the fresh awareness of past horrors now being revealed in the realm of "Indian Boarding Schools." RantWoman would like it if a minute wrestled in more detail with that history 

Proposal for P&SC working Groups

Clear structure and accountability. RantWoman has thoughts about one to add but does not think Peace and Social Concerns is the right place for it. RantWoman thinks any standing committee should have the right to create working groups.

There. Now RantWOman has spluttered the first raw chops salad of her thought across the internet. Now it is time to listen more deeply..

 Stay Tuned.

Happy Global Accessibility Awareness Day?

Here is RantWoman collecting snippets of dialogue for a screenplay. Snippets subject to arbitray updates. Today's festive occasion is Global Accessibility Awareness Day #GAAD #GAAD2022

RantWoman you know that part about your faith community reminding you that you really need a faith community? Has it occurred to you that your faith community might feel EXACTLY the same way?

Yes actually. Next question?

How is continuing revelation going in the world of software:

--RantWoman noticed evolution from one tool to another that seems to be more accessible. The second version has more ads, but guess what: the advertisers don't seem to care whether RantWoman sees their content. So a win?

--RantWoman has no idea what might have evolved from the night that, judging by minutes, both the Clerk and Recording Clerk were completely flummoxed by RantWoman's need to talk about software accessibility. RantWoman is not sure she could have administered the need for continuing revelation more gently.

Can we talk about reasonable accommodations, the kind of courtesies that really really matter whether we are talking about work or volunteer gigs or ...?

Here!. How about a nice screed about capitalism?

Uhhh, how about a Nice @MSFTENABLE Youtable full of #AbilitySummit Vids from the most recent #AbilitySummit

But that's SO corporate.

Of CORUSE it's marketing, and yet actual accessibility does result.

Stefania...from Eurovision to...the Blind Prayer Warriors.

The Eurovision version

RantWoman THOUGHT this version was filmed before the Russian Invasion. Apparently, per the closing titles, it was not.

Official Mother Stefania video by KALUSH Orchestra. To all Ukrainian mothers who go through this horrible war.

227 Ukrainian children have already been killed by Russian monsters, many more injured physically and mentally.

Ukraine will prevail. For every child and every mother. pic.twitter.com/Syd8nMlnuN

— Ukraine / Україна (@Ukraine) May 15, 2022

 Aside from multiple Russia Invades Ukraine war realities streaming out of Youtube, this video where literature brain, therapy brain and conflict resolution brain all have different rules.

RantWoman will leave to readers' wonderment the question of how RantWoman gets from really different videos of the same song to...the blind prayer warriors. As RantWoman has said many times she is theologically multilingual, a perspective which is helpful among the Blind Prayer warriors. Blind Prayer warrior calls start with Praise Reports and Prayer Requests or in local Quaker argot Joys and Concerns. 

Then the praying starts. RantWoman for some reason has never felt clear to explain about Quakers and silence and messages from God. Instead, RantWoman is almost every week given words without particularly stressing about having to insist. Yesterday's plea: "Work on the hears of those doing evil and strengthen the voices of people striving for good..."