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This is a very helpful stream to which I am lurking actively.<br><br>
Just a note about the 15/85 (or 99/1) issue: we never intended it to be
economic. Joe was adamant that it had to do with effective participation
in the decisions that affect one's life. With that understanding, it also
relates to Wayne's comments about the work life in which we spend 1/3 of
our time. An issue we've been working on for some time, both personally
and through the ToP Network, is recovering a sense of meaning at work.
Perhaps 99% regard work as something you have to do to be able to live
significantly. In fact, one's work IS a mode of living significantly, and
that's true not just for those of us who happen to love what we do.
<br><br>
Anyway, let's keep the insights coming. Is there a way to tie these
questions together? Jim's efforts are a great start.<br><br>
John<br><br>
At 02:08 PM 7/6/2012, you wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">My thought was simply that one
of "the questions" for me is , What's the moral issue of our
time? I do think there are a few key ones - no more than , say 5. I
also think that this "we" is much larger, more diversified and
less able to focus on a single moral issue. <br><br>
I'm sure the 99/1% is still the major moral issue we face. I think
it is a bit of an abstraction in itself, because the fact that is our
reality encompasses a complex of other issues. It's like the apartment
building of issues - lots of apartments in there.<br><br>
<br>
I'd say without hesitation that the way we relate to the natural world
and the natural resources of the planet is right up there as a moral
issue. If you're killing your life source and know it, that's just
not right in any moral context. <br><br>
<br>
I don't know quite how to state this, but it seems to me that there are
some heavy duty moral questions in the ways organizations are structured
and function and the way authority operates. Billions of people with few
opportunities for genuinely empowered participation and real
collaboration. We spend 1/3 of our lives at work. I think there's a moral
issue there. It gets a little lost in the 99/1% conversation, because
that part of the conversation tends to focus on poverty. <br><br>
<br><br>
Bill P and Jim B are asking a question with a funny shape. It seems to us
that there is a new paradigm going and the world is not catching on. I
think the world has seen several things (9/11 - Al Gore’s powerpoint
presentation - 2008 financial collapse etc.) that say we can't go back,
but there are people and structures actively and, i think, knowingly
denying those realities for all they are worth. <br><br>
I think that 'denial of reality' is one of the forms of escape from an
existential question that may run something like, "How do we be
human together - in this interconnected, interdependent
world?" <br><br>
There are plenty of people and structures and systems that are heavily
invested in living off the contradictions of the old paradigm. It's one
of the sure signs of a dead world view when it generates more problems
than solutions and those problems become food for intensifying the
inherent contadictions. Energy companies refuse to come to terms
with the environmental crisis. The relationship between the West and the
Islamic world is totally screwy. The way the banks operate is an aspect
of the 99/1issue, but it is also an example of how defiance gets
structured into the world as an operating modality - full-out,
unvarnished Kirkegaardian style defiance at it's absolute best. Partisan
politics has seriously devolved and is intentionally blocking anything
remotely close to consensus on systemic solutions to serious social
problems. It looks like defiance to me. We fog over the windshield and
complain that we can't see.<br><br>
This is all kind of a slightly formed thought, but maybe 'how to move
forward together' is one of the key questions for us - whoever the 'we'
might be and how we may each be positioned to address it.
<br><br>
<br><br>
<a href="smb:///">\\/</a><br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
- - - - - - - - - - Wayne Nelson<br>
<a href="mailto:wnelson@ica-associates.ca">wnelson@ica-associates.ca</a>
<br>
O - 416-691-2316<br>
M - 647-229-6910<br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
On 07-062012, at 2:30 PM, R Williams wrote:<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Jim,<br>
<br>
By "peace" I meant something more than the absence of
war. I suppose I meant something like "with civility,"
" with mutual respect," "acknowledging the dignity and
worth of all." This may be idealistic but without it I am
skeptical that we can continue. The by-product of this kind of
peace is sustainability, so my statement may have been a bit
redundant.<br>
<br>
I agree with Wayne up to a point. I believe there is really one
moral issue at a time, but there must be many ways to describe it
and thus to articulate the question. With the way issues are
so inter-related, it's difficult to talk about one without eventually
getting into most of the others, and probably even more difficult
to finally boil it down to "the" underlying root/moral issue of
the time. I would have to say that the way we articulated it in the
70's as the disparity between the 85/15, or today maybe the 99/1, isn't
that far off base for today as well.<br>
<br>
One thing I do feel fairly certain about. Whereas in RS-1 days we
asked, "Who am I?" "What do I?" and "How be
I?"--today I would insist that the question, whatever it is, is not
an "I" question, but rather a "we" question.<br>
<br>
Randy<br>
<br>
"Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in
the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it
desires."<br>
-Martin Buber (adapted)<br>
<font size=2><b>From:</b> James Wiegel
<<a href="mailto:jfwiegel@yahoo.com">jfwiegel@yahoo.com</a>><br>
<b>To:</b> Colleague Dialogue
<<a href="mailto:dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net">
dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net</a>>; Order Ecumenical Community
<<a href="mailto:oe@lists.wedgeblade.net">oe@lists.wedgeblade.net</a>
> <br>
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, July 6, 2012 12:33 PM<br>
<b>Subject:</b> [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS?<br>
</font><br>
WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS?<br><br>
Over coffee, this morning, i recopied the emails from this thread and
tried to narrow down to just the questions that were posed.<br><br>
I think i missed an email that Lee Early was responding to in his
message.<br><br>
A couple of reflections: <br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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.<br><br>
I could go on, but my eggs are getting cold, and the slice of cantelope
from Judy's garden is calling.<br><br>
THE GIST AS I SEE IT<br>
Mary Hampton: Enough, all ready, its too good to miss and I am not
ready to edit. Good stuff, folks!<br><br>
Ken Gilgren: why am I here? What am I doing? How am I being?
What quickens the current action of my soul?<br>
what was the question again?<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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?<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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?<br><br>
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?<br><br>
Jan Sanders: What are the key images of the future of
evolution?<br><br>
Steve Harrington: You had to say it, eh? What does it look
like to be the Sensitive & Responsive. To what concerns?
where?<br><br>
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.<br><br>
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?<br><br>
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. <br><br>
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?<br><br>
Missed the name: What was Neibhur's line? (and how do you spell his
name?) Something about the sensitive and something ones.<br><br>
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 ....<br><br>
Jan and Steve: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our
calling? What are we called to know/do/be? <br>
Jan: What are some of the important partnerships the future
needs?<br><br>
Jim Baumbach: "How do I get you to change your mind and do
what I think is right?"<br><br>
Karen Bueno: "How are we to live together and preserve this
planet for the future?"<br><br>
<br><br>
Jim Wiegel<br>
<a href="mailto:Jfwiegel@yahoo.com">Jfwiegel@yahoo.com</a><br><br>
“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<br><br>
Partners in Participation Upcoming public course opportunities:<br>
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ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012<br>
The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012<br>
Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation
program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16,
2012 <br>
See short video
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