Don't ask yourself what the world needs.
Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that.
Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
- Howard Thurman

Last Friday morning I responded to a Globe and Mail New Media column on Facebook being full of phonies. In the author's response he quoted me by name.

Daniel Allen wrote to say that on the same morning as he read the piece, “one friend changed his status to say he is ‘not a failure, he just looks like one most of the time,' ” prompting other friends to pile on in support. “It might be that the Internet gives us a mask to hide behind,” he noted, “but it does also give us the tools to connect in very honest ways. If we choose to.”

Gee, makes a pretty good theme, don't you think?...

On that note: blah. I'll go and try and connect in honest ways, after breakfast.

I need help remembering this.

"The concern-oriented life is ordered and organized from within. And we learn to say No as well as Yes by attending to the guidance of an inner responsibility. Quaker simplicity needs to be expressed not merely in dress and architecture and the height of tombstones but also in the structure of a relatively simplified and coordinated life-program of social responsibilities."

--Thomas Kelly, A Testimony of Devotion, 1941

From Quaker blogger rikomatic.com

Friday night we saw the movie Diabolique, which was one of Hitchcock's style-influences. It was an OK (but merely OK) suspense/horror story.

Which I bring up now because it ended with a spoiler warning. Something like, "Don't be diabolical! Keep the surprise ending from your friends who haven't seen it yet!" ...And fifty years later, I won't say more about the surprise, out of respect for that.

This week, I've also seen a two-part Doctor Who episode from the new Series 4, which involves the Doctor meeting another time-traveller- she knows him very well; he's just meeting her for the first time. The show handled the interpersonal dynamics quite well. She'd tell him something impossible, he'd ask her incredulous questions, and she said, "Sorry, spoiler." The look on his face...

I like the dance in this show, between the Doctor being omniscient yet not- compared to men, he's like a god; but his omniscience usually turns out to be experience over his amazingly long lifespan, being very clever, and having good instincts for how things ought to turn out.

And this makes a story. True omniscience and omnipotence only make good stories in short doses (or maybe as acquired tastes).

(Of course in Doctor Who, he also treads the line on omnipotence; I know some people find it overly deus ex machina, but there seem to be a lot of things in science fiction that I'm willing to suspend disbelief for when it otherwise feels like a good story...)

I was recently thinking about these: would I be happier to know how something will turn out, with 100% certainty? How about probabilities? It seems to me that's the difference between a spoiler and a coming-attraction; it's all in the mystery.

And if I may get a bit theological in my journal; if there's a word for what God means to me, it might just be that: mystery.

So: bring on all the predictions through any human filter you like. But if we get to the time where we've got scientific instruments that can map a person's life with 100% certainty, or if I were to suddenly discover I believe in a God who doesn't respect free will... I expect then I'll have problems.

(So much for sleepy-bye time. I guess I'll sit up for half an hour, see if I'm sleepy again then. Maybe it was the coffee ice-cream for desert? Dunno.)

I've been wondering what I want to say about my week among the 1,200 Quakers. In advance, I told some people it was like a yearly reunion with some 200 family I really did want to see. I told a few friends that this family was mostly Family, if you catch. For Quakers who had never been, I said it was a rich mix of workshops, Meetings for Worship, and social time. And the best Meetings for Worship I ever have, anywhere. For people who had been before, I said I wasn't taking a workshop, because I was serving on Ministry and Counsel for Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Concerns (FLGBTQC), and I was a bit nervous about how difficult that would be.

How was it? It was excellent. I've rarely been so busy, but at the same time, so guided.. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

On Saturday, I set out in Harold (our Corolla) for Hamilton, where I picked up two passengers, one who'd been on the Go train from Peterborough for two hours already. (metalana, you might know her, she's recently retired as a data-modeler for the Ministry of Natural Resources.) We got acquainted and followed a combination of Google Maps directions and my GPS on a gorgeous route through the topography of western New York and Pennsylvania.

Some of our conversation was about the moribund state of Quakerism in Canada. I caught myself being fairly emphatic about the point, and had a moment of considering what should I be doing with this... push... to do something about it. Well, I feel like I've gotten a bit better at listening to these pushes. After this week, I feel much better about it.

We arrived just in time to register and catch the very tail end of dinner time. I met up with dear friends, started planning my week, and generally blissed out a bit.

Sunday saw me trying to plan meetings, catch up with friends, do committee work, go to meetings, contribute... a pile of things. Plus many naps and walks by myself. And really, that was the tone of the week. Not busy for busy sake, but many things that felt like they needed doing, and for many of them, that I was the right person to do them. That felt really wonderful. Some of this was continuing the story I felt started at the Midwinter Gathering- one major thread, I was on an ad-hoc committee asked to consider a request from FGC's publications arm to help write a pamphlet on welcoming LGBTQ people to Quaker Meetings. Now, Quakers work in committee; and I needed to get between 7 and 9 people together from various other committees to start this work. At Gathering, amongst 1,200 other Quakers, with all of everyone's other committments? It felt impossible, especially since 4 or so of them didn't know yet they were being called into this meeting.

