Mr M is so much better, be purrs and purrs and purrs. I realize just how much his deep bass rumble is a tonic for me, much like my Beloved Listener, Christine. Hooray, hooray for antibiotics!
Christine was a tonic for me last night. During the women's reading group, a woman whose project and self has been the center of a good deal of meeting controversy vented her pain. It was a tricky thing to do: stay emotionally open to be with her pain but not take it or own it, listen to her woundedness that is so clearly there beyond the Meeting relationship, point out a few misconceptions and miseducations. The biggest miseducation is that she had to "go through a committee" which meant she just left all the details of her relationship with the Meeting to her committee. At one point she had apparently done something and was told she had to go through committee. Surely there was some subtlety she has missed (perhaps she wanted a minute acted upon or a meeting of some sort scheduled), as she took that to mean do nothing but go through committee. Her committee erred too, i think, in telling her to stay away from Meetings for Business. So many other people wondered why she was not there. For me, it drives home that no matter what the process, what the structure: it's all just people underneath, and it is the direct relationships that matter.
I so suck at direct relationships.
At least, that's what i automatically think. I was raised to believe that about myself. That too sucks. It compounds my native shyness and introversion and sensitivity
It is a good lesson, that it is direct relationships that matter, as it is too easy to abstract away the details of others and generalize into error.
I'm going to be on Oversight committee beginning this fall, for the next three years. It is a role of ministry, caring for the joys and the wounds of individuals and the tricky abstraction of the Meeting as a Whole.
I've lost a little sense of the fire energy i had been focussing on last year, and my commitment to offer myself up to that for transformation. But as think about this role, and i think about my sense of receptive vitality, what i think i need to do is learn to be as open to joys as to pain and anger.
Last night's tiny bit of attention paid to The Artist's Way was a moment of responding to the prompt "Creatives are." I don't think i have deep blocks on my creativity these days based on my perceptions of creative people as other, different from myself. I've learned to cherish creativity even in relating to management. But one of the things that came out in the exercise was the sense of the joyful, bright butterfly of creativity and my slightly resentful sense that i'm not that.
I know i was on some level reacting to![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tenacious_snail's vibrant palette and creative decoration plans -- mostly the vibrant palette. Our home is mostly decorated in natural tones and desaturated colors, although some artwork stands out with bright colors. My wardrobe is more muted tones, although once upon a time it was swirly cotton skirts and thrift store silk shirts in bright colors.
I think i'll wear my red silk shirt today and the red and gold necklace. I'm *not* really living in just muted tones, but something about surviving over the years of graduate school, the depression, and then getting our household on stable ground (my profession, Christine's transition and finding a community for herself) had taken so much.
I think i'm ready for joy, i've just forgotten how to live it.
Christine was a tonic for me last night. During the women's reading group, a woman whose project and self has been the center of a good deal of meeting controversy vented her pain. It was a tricky thing to do: stay emotionally open to be with her pain but not take it or own it, listen to her woundedness that is so clearly there beyond the Meeting relationship, point out a few misconceptions and miseducations. The biggest miseducation is that she had to "go through a committee" which meant she just left all the details of her relationship with the Meeting to her committee. At one point she had apparently done something and was told she had to go through committee. Surely there was some subtlety she has missed (perhaps she wanted a minute acted upon or a meeting of some sort scheduled), as she took that to mean do nothing but go through committee. Her committee erred too, i think, in telling her to stay away from Meetings for Business. So many other people wondered why she was not there. For me, it drives home that no matter what the process, what the structure: it's all just people underneath, and it is the direct relationships that matter.
I so suck at direct relationships.
At least, that's what i automatically think. I was raised to believe that about myself. That too sucks. It compounds my native shyness and introversion and sensitivity
It is a good lesson, that it is direct relationships that matter, as it is too easy to abstract away the details of others and generalize into error.
I'm going to be on Oversight committee beginning this fall, for the next three years. It is a role of ministry, caring for the joys and the wounds of individuals and the tricky abstraction of the Meeting as a Whole.
I've lost a little sense of the fire energy i had been focussing on last year, and my commitment to offer myself up to that for transformation. But as think about this role, and i think about my sense of receptive vitality, what i think i need to do is learn to be as open to joys as to pain and anger.
Last night's tiny bit of attention paid to The Artist's Way was a moment of responding to the prompt "Creatives are." I don't think i have deep blocks on my creativity these days based on my perceptions of creative people as other, different from myself. I've learned to cherish creativity even in relating to management. But one of the things that came out in the exercise was the sense of the joyful, bright butterfly of creativity and my slightly resentful sense that i'm not that.
I know i was on some level reacting to
tenacious_snail's vibrant palette and creative decoration plans -- mostly the vibrant palette. Our home is mostly decorated in natural tones and desaturated colors, although some artwork stands out with bright colors. My wardrobe is more muted tones, although once upon a time it was swirly cotton skirts and thrift store silk shirts in bright colors. I think i'll wear my red silk shirt today and the red and gold necklace. I'm *not* really living in just muted tones, but something about surviving over the years of graduate school, the depression, and then getting our household on stable ground (my profession, Christine's transition and finding a community for herself) had taken so much.
I think i'm ready for joy, i've just forgotten how to live it.