I slept sitting up again and sure enough my back is better. Arggh! I don't like sitting up to sleep. But it made it possible for me to do tai chi and some of my other exercises so I can live with it. I also got to go out and walk the Dearinth. I really love it. This time though I spent more time thinking I have to get out and fix that, mow there, this would be a good spot for flowers, etc. than the meditation I had intended to do.
Maerian sent me a three-part email to forward to the CAW lists that talks about her reasons for withdrawing for a while and taking a sabbatical. Some of what she said started more talk about Green Egg on the lists again. And about the same time there has been another, hopefully minor, political hassle on the lists. I responded to a post without letting it sit for a while. That is something I rarely do because of the tendency to say things that should not be said, or more or less shoot from the hip, that seems to be a part of internet communications. Hopefully it won't cause much trouble and it certainly does serve to remind me not to do it again.
I also posted asking people what they want from clergy and what is it reasonable for clergy to ask in return. Not a lot of people posted about it though. The ones that did were looking for more contact - one said if members donated even a small amount regularly it would produce enough for clergy to visit nests several times a year. I know that having Orion out one year for our Scion council meeting and sushi party after was a good experience here. I think it serves to help energize members to have that kind of direct contact and experience. But I think it is at least a little harder to make false and bad faith assumptions when you have actually met someone and enjoyed their presence. One of the other things that came up several times was communication. And I do think that is one area where the church and the clergy fall down. There needs to be more communication of what is going on, even when some of it is problems. A lot of it gets out anyway and then there are a lot of rumors and concerns that blow up more because of lack of information than anything else. To me, it would make sense to have a kind of communications coordinator who would be responsible for making sure that regular "reports" went out from the clergy letting people know what is going on.
The other thing I posted was my festival schedule and I asked people to come and introduce themselves to me, talk to me about what they want from clergy, and from me as clergy. It is important to me to meet as many of the members as I reasonably can and let them have some idea of who I am.
Copyright © 2001 Kyril Oakwind