(no subject)

[elainegrey]

A work meeting shortly, so only a few minutes to write. [Yay, postponed.]

Christine had a hard professional disappointment at the end of June, and she's been carrying it heavily. Soon after that news she surprised her sister with a visit on her sister's birthday. The visit too has weighted heavily, and yesterday she was sad about how little time she got to spend with her sister on that visit.

My sister is coming for a visit, and we've been talking about it for months. I think some contrasts are hard, as i make time to be available when my sister is here.

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Yesterday i culminated some on-line shopping. One thing was window cling film to obscure the view from outside on the landing in. Greycie Loo wrestles with the blinds if we drop them, yet i want privacy. We're probably rearranging the living room and i think i will want more privacy. (Fortunately, comings and goings on our landing are minimal. ) We picked out a nice stained glass pattern with irregular shapes: i'll cut out some of the shapes at Greycie's point of view for her to use as peep holes.

In larger investments, we bought a couch that folds out into a bed. I hope hope hope that i am paying for significantly better quality than Ikea! We're also paying for the fact that id can be a big recliner, and i imagine Christine and i lounging on it more in the recliner pose than the couch pose.

firecat helped me along with a Pinterest account and i've used it for clippings for the living room: http://pinterest.com/elainegrey/livingroom-vision/

We'll be getting rid of the loveseat, too, so a chair (or two?) would be good. Part of me wishes i could be more thrifty, more crafty and make the slipcovers and reupholster things. And reality points out that the tablecloth -- easiest sewing project, up there with the handkerchief -- is still not done yet.

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The sofabed will be here for my sister's arrival, and for my parents if they come out in the early autumn to visit & see my brother's family. I pointed out to Christine we will now have a place for her sister and her sister's husband.

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Meeting yesterday had me wrestling with the constant ministry of one of our Members. This Friend offers Ministry often, and is just slight more subtle in sermonizing than an elderly Friend who has been guided towards speaking less frequently. I was struck by the contrast between two offerings yesterday. This frequent Minister speaks with parables or extended metaphors and with a preoccupation around the shared experience of Meeting.

Yesterday's ministry was about the different additional cushions on the chairs, the variety of ways different folks become comfortable, and how we shouldn't be surprised at the diversity of theologies. It then extended into a reflection on maybe if we were being comforted by our experience (like having a wonderfully satisfying meal) how we wouldn't care about the comfort of our chairs.

This Friend's ministry always provokes my critical mind into dissent: we need to be comfortable in some places in our lives if we're going to risk and stretch in others. (In fact, we may be so comfortable that we miss that others don't have that comfort: that's privilege.) And maybe some of us don't come to be comforted by the experience of Meeting, but transformed. And not all of us are at the same spiritual place just as not all of us have the same youth or back health. Gah!

Another Friend spoke, and in her speaking, i realized through the contrast the aspects that bug me about the first Friend's ministry. First, she shared how the insight happened for her, how the a-ha surprise caught her. My critical mind dislikes these preambles if they run to too much detail or too long or starts with mentioning listening to NPR, but i appreciate how the context preamble gives an insight into the life of a member of our community and how Truth/Light/the DIvine/the Beloved moves in their own experience. Second, she shared how her insight transforms her, how she recognized the need to change in a particular way, and offered her own experience as lesson.

I know the healthy thing for me to do is approach the first Friend and speak my experience directly. I should acknowledge how this Friend is entering a fifth year attending the Worship and Ministry committee meeting, so the preoccupation with form and ritual (because the ministry has been SO much about the form and ritual of our worship) is obviously grounded in the service the Meeting has called this Friend to provide. But then i can talk about my concern that the Friend is not speaking out of the transformative lived experience, but out of worries and reflections the community has brought to the Friend.

Bleh.

I know if i do this, there's a chance for growth for both of us, for me to get a chance to hear the experience instead of the crafted message, for the Friend to have some feedback. It's risk for both of us because i may have to give up my prejudice that this is Bad Ministry.

Thinking about meeting this Friend raises resentments from a meeting with the Friend years ago, when the Friend ran very late, and the context was a decidedly unpleasant accusation from another Friend towards Christine. I have been carrying this baggage for some years.I suppose i need to put it all down.