We did it. And it's moving forward, for next Midwinter.

So, about feeling guided: Sunday at lunchtime I ran into the first of the people who didn't know I was drafting her for a meeting; she said she would be happy to come, and we set a time. Then she said she had been looking for me. I hadn't spoken with her since last year at Gathering, when she and I had taken a workshop on "Quaker Quest", a very cleverly designed outreach program that took off like gangbusters in the UK and had just begun being tried in North America. Well, I must have made an impression in the workshop, because (as FGC staff responsible for the North American version of the program) she wanted to invite me to become a traveling presenter. On approximately four weekends of my choice over the next year. And FGC has a large grant to pay all expenses.

Egads. I told her it sounded tough, but quite a bit like something I could do. And I would consider it. And at this point I'm mostly sure I want to; it feels like a very clear response to my emphatic frustration with Canadian Quakerism. Or, a step on a path.

On Thursday, the 9 of us in the ad-hoc committee met, and we went away with lots of information and part of a plan that's broader than I expected. Then I had to present these findings to the Queer Quaker's Business Meeting on Friday.

Friday morning, I woke up with a pounding headache, before 6am, after about 6 hours of sleep. I felt totally drained and unprepared; I really wanted to sleep another hour. Unusually for me, I actually thought words at God/Spirit/whatever. I was fairly pissed. I said something like, "This isn't fair. I can't do this, I need some help here." And I got the clear reply to get up. So I did, and showered, and went to breakfast. And outside breakfast, I ran into one of the 9, talking with the co-clerk of our Business Meeting. And I went in to breakfast with our co-clerk, who turned out to be exactly the person I needed to talk to about structuring the presentation.

And I presented it Friday afternoon on behalf of the committee, and it was approved, and that felt awesome.

What else? Hm. I managed to get some singing in; I happened across two concerts led by Annie Patterson, co-creator of the Rise Up Singing songbook.

At the Queer Quaker Cabaret on Friday night, I did manage to see peaceofpie sing the song he wrote that very morning, and I would've been quite annoyed with myself if I'd missed it.

In Meeting for Worship, I had a very strong image of myself at half my current life, age 17, looking at me and being totally blown away that I'd get there. And having a strong sense of gratitude for the weird path life has taken.

The M&Ms. This is utterly trivial, but: have you ever had a mono-colour M&M experience? At an evening social, I was chatting with somebody and grabbed a handful of M&Ms. I looked and said, "Huh, 1/3 of them are yellow." The other person said that never happened to her. And none of the ones in her hand were yellow. So we kept talking and munching, and I looked down, and all but two of the remaining M&Ms were yellow. That used to happen fairly often for me, but then, I ate a lot of M&Ms back in high-school, so lots of chances for it to happen.

I had the chance to make many, many mistakes. Others affected by them were extremely graceful, whether or not they or I pointed the mistakes out. And I think I learned a great amount, and I think some of it will stick until the next time I have the choice to make the same mistake again, or not. And I helped a few people learn things as well, which felt great.

Other elements to the week: way too many people in a dining hall at dinner-time. Thoughtless people who didn't realize or didn't care. Thoughtful people doing kind things just because. Missing my sweetie. Not missing my email. Running through downpours. Wonderful togetherness-time with dear friends, some who are reading this right now.

Well, probably later, since right now it's a great time to be in bed. 'night!

I'm off to FGC Gathering! Back next Saturday!

bunchberry successfully defended her PhD (from all comers) and she and her spouse, morgan_starfire threw a wonderful party to celebrate. So we went to Michigan to party!

I had some neat conversations with bunchberry's friends; who included math geeks, Quakers, musicians, dancers, and preschoolers. There was an impromptu contra dance, a very cute dog, and lots of good food.

A few slices:

I spent quite a while talking with Max, who has spent many decades as a Conscientious Objector organizer. I asked him how he handles life-balance, not becoming too depressed about the state of the world. He said he's been an adult for over 60 years, and at a number of times, the world has seemed at the brink of disaster, but it's survived the last 60 years, so that helps his sense of perspective, even as dire as things look today.

He says he was on FBI watch lists in the 60s, and he learned recently that they've re-activated his record for the Department of Homeland Security. He knows his phone's tapped, and occasionally some of the more "lurid" conversations make him amused about what the listeners think of him. I asked him if he'd seen the film "The Lives of Others" about the Stasi surveillance men, and he hadn't. He had a funny story about locking his keys in the car when he was in Eastern Germany sometime in the 90s, and the attractive auto-shop worker guy who tried to get into the car for him...

