[Dialogue] 2 questions about the other world in the midst of this world

[Ken Fisher]

> On Apr 11, 2025, at 6:39 PM, James Wiegel via Dialogue <dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
> 
> 1.  Did we actually encounter / (re)discover the other world in the midst of this world (the realities of mystery, consciousness, care and tranquillity as present in our lives and world) or did we just say that??


Dear Colleagues,

Jim, a couple of years ago you raised something this question (of faith?) around this time of the year - April 5th - the anniversary of the ’68 riots. Thank-you for raising it again.

Let me update my response. Memory and feeling evolve with age. I will go for more feeling.

I arrived on the West Side about 40 days after the riots. At 24, leaving Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, my context included: in Ottawa in ’64, being a fundraiser for SNCC (Student Non-Violent Co-ordinating Committee) - voter registration in Mississippi; being on the national executives of the Canadian equivalent of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) and the SCM (Student Christian Movement); working on a railway gang; community organizing with the very poor; and during the Vietnam War, running deserters from the American Army over the border into Canada.

None of that prepared me for experiencing the impact of the riots on the 100 or so folks living at 3444 West Congress Parkway. Everyone was still in shock. They had 'the thousand yard’ stare. I could not fathom what they had lived. Their sense of purpose was thrown into the void.

Some weeks later, Joe would do a collegium on the bottom dropping of knowing and doing.



The summer of ’68 was focused on the New Religious Mode, the next step towards ‘visiting’ the other world in the midst of our world.

For better of for worse, at that time we had a great fear of ‘psychologism’ - legitimizing ego-based subjectivity over the sheer objectivity of the theological revolution. My take is that with this lens, Joe was intent on guiding us to discern a firm screen over the abyss of desolation and ecstasy. As a step, studying Nikos Kazanzakis' Saviours of God was brilliant. Joe was outside the box. This commenced a four-year research journey culminating in Summer ’72. (The Great Turn - a related topic)

With a cue like, “Sometimes …. I feel like a motherless child…” a collegium would fall into awe, a tangible awe, a thick-as-concrete awe.

When Joe and Lynn’s son John died in a car accident, Joe witnessed his grief under the rubric of ‘endlessness’ (the raging sea of tranquility). His ‘visit’ to the other world was grounded in our experience the riots.

It was his/our intent to map the other world …. in the midst of our world ... to act as a screen of itegrity to support the sharing of the profundity of human experience, regardless of differing religious metaphor. This was underneath.

A dozen years ago Joyce Marshall re-introduced me to a practice of daily 20-minute contemplation. Always, there are states of being that arrive in this practice. To save me from sentimentality and subjectivity, I recovered my interest in our map. I was then able to get a copy from David Dunn. I regularly refer to it - in the moment - to find my place in the ‘everlasting arms’.



I am endlessly grateful to Jon & Maureen Jenkins, Jim Campbell, Anna Stanley, John Burbidge, Charles Hahn, Charlene Powell and Beverly Gazarian for this 1985 publication.

Ken

Ken Fisher
1070 Elizabeth Street - Box 75
Sharbot Lake ON  K0H 2P0
Canada
613.203.0180
kenfisher1942 at gmail.com
@KandPtrail
@klovesm.bsky.social


>> 
>> 
>> Jim Wiegel  <http://partnersinparticipation.com/james-wiegel/> 
>> 
>> The unknown is what is.  And to be frightened of it is what sends everybody scurrying around chasing dreams, illusions, wars, peace, love, hate, all that.  Unknown is what is.  Accept that it's unknown, and it's plain sailing.    John Lennon
>> 
>> 
>> 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353
>> 623-363-3277
>> jfwiegel at yahoo.com <mailto:marilyn.oyler at gmail.com>
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