I didn't blast off and down the freeway to the "fat farm" as planned. Maybe I'd do better by shifting the narrative to reveal my gaining access to some XRL (XRL = "extreme remote livingry" but how about also "extremely rural"?).
Extremely Rural means on the wilderness fringe yet likely in touch with satellite services, cell towers, even roads, even paved. Like a parking lot at some public beach. Criteria are not strict as we come inward, towards the more urban pole. Camp grounds maybe.
The reason for this change in plans: a likely minor electrical glitch best dealt with on a business day versus some sabbath. I'd planned to drive. Still do.
So instead I went to a Quaker meeting I've frequented a lot in the past, doing my time on various committees, lighting the tunnel for the family's passage within a Friendly community. That was fun. I recommend Quakers. Dawn joined me in our tunnel.
Today, however, the meeting was grim, with people feeling bleak and trapped in familiar patterns regarding well known cultural narratives, resonating with stuff in the holy books and seasonal programming down through the ages.
Quakers tend to be horrified by orgies of violence, which doesn't single them out all that much (many share these compunctions), but they do want to stay worldly and help process whatever is happening. They're participants more than hermits by training. I say "they're" to capture my "just visiting" status.
The last time I visited, was to show Andrius, the visiting math guy from Lithuania, what a Quaker meeting was like. Before that, I found them in Laurelhurst Park (sometimes this group shifts its worship outside).
One lady wound up the meeting by urging we read up on what FCNL had to say. We were encouraged to write to our representatives and to write letters to the editor. I'd call it necessary boilerplate.
I heard no serious talk of an actual evacuation, granting Gazans actual refugee status and the right to never return, along with the right to return maybe. One's status, as a refugee, seeking refuge, does not, as a matter of grammar predetermine, any final destination. One is escaping from, not converging upon.
The meeting had a possible new family to my left, just moving from Atlanta (we learned that during introductions), and a newcomers' gathering coming up (this came with the announcements), and maybe the wheels really do turn that smoothly. When things really work exactly as designed, there's this sense of self parody why is that?
The gathering did feel well oiled. They run microphones now, and include the Zoomers upstairs (in person only downstairs, and maybe no mic runners, I'll need to sample that).
These were unprogrammed Friends (Stark Street). Pretty much anyone might deliver a sermon, or folksy talk, or self analysis, lecture whatever (or call them rants). If you hang around Quakers a lot, you'll note the tropes, the signature rhythms, of vocal ministry.
Greetings all. Sorry to have skipped out on social hour. And sorry about my cell phone going off, I thought I'd taken care of that.
