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

Sun Sep 30 16:08:47 PDT 2012

Thanks, Herman for your reflection and forwarding the  accessions chart and for all the folks working on the archives.
Ellie
elliestock at aol.com 

-----Original Message-----
From: Herman Greene <hfgreene at mindspring.com>
To: 'Order Ecumenical Community' <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Sun, Sep 30, 2012 5:44 pm
Subject: [Oe List ...] An Amazing Two Days at ICA Chicago-Telling Our Story & The Global Archives

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

From: Herman Greene[mailto:hfgreene at mindspring.com] 
Sent: Sunday, September 30, 20126:40 PM
To: 'Order Ecumenical Community'
Subject: An Amazing Two Days at ICA Chicago-Telling OurStory & The Global Archives

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

I am finding a yearning to tell our story and bring some ofit forward. More particularly I miss working with people who were formed out ofthe same fire as I was. I work with activists, truly “Those WhoCare,” but something is missing for me. It’s primarily an interioraspect—that “die on the march” aspect, that “live themystery” aspect, that “the past is approved and the future is open(to be created)” aspect, that “we can get anything down that isnecessary” aspect, that “we can drop everything and focus . . . andsacrifice” aspect,” that “we can leave all our possessionsbehind” if need be aspect.

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

I have only experienced this in the Order. I know this hasmade me much of what I am and I have a yearning to pass it on to others, especiallyas 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 befiling all the town meeting 76 event folders (and all the work that goes intothat), another part of me also claws back to recover that past . . . for thefuture.

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

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

The “we” I am talking about is those of us whocarry a memory back of 40-45 years (other may have adifferent time span) when it seems to me the really creative breakthroughsoccurred. 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 orlater and still have “gotten it,” but what I am talking about issomething that was gotten or it was not, back then. 

So we are a dying cohort and the question has arisen for mewhether there is something we still need to do together? My answer is I thinkthat if there is something that we still need to do together it is to transmitthat legacy as a living legacy for present and future generations. Part of thisis transmitting facts, part the interior narrative, but most of all it istransmitting the timeless spiritual reality we came to know and which hasshaped 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 weekin Chicago and felt tremendous gratitude for what Marge Philbrook andcolleagues have done on the archives, and for the work Jack has done inthinking through how this can be a living legacy. I

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

In a certain sense the attached chart overwhelms me becauseI thought there were a few key things like “contextual ethics” andthe RS-1 dynamic and a few other things that might “really need tobe” passed on . . .  just a few key things. But now I see it was“all of it”—a giant spiritual event and happening that unfoldedover many years and took many forms all of which were a single event. Torecreate this would require thousands of people in summer assemblies and a neworder and that is not going to happen. Yet I think there is something we can doand need to do and which no one else can do.

So, in conclusion, I believe there is something we stillneed to do together and that is to pass on a living legacy. By distinguishinglegacy from living legacy I meant this: “Legacy” is preserving thepast for its own sake. “Living legacy” is recovering the past sothat it might continue to transform the future.

The attached Accessions chart is just a beginning. I knowthat 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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