[Dialogue] Some thoughts about the future

Mon Jun 24 15:10:50 PDT 2013

Thanks, Herman.

Greetings from Chautauqua, NY where the first program week theme is "The Elegant Universe", the afternoon lecture series being "Journey of the Universe" spearheaded by Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grim from Yale who worked closely with Thomas Berry.  Their film of the same title (co-written and hosted by Brian Swimme) is being shown to capacity crowds.  The Q&A period following Mary Evelyn's lecture this afternoon, as well as the talk-back after the film, indicated much interest and ripeness for action by people in the audience.  We have shown the film in St Louis to groups in our local community as well as at the church we now attend.  It has been a spring-board for starting local community and church action groups wanting a much broader context and sense of hope for their/our work addressing issues related to the ecology, economics, education, meaning, etc.

[BTW, there is now a second "Journey of the Universe Conversations" dvd-- a 20-part/10 hour series that "integrates the perspectives of the sciences and the humanities into a retelling of our 14 billion year story.  In a series of one-on-one interviews, scientists, historians, and environmentalists explore the unfolding story of the universe, Earth and the role of humans in responding to our present challenges"]

I am glad the listserve has been a vehicle for sharing ideas, events, and resources related to these areas.  I would like to hear even more about what people are doing:  transition communities, 350.org, Earth Charter, ecology, Journey of the Universe, education, economics, policy, Pachamama Alliance/Awakening the Dreamer follow-up action groups, etc.--whatever is giving people hope in practical ways that is counteracting the prevailing sense of despair and hopelessness relative to making a difference.

Ellie

-----Original Message-----
From: Herman Greene <hfgreenenc at gmail.com>
To: OE Listserv <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>; Colleague Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Sun, Jun 23, 2013 11:59 am
Subject: [Dialogue] Some thoughts about the future

Dear All,

This is an important email for me, though it will not be foreach of you. It is one I have thought about for months, especially sincereturning from a visit in ICA headquarters in Chicago in September 2012. I madethat trip because I was going to be able to meet with Jack Gilles, who was atICA working on the archives project. I was also looking forward to meeting withPam and Terry Bergdall again. The event turned out to be overwhelming for me,in part because of the profound memories that welled up within me, in partbecause of the conversations Jack and I had and the picture he presented of theEI/ICA archive (which brought down the full breadth of our legacy on me), andin part because I really realized that the big corporate body that constitutedEI/ICA was gone.

I left the Order in 1975 and didn’t come back into contactwith Order folk until the Millennium Conference in 2000. I have had four orfive occasions since then to be in Chicago or at a Springboard gathering. Ihave been on the OE listserve for some time and on the ICA Dialogue listservefor a year. Nelson and Elaine Stover and John Cock live nearby and I have beenin contact with them and colleagues who live in Asheville. 

The eight years I was in the Order from 1967-75 shaped mylife dramatically, but for the most part my development since 1975 has takenplace apart from EC/ICA. There have been several key influences on me and Iwill name three: Thomas Berry, Alfred North Whitehead (and the InternationalProcess Network), and the practice of business law. 

EI didn’t help me at all with the overwhelming task I wasgiven growing up as a Southern Baptist, which was to save the world. I havelearned though to balance this calling to make my life count with humility andself-care. The basic impulse and teaching of EI is however still strong withinme and indeed is what leads to this email.

There is much to be written, but to write much at this pointI feel is a mistake because what is involved is not for me alone to articulateor determine. It is a part of a conversation that has been going on some timeand it has to do with what we who have been a part of EI/ICA can contribute toour time. The subject does not directly concern ICA US or any ICA organizationas an institution, though it is not irrelevant to any of them either.

Let me start with the easiest issue, our listserves, then goto a particular project, then to the legacy of EI/ICA.

1.      The Listserves. This will border on agripe. I initially joined the OE listserv to reconnect with my family/friends. Folks,you are still the closest friends I have. I use friends with the knowledgeableawareness that we were and are colleagues first and friends second, but thatlatter part seems increasingly important. After going to Oklahoma City a coupleof years ago and meeting with David Dunn, I eventually asked to be added to theICA listserve. I thought I would be in a network of a whole different group ofpeople. To my surprise I found out that it was by and large the same group ofpeople. I don’t have any recommendation about the two existing listservesexcept they are puzzling to me because I honestly don’t see the difference. Thetime has passed, however, when I will do anything other than read emails thatstick out for me. I just can’t keep up and it raises the question for me, as I’msure it does for many of you, about what are these listserves for. NonethelessI keep receiving the emails because I like to at least read the titles of thevarious emails. I’ll basically leave this issue open, though I am consideringgoing back to only being on the OE listserve. There may be a need for alistserve around the next topic in this email. 

