yuck of a day

Hi Maggie,

The book sounds fascinating - right up my alley.  I have so many issues with the concept of god, I think I would like to imagine our species without that control or fear.

Meeting can be a bit boring until you learn to settle into the silence, until you find your center.  We are planning another extended worship at the end of the month.  It is amazing how long it takes to settle into that much silence, then how quickly it passes.  Time is different there, once you get there.

We have a beginning to meeting similar to what you describe only once a month. We call it Noisy Meeting. We are trying to find way to invite children and families in. Our meeting has aged, and there  are no kids unless I bring my grands.  This weekend we are going to make aid packs for refugees, which will be sent by AFSC.  And I have to find a message that ties into the testimonies.  We have been working on Peace lately.

Today has been wild. We had rain, snow, freezing rain, sleet, more snow, then lots more snow. My trees are weighted down with snow on top of ice, and branches are skimming the ground.  I had to go out and get firewood, and the wheelbarrow got mired down in the slop and the sludge, then the mud beneath it all.  As I was and pushing and tipping and boosting with my thigh, and wobbling and stopping to stomp snow out of the way, I was mentally yelling at the kid(s) who borrowed my sleds about seven years ago and never brought them back.  Then I laughed at myself and muscled my way in. I did it!!

I've been thinking a lot about the role of women in the world.  I watched a video about an indigenous girl given up for adoption, into a family where a family friend sexually abused her.  She was forced to be nice to him, to apologize when she was rude.  She ran away and was put into a group home where she was forced into prostitution at age 12.  She is now speaking out against sex trafficking. I watched a video where girls in Mexico, I think, shoot young men with confetti guns and tell them they sound like rapists when they sexually harass young women on the street.  I saw one where young men who regularly harass women saw a woman on the street, said something rude. The woman turned around and it was their mother. What a way to turn a slut into a woman.  That shoots the whole objectification balloon right out of their consciousness, at least for a little while.

I have been so impressed by nonviolent actions. Nonviolence is the only way to peace.

Not too deep tonight.  Mostly tired and trying to get my woodstove heated up again...

I'll be back...

Love and hugs from Clare