[Dialogue] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS?

[John Cock]

Jim, you operate out of good ground rules: "I start a thread, I pull it
together and send it back to all." 

You're the right man for the "right question" job,

John 

-----Original Message-----
From: dialogue-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net
[mailto:dialogue-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of James Wiegel
Sent: Friday, July 06, 2012 1:33 PM
To: Colleague Dialogue; Order Ecumenical Community
Subject: [Dialogue] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS?

WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS?
 
Over coffee, this morning, i recopied the emails from this thread and tried
to narrow down to just the questions that were posed.

I think i missed an email that Lee Early was responding to in his message.

A couple of reflections:  

Randy, in yours, i was struggling with the phrase "in peace", wondering, a
bit like the word "church" or "religious" what that might point to that
would seem true to life vs. sort of an ideal future.

Wayne, your response that there may not be "a" question, but many and we
each have to figure out our own for ourselves got me to reflecting on the
evident complicatedness of things in a systemic or interconnected world.  My
auto mechanic was explaining to me how to simply fix the health care system
in the US, and your comment came up for me, and i said that is a good idea,
but i think we are looking too often for simple silver bullet solutions when
thngs are actually much more complicated.  And that made sense to both of us
and moved the conversation on.

Jim Baumbach's question put me back on my heels . "How do I get you to
change your mind and do what I think is right?"  then, when in linking it
with Bill Parker's notion that none of this is new, and why haven't we all
woken up? Got me thinking, at least on the liberal or progressive side,
whether the new religion arising is the religion of human rights . . .
Progressives, at least, seem to hold these as sacred and as a moral
obligation to be enforced.

I could go on, but my eggs are getting cold, and the slice of cantelope from
Judy's garden is calling.

THE GIST AS I SEE IT
Mary Hampton:  Enough, all ready, its too good to miss and I am not ready to
edit.  Good stuff, folks!
 
Ken Gilgren:  why am I here? What am I doing? How am I being?  What quickens
the current action of my soul?
what was the question again?

Wayne Nelson:  What are the pivotal moral issues of our moment?  I think
there are likely to be several. Of course there are many, many but there are
probably some major ones.  To reduce it to a single one makes it too
abstract and denies the obvious complexity.  We all have to name 'the moral
issue of our time.'  There's not likely to be one for everyone. It's a job
we all have to do.

Bill Parker:  What are the warning signs of the destruction and endangerment
of the entire human community?   Then ask, what is the underlying question
to be addressed and how it can be addressed.  Why are people not being
awakened to the clear, obvious truth of our crisis? Secondly, what methods
must we develop or employ to radically reveal this all encompassing truth?

John Cock:  My take: If it does not have something like "on behalf of a
transformed Earth community" in the statement,  it is the WRONG right
question, moral issue, or vocation.

Lee Early:   "Who is Tiger Woods?", What is his mission?  Can we re-answer
the second question?  Mission, social pioneer, church, college, league,
crimson line and movement?  The answer to the question of mission will carry
the first of who.  (At least here in the West.)  Sometimes the question of
mission changes.  Sometimes by chance and sometimes on purpose.  What is our
mission TODAY?

Randy Williams:  In reflecting on the dialogue around what is "the
question," I realized we really were assuming two questions.  How may "we"
(all species) live together on this planet in peace, in a way that secures
life for future generations?  What is the new face, form and mission of the
"movement" (the religious, the invisible college, the church with a
little"c," ) and what stories, style and symbols will sustain it?

Jan Sanders:  What are the key images of the future of evolution?

Steve Harrington:  You had to say it, eh?  What does it look like to be the
Sensitive & Responsive. To what concerns? where?

Karen Bueno: "How do we motivate the sensitive and reponsive ones who
understand that the survival of the people of the earth and the earth itself
depends on our working together to make that survival possible?"  I like the
idea of striving for a T-shirt phrase, like "Be one of those who dare to
live the future now.", as someone suggested.
 
David Walters:  in the midst of a malaise of helplessness and an established
/ controlling economic and political elite, what can we do to support and
help to form the emerging groups and movements (both the Tea Party and the
Occupy movement) to be both effective and inclusive?

Jack Gilles:  Given the stance that "History rides on the back of the
religious" that we embodied and lived..... "Who are the 'religious' today,
where would you look to find them, what are the marks that tell you so, and
what might we share (and how) with them so that they are empowered and
connected?".  The "we" in the question should refer to "those of us who are
scattered" and who will take seriously the answers.  

Janice Ulangca:  In this 50th year of EI/ICA, some of the questions to live
with:  Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling?  What are
we called to know/do/be?  What are some of the important partnerships the
future needs?
 
Missed the name:  What was Neibhur's line? (and how do you spell his name?)
Something about the sensitive and something ones.
 
Nancy Lanphear:   What is " MY GREAT WORK (IS) WHERE MY OWN GREAT JOY
INTERSECTS WITH EARTH'S GREAT NEED" ....perhaps EARTH could be stretched to
all my relations, the universe, life ....

Jan and Steve:  Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling?
What are we called to know/do/be?  
Jan:  What are some of the important partnerships the future needs?

Jim Baumbach:  "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is
right?"

Karen Bueno:  "How are we to live together and preserve this planet for the
future?"



Jim Wiegel
Jfwiegel at yahoo.com

"One cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life's
morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in
the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a
lie." - Carl Jung

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