2.      The Project. The way I see the world,humanity as a whole is moving from economic-industrial civilization toecological-cultural civilization. The transition we are going through isequivalent to that which occurred with the Neolithic villages, theestablishment of the classical civilizations, the Medieval/feudal period,modernity beginning in the 16th century and industrial civilization beginningin the 18th century. Agricultural civilization, which began 10,000years ago, and industrial civilization which began 200 years ago were mostfundamental. Now we are faced with converging crises (rapid in historicalterms, but not as fast as many of us expect) and for the next century or so thechanges will occur. The goal is not Heaven on Earth, but the more Heaven thebetter. Thomas Berry spoke of a “viable” human future and I like that more modestlanguage, but he also spoke of an “ecozoic” future and the need to care for thecomprehensive community of life even for the sake of the human.

A set of circumstances two years ago broughtme into work related to preparing for Rio+20, the third Earth Summit of the UN,which occurred last June in Rio. Before engaging I took some time to study the “sustainabledevelopment” history in relation to the UN. I came to the conclusion that thiswas the language on the basis of which change will occur in the next fewdecades if it is to occur. It is a language understood and used by all 192member states of the UN (and no doubt those who are not members as well) isreadily understood by the business community, and is well understood in civilsociety (there are 5,000 civil society groups with consultative status with theUN). Of course, the language itself, which I found in the UN documents producedover the last 20 years to be quite remarkable, will not bring about change inthe same way that say a local village project will. What we are faced with,however, is the problem that we are in the planetary phase of human developmentand there are no solutions to local problems without a global shift, that is achange in the dominant mode of human civilization globally. This statementdoesn’t negate the idea of “think globally and act locally,” of course that iswhere the dominant effort must occur.

I got involved in preparation for Rio+20with a group that was advocating for the inclusion of ethics and spiritualityin the Outcome Document for the conference. The group is known as the “Ethicsand Spirituality Initiative for Sustainable Development” or “ESI” for short.The simple ideas behind ESI are two: (a) if the lack of sustainable developmentis an ethical and spiritual problem then ethics and spirituality must havesomething to do with the solution, and (b) if we look only to economics andscience to address the issues related to sustainable development, we will notmake the needed changes. 

Let me illustrate what I mean on thatsecond point by a quote from a book by Jorgen Randers, called 2052: 

As a consequence of the increase in the average global temperature ofplus 2 degrees Centigrade by 2052, humanity will experience an increasingnumber of bothersome climate effects over the decades to come. . . . Each eventwill lead to public outrage and create fear for the future. But in most casesthe short-term costs of action will be seen as unacceptably high and lead to a “well-considered”decision to postpone significant action. 

Jorgen also writes of “last to lose”strategies where people will feel there is no way to control globally eitherresource use or demand, so their strategies will promote more economic growthto strengthen their own strategic positions and ability to strengthen their ownresource bases and defenses. These strategies will only make matters worse.

Do you see the ethical and spiritualproblems? People will need to do the “un-well-considered,” that which in theshort-term is not in conventional terms in their own best interest.

Thomas Berry wrote that humans must becomeself-limiting. While this has been honored in spiritual traditions, it is theopposite of the march of civilization which has always been for more. He saidwe needed to “reinvent the human at the species level with critical reflection withinthe community of life systems, in a time-developmental context through storyand shared dream experience.”

Now I happen to feel that OE/ICA, or let mespeak from my own experience, the Ecumenical Institute, as I knew it, had a lotof knowledge about how to call for, teach and prepare people for the task oflarge-scale change EI also knew about spiritual formation, the kind that isneeded to go through challenging times and take risks.

Therefore I can see the role of apedagogical effort coming out of the historic OE/ICA community in relation tothe transition from economic-industrial civilization toecological-cultural.  I can also see theremaining EI/ICA network as being helpful in this effort, and without focusingon the institutional issue, I can see how this could provide an important rolefor ICA.

