I've been out of the loop on a lot of activities, including memorial services, as I was busy care taking for my own mom.
I haven't exactly been a hermit, but lets just say my inner circle has been tiny, but that's interpreting "inner" strictly, as in "could get covid from". No one wanted to hear that Kirby had transmitted covid to his 90+ year old mother, least of all me. She died of other things, such as we used to call old age.
I'm still not frequenting the meetinghouse, although I'm in compliance with their covid policies. A Quaker Meetinghouse in the 2020s is quite frequently an eldercare facility, meaning the majority of attenders, including members, are of relatively advanced age. Most would not have comorbidities, but some would, and that's enough to suggest a fairly stringent "lock down" protocol.
In our neck of the woods "lock down" was always a misnomer. We had protocols, and businesses were forced to close. I'm not saying it wasn't intense. But we didn't weld people into their homes, the way we were seeing on social media, closer to ground zero (i.e. Wuhan in most narratives). The Trump & Fauci policy that fit us best was: "no central government should be telling you what to do, ask your local governor for guidance". Put another way: it's a very varied country and no one size fits all. Duh, right?
So was I scandalized that Florida stayed relatively open? As an Oregonian, I was free to walk the dog outside, go to the beach, visit public parks... I didn't get to Florida in that period, but I'm not about to throw stones. Again, because I'm an aging Boomer and mom was even older, I went the Instacart route and holed up. We got our boosters. But I was never one to shout in any megaphone about how everyone should do as I do. On the contrary, I'm accepting of my minority status, of full time care taker.
So, George Lakey, author of Dancing with History is passing through. Our activists bestirred themselves without needing to be cued. The Peace and Social Concerns Committee went through a crisis period, especially when our meeting turned into a battlefield in the Gender Wars.
I was one of those diehards who did not want to see said committee "shelved" or "put on ice". The key was to clarify the committee's role: it's a place where activists come together to compare notes and tactics, but is not about "expressing the conscience of the meeting" i.e. it does not presume to represent "Quakers", nor even "Multnomah Friends" to the world. We each have a calling to do that, individually.
My mother was at a nexus between AFSC (American Friends Service Committee), FCNL (Friends Committee on National Legislation), WILPF (Women's International League for Peace and Freedom) and RSoF (the Religious Society of Friends itself, i.e. bare bones Quakers). That's not the full extent of her network, but it's enough to keep the switchboards busy.
