[Oe List ...] An Amazing Two Days at ICA Chicago-Telling Our Story & The Global Archives

Sun Sep 30 15:43:33 PDT 2012

In the below I meant a memory that goes back 40-45 years, not 50-55 years
and I have corrected it.

  _____  

From: Herman Greene [mailto:hfgreene at mindspring.com] 
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2012 6:40 PM
To: 'Order Ecumenical Community'
Subject: An Amazing Two Days at ICA Chicago-Telling Our Story & The Global
Archives

I spent what for me were an amazing two days in Chicago last Thursday and
Friday. I went because Jack and Judy Gilles were working on the Global
Archives and were going to leave this morning, September 30. It was the only
time I could get to see them. 

I am finding a yearning to tell our story and bring some of it forward. More
particularly I miss working with people who were formed out of the same fire
as I was. I work with activists, truly "Those Who Care," but something is
missing for me. It's primarily an interior aspect-that "die on the march"
aspect, that "live the mystery" aspect, that "the past is approved and the
future is open (to be created)" aspect, that "we can get anything down that
is necessary" aspect, that "we can drop everything and focus . . . and
sacrifice" aspect," that "we can leave all our possessions behind" if need
be aspect.

One could argue that the Marines also create this kind of interior steel and
discipline, but it is different. (Actually the Marines might excel in honor
of country and even willingness to die, but it is still different.)

I have only experienced this in the Order. I know this has made me much of
what I am and I have a yearning to pass it on to others, especially as I
realize my own age, 67, and see so many colleagues passing away.

So while a part of me thinks its silly for grownups to be filing all the
town meeting 76 event folders (and all the work that goes into that),
another part of me also claws back to recover that past . . . for the
future.

What we were as the Order has passed away (I mean in terms of being able to
re-create it as it was again), and all of those magnificent moments and
events we created have passed away. Yet there is an echo in the hallway that
will not stop.

I will go into this more later, but what past it is that I want to pass on
is difficult to grasp. Is it the Order, RSI, EI, ICA, EI and ICA, all before
Joe died (or in my case before 1975 when I left the Order), all up to today
including the recent history of ICA? I have some ideas, but they are not
important for this email. All that's important now is that I was drawn back
to Chicago to discuss, primarily with Jack, how the spirit transformation
part of who we were then (and inside are now) can be transmitted to the
future as we who experienced this grow older and older and pass away.

The "we" I am talking about is those of us who carry a memory back of 40-45
years (other may have a different time span) when it seems to me the really
creative breakthroughs occurred. I'm at the younger end of those who
experienced that as adults (I was 21 when I joined the Order in 1967). Now
some may have joined in 1972 or later and still have "gotten it," but what I
am talking about is something that was gotten or it was not, back then. 

So we are a dying cohort and the question has arisen for me whether there is
something we still need to do together? My answer is I think that if there
is something that we still need to do together it is to transmit that legacy
as a living legacy for present and future generations. Part of this is
transmitting facts, part the interior narrative, but most of all it is
transmitting the timeless spiritual reality we came to know and which has
shaped our lives but this is not easy because it is not a simple thing. It's
much more than just coming out of an RS-1, or any other short even, inspired

I had many important moments of understanding this past week in Chicago and
felt tremendous gratitude for what Marge Philbrook and colleagues have done
on the archives, and for the work Jack has done in thinking through how this
can be a living legacy. I

In brief Jack and those who workshopped with him, realized that its not just
a matter of preserving the past by putting facts in file cabinets and
waiting for someone to want it, but it is giving people a way of
understanding what's in the collection (Jack uses the term "curation" like a
museum curator) and applying that material to the cutting edge issues of our
time. What I especially appreciated though was the attached chart in three
formats, because it gave me a way to grasp the entirety of what it is that
we were/are/may need in some fashion to pass on. 

In a certain sense the attached chart overwhelms me because I thought there
were a few key things like "contextual ethics" and the RS-1 dynamic and a
few other things that might "really need to be" passed on . . .  just a few
key things. But now I see it was "all of it"-a giant spiritual event and
happening that unfolded over many years and took many forms all of which
were a single event. To recreate this would require thousands of people in
summer assemblies and a new order and that is not going to happen. Yet I
think there is something we can do and need to do and which no one else can
do.

So, in conclusion, I believe there is something we still need to do together
and that is to pass on a living legacy. By distinguishing legacy from living
legacy I meant this: "Legacy" is preserving the past for its own sake.
"Living legacy" is recovering the past so that it might continue to
transform the future.

The attached Accessions chart is just a beginning. I know that Jack would
like to receive your suggestions.

More soon,

Herman

_____________________________________________

Herman Greene

2516 Winningham Drive

Chapel Hill, NC 27516

919-929-4116 (h)

919-624-0579 (c)

919-942-4358 (f)

Skype: hgreene-nc

hfgreene at mindspring.com 

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