[Oe List ...] [Dialogue] The old Order passing away

Thu Sep 27 04:40:11 PDT 2012

Susan and Jann, et al -

The tinkling bamboo dance, the national dance, is also perceived as a life stance.  When birds are caught in the bamboo groove, especially during a storm, the bamboos hit each other ferociously that the only option is to try to escape, or dance in the wind, gracefully and with agility - but carefully.  

j'aime la vie

-----Original Message-----
From: Susan Fertig <susan at gmdtech.com>
To: 'Order Ecumenical Community' <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Thu, Sep 27, 2012 1:05 pm
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] [Dialogue] The old Order passing away

Jann, I sent an email a few days ago referencing the book you’re talking about—Ellery had loaned it to me and I was wishing I had made a copy of it before returning it to her, because it is not available from any source.  Jon, do you remember the name of it?  The cover was black and red, and I believe the title was something about betrayal.  Jann, you’re right, they did not get out right away.  They were on the island of Mindanao, and my parents were on the island of Panay, where I was born in ’44 after my mother had been in hiding in the jungle for several years.  I believe Ellery got out by submarine on the USS Narwhal in ’43.  We got out by submarine when I was 3 months old the following year and then went back right after the war (I grew up in the Philippines). Ellery might have known another girl from Mindanao who has just written a book about her parents’ and her own WWII experience, called Guerrilla Daughter (the author, Ginger Hanson Holmes, is a close friend of mine; her dad and teen age brothers served in the Mindanao guerrillas under my uncle, Wendell Fertig). 

The game you are talking about is actually a Philippine folk dance called Tinikling.  It is patterned after the movements of the Tikling bird as its long legs move in and out of fish traps in the water.

Susan

We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We've staked the future of all our political institutions upon our capacity... to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God. (James Madison, 1778 to the General Assembly of the State of Virginia)

From: oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of LAURELCG at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2012 12:39 AM
To: oe at lists.wedgeblade.net
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] [Dialogue] The old Order passing away

In the San Francisco House, 1970-71, Ellery acquired some bamboo poles and taught the kids a Philippino game kind of like jump rope, but jumping between the poles as they were clapped together in rhythm. She was very good at it.

I believe she and her parents didn't get  evacuated for 2 or 3 years after the war broke out. They were hidden from the occupying Japanese army by local folks in the crawl space under the house until smuggled out on a submarine and taken to Ayers Rock (?) in Australia. Maybe Jon can elaborate. I believe her father wrote a book about it.

I feel privileged to have been acquainted with these two heroines.

Jann McGuire  

In a message dated 9/26/2012 8:02:44 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, dpat23 at msn.com writes:

I remember Ellery's talking about having lived in the Philippines as a high school girl. (Her dad was a missionary and they were evacuated when WWII broke out.)  When she  was assigned to Manila, she thought the Tagalog language she had been fluent in would come back to her fairly easily. She was very frustrated to find that it was gone and not coming back. About 6 months in to her assignment, she had been doing development in Manila and was exhausted. She got on the bus to go home and wanted nothing much more than a good nap. But the women just behind her would not let that happen. They kept yammering away about the most stupid and trivial things: their kids and their squabbles, the troubles in their marriages, and other nonsense. Ellery was furious; why couldn't these women shut up and let her sleep? 

Suddenly, she realized that the women were speaking Tagalog and she was understanding every word.  She was so tired that she had lost all her inhibitions and the Tagalog that lay just beneath her conscious mind came out. So from then on, she both understood and spoke Tagalog fluently.

She had a great time telling this story  on herself.

Pat

From: sunwalker at comcast.net
To: dialogue at lists.wedgeblade.net; oe at lists.wedgeblade.net
Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 11:49:46 -0600
Subject: [Dialogue] The old Order passing away

First, a reflection on Ellery – as a young and inexperienced Global Prior, Ellery was one of the ones who was gracious enough to let me learn from my mistakes without rancor and yet with continued nourishing support. Just her face was a human support mechanism. She spiritually nourished me and we rarely even spoke. And with mortality on my mind as so many saints are called home, knowing you have gone with God, I will let go a bit of the anticipation of my own return.

For Carol, while there are many, many memories: one that popped to the top was the time we were at the IERD in Delhi and had boarded the VERY tiny elevator on the top floor (about the 22nd as I recall) of the hotel where we were housed. We pushed the button for the ground floor and about a third of the way down, the elevator shuddered to a stop and the door opened…on a brick wall. Well, I was a little claustrophobic and unaware that Carol was extremely claustrophobic. That hour waiting to be rescued (it could have been 15 minutes, but seemed like SEVERAL hours) was revealing of the wondrous woman of steel (Superman move over) who kept us breathing and laughing to avoid injuring ourselves in the mad panic of fear that sets in when you MUST get OUT and you cannot. Clearly our circumstances were not our problem. While in “Heaven,” do a few cartwheels for me, my dear, as I know we both would enjoy them.

Sunny

Sunny Walker 
SunWalker Enterprises
303-587-3017 (cell)
303-671-0704 (home/office)
sunwalker at comcast.net
Aurora, CO

No mattter how far you've gone down the wrong road, turn back. ~ Turkish Proverb

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