I think there is no doubt a continuingimportant role for village projects and local efforts such as the ones ICA UShas undertaken in Chicago, but that is not the subject of this particular email.

My own primary institution now is theCenter for Ecozoic Societies. It is pip-squeak big. My institution, CES, andothers will engage in collaborative efforts related to ESI, ESI will not be anorganization in itself. We will propose various projects and then people cantake them up if they wish. 

We had a meeting of all of 20 people in NYCon May 14 and came up with this initial list:

Therewas a discussion of authoring a book on ESI (not what this ESI group is about,but rather a call to leaders of values-based organizations) with chapters fromthe people present. The book would also serve as an anchor to this movement.

One common project all agreed uponwas commenting collectively on the post-2015 UN development agenda.

Other collaborations are possibleand these were suggested at the meeting. Please add to this list:

·        Advocating for culture/spirituality as thefourth pillar of sustainable development

·        Developing an educational curriculum onsustainable development for VBOs (this is to help enable people to understandhow to be global citizens and the relationship of ethics, spirituality andculture to sustainable development).

·        Host ecological civilization conferences

·        Engage teams of interested persons in differentregions of the world to prepare a vision and pathway to ecological civilization(the transition from economic-industrial civilization to ecological-culturalcivilization)

·        Promote the International Ethics Panel for EcologicalCivilization, Ombudsmen for Future generations, Trusteeship of the Global Commons,Office of Ethical Assessment in the UN Secretariat and other ethical structuresof governance

·        Work on the Global Interfaith WASH Alliance (contribute tothe Global Interfaith WASH Alliance (WASH stands for water sanitation andhygiene), and support a similar initiative focused on energy) 

I can imagine that those who havehad the training and experience I have had through OE/ICA could be very helpfulin preparing and carrying out these two in particular:

·        Developing an educational curriculum onsustainable development for VBOs (this is to help enable people to understandhow to be global citizens and the relationship of ethics, spirituality andculture to sustainable development).

·        Host ecological civilization conferences

Another list that I want to putforward, without comment is this one:

The followingwere identified as areas where transformational leadership is needed in booksby David Orr and Paul Schafer:

(i)     creatinga new theoretical, practical, historical and philosophical framework for theworld of the future (with an emphasis on the importance of the culturaldimension of life and of strengthening this dimension);
(ii)    dealingwith the intimate relationship between people and the natural environment,
(iii)    providinguncommon clarity about our best economic and energy options,
(iv)     helpingpeople understand and face what will be increasingly difficult circumstances,and
(v)       fosteringa vision of a humane and decent future.

I can imagine some of you want to beinvolved in ESI. I can imagine a new Ecumenical or Ecozoic Institute to carryout the educational programs. I can imagine this is connected with ICA thoughnot that ICA would have to be involved.

Well, I’ve gone on longer than I thought Iwould. I haven’t brought this section to a conclusion, but I believe I haveprovided enough of a flavor for you to “get it.” I’ll be interested in what youhave to say either through this listserve or by emailing me directly.

3.      The Order (or EI/ICA) Legacy. The storyof who we were needs to be told and the past needs to be preserved. I havewondered from time to time if there needs to be some kind of loose order goingforward. Since I haven’t had any brilliant insights into that I am letting thatride. In some ways I would like an affiliation where I can honor my vows (theones I took long ago in EI to poverty, chastity and obedience), but I can onlypresently see work in forming such an order as a distraction. It is part of ourhistory to say that what needs to come into being must come into being aroundthe mission and that is enough guidance for me. I am going to do this work andlet the forms emerge.

There are two troubling parts about thelegacy about which I would like to speak. One is the sense that “if we only dothis ___________, everything will change.” The second is the idea thateverything is perfectly expressed in a model. If we are to do this work, it isnecessary to let go completely of dogmatic certainty and the idea that we canmake things happen.

A key event in the life of the Order which Ikeenly remember but no one else to whom I have spoken seems to have remembered.McClesky gave a lecture on the turn to the world. He drew a football diagram onthe board and talked of doing an end run around the church. He said we had adecision to make about whether we would be a force or a leaven. At the time,the notion was that we would be a force. So we mapped out the world and, beingobsessed with numbers in grids, went out to change it.

In this effort we can only be a leaven.

Herman

-- 
__________________________________________________
Herman F. Greene
2516 Winningham Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
919-942-4358 (ph & fax)
hfgreenenc at gmail.com

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