And he had a story about when he was in primary school, in the 1930s. His teacher described the Roman Republic, and the Roman Empire, then the transition "taking just as long as the lifetime between your age now and when you're old." And, he said, "naively, at the time I thought I would have some say in the matter."

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The band included: a hammered dulcimer, two fiddles, many drums, and a keyboard. The deserts included a rhubarb pie, a key lime pie, brownies, petit fours, cherries, and watermelon.

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I came up with a description of becoming a member of a Quaker Meeting, talking with one person about how she went from being Jewish to being Jewish-Quaker. I said, "yeah, did they say something like, 'congratulations, and may we present you with your ceremonial hyphen?" I'm picturing something simple, not chrome or anything fancy like that.

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The drive to Michigan and back was fine; 5 hours there, 4.5 back. Except Eastern Michigan seems to be entirely under construction.

We got back mid-afternoon Sunday, and I spent a few hours mowing and squirting out dandelions.

Is it sad that the thing I most want to remember about this weekend was the rather dramatic dream I had last night, in which I slew a scary dragon with a large spoon? (Thrown like a boomerang).

Hm. And I mostly forgot the dream until mid-afternoon, when I was walking on campus and a squirrel tried to hold its ground when I walked toward it on the path, and I thought to it, "You better watch out, I might have a spoon. Wait, what?..."

I sorted all of the electronics in the other closet in my study. I haven't decided whether I'm actually going to try and sell the small pile of sellables, or donate them to MCC Generations thrift store (dan suggests I could possibly get a hefty tax receipt for them). Selling stuff takes time. I remember when I was all gung-ho about ebay. Now I have a full-time job. And too little energy to work on too many things. Hm. (jeanne_d_arc, I hope to have something for you by the weekend; and I have to find a means to turn your Microsoft Publisher into a .pdf, since I'm not working on a Windows machine any more. Maybe I can find one at work...)

Hey, failing that: does anybody have easy access to Publisher and wouldn't mind turning around one or a few edits of a 20mb or so newsletter document some time in the next few weeks?...

This afternoon there was still a snowbank in the shadow of the house by the side of the driveway, where our tulips are planted. So I shoveled it away, about a foot of snow deep, to expose what I thought would be bare ground.

But no- there are tulip shoots. Each a few cm tall. I'm amazed.

Also, I will be surprised if there is any snow at all by the time I pick up melted_snowball tomorrow night. It's supposed to be 17 tomorrow (62 F). Woo!

Also, I can't wait to see what the neighbour's yard looks like. Y'know, the one who replaced the big garden with lawn, and then the tulips came up anyway last year. He spent a while digging them up, but Mother Nature might have other plans.

Also, the Quaker planning meeting tonight went better than I'd even hoped. I will go away for a week utterly unstressed about this event. I just need to procure a data-projector I can borrow for the 26th- which is going to be tricky, as I'm between jobs, even if the University wanted me to borrow their projector to go off-campus... Hm, does anyone want to loan me one for a Saturday this month?... ;)

I just completed something that has been on my plate (and that of fyddlestyx) for a few years, and it feels really good.

Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Concerns has long had a commitment to collect the Minutes of Quaker Meetings affirming same-sex unions.

Minutes are a primary document by which a Quaker Meeting will document their discernment of God's will, as agreed upon by the entire Meeting. Different Meetings will have different openings to God, and their Minutes will record their collective understanding at that time.

So these Marriage Minutes are living documents of this discernment. They range back from a document from Illinois in 1974, to one in Australia in 1984 and a number from the late 1980s and many more from the 1990s and on.

A few years ago, I discovered an article in Friends Journal magazine, written by a man in rural Pennsylvania, Wallace Cayard, who reported he had done a complete survey of American Quaker Meetings and whether they had a minute which affirmed same-sex marriages and commitments. He did his survey in 1997 then again in 2004. As far as I can tell this project was entirely done by this elderly man and his wife Leonora.

He sent me a typewritten copy of his report, which looked like it had been done up on an ancient Underwood. He had records for 207 Quaker Meetings. Our group had records for about 100 Meetings at that time.

I've finally gotten around to merging them together and we now have records for 228 Meetings on the web- 128 minutes and 100 names of Meetings without the text of the minutes. Just having the Meeting names for them is a great start; we can send volunteers out to get those. And if someone is googling for information, they might get what they need just from finding the name on our site.

I've got lots of other things to do, but this gives me a pretty great sense of accomplishment, even if I should really be in bed right now.

And also, it's rather touching to be editing a document that includes statements such as:

"We joyfully affirm our willingness as a Meeting to sanctify celebrations of marriage for both same and opposite gender couples. We intend to follow the good order of Friends in arriving at clearness for all couples who are led to unite under our loving care. We call upon the state to give the same legal recognition to same and opposite gender marriages."

That, from Brunswick Maine Monthly Meeting. Thank you Friends...