[Oe List ...] Some thoughts about the future
LAURELCG at aol.com
LAURELCG at aol.com
Sun Jun 23 10:54:14 PDT 2013
Thank you, Herman.
This is a lot to think about. My first response is profound excitement.
The tiny not-for-profit on whose board I serve, Sequoia Center for Holistic
Studies, is looking for how to expend our energy and resources for the
sake of the generations to follow. Our conservation work in Mexico has been
turned over to a local board there, and we haven't found a new direction.
I hope this starts a substantive discussion and expect we'll all need some
time to get our minds around the challenges we face. Thanks for bringing
them to light on this solstice weekend.
Blessings,
Jann McGuire
In a message dated 6/23/2013 9:59:15 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time,
hfgreenenc at gmail.com writes:
Dear All,
This is an important email for me, though it will not be for each of you.
It is one I have thought about for months, especially since returning from a
visit in ICA headquarters in Chicago in September 2012. I made that trip
because I was going to be able to meet with Jack Gilles, who was at ICA
working on the archives project. I was also looking forward to meeting with
Pam and Terry Bergdall again. The event turned out to be overwhelming for me,
in part because of the profound memories that welled up within me, in part
because of the conversations Jack and I had and the picture he presented of
the EI/ICA archive (which brought down the full breadth of our legacy on
me), and in part because I really realized that the big corporate body that
constituted EI/ICA was gone.
I left the Order in 1975 and didn’t come back into contact with Order folk
until the Millennium Conference in 2000. I have had four or five occasions
since then to be in Chicago or at a Springboard gathering. I have been on
the OE listserve for some time and on the ICA Dialogue listserve for a year.
Nelson and Elaine Stover and John Cock live nearby and I have been in
contact with them and colleagues who live in Asheville.
The eight years I was in the Order from 1967-75 shaped my life
dramatically, but for the most part my development since 1975 has taken place apart
from EC/ICA. There have been several key influences on me and I will name
three: Thomas Berry, Alfred North Whitehead (and the International Process
Network), and the practice of business law.
EI didn’t help me at all with the overwhelming task I was given growing up
as a Southern Baptist, which was to save the world. I have learned though
to balance this calling to make my life count with humility and self-care.
The basic impulse and teaching of EI is however still strong within me and
indeed is what leads to this email.
There is much to be written, but to write much at this point I feel is a
mistake because what is involved is not for me alone to articulate or
determine. It is a part of a conversation that has been going on some time and it
has to do with what we who have been a part of EI/ICA can contribute to our
time. The subject does not directly concern ICA US or any ICA organization
as an institution, though it is not irrelevant to any of them either.
Let me start with the easiest issue, our listserves, then go to a
particular project, then to the legacy of EI/ICA.
1. The Listserves. This will border on a gripe. I initially joined
the OE listserv to reconnect with my family/friends. Folks, you are still
the closest friends I have. I use friends with the knowledgeable awareness
that we were and are colleagues first and friends second, but that latter
part seems increasingly important. After going to Oklahoma City a couple of
years ago and meeting with David Dunn, I eventually asked to be added to the
ICA listserve. I thought I would be in a network of a whole different group
of people. To my surprise I found out that it was by and large the same
group of people. I don’t have any recommendation about the two existing
listserves except they are puzzling to me because I honestly don’t see the
difference. The time has passed, however, when I will do anything other than
read emails that stick out for me. I just can’t keep up and it raises the
question for me, as I’m sure it does for many of you, about what are these
listserves for. Nonetheless I keep receiving the emails because I like to at
least read the titles of the various emails. I’ll basically leave this issue
open, though I am considering going back to only being on the OE listserve.
There may be a need for a listserve around the next topic in this email.
2. The Project. The way I see the world, humanity as a whole is
moving from economic-industrial civilization to ecological-cultural
civilization. The transition we are going through is equivalent to that which occurred
with the Neolithic villages, the establishment of the classical
civilizations, the Medieval/feudal period, modernity beginning in the 16th century
and industrial civilization beginning in the 18th century. Agricultural
civilization, which began 10,000 years ago, and industrial civilization which
began 200 years ago were most fundamental. Now we are faced with converging
crises (rapid in historical terms, but not as fast as many of us expect) and
for the next century or so the changes will occur. The goal is not Heaven
on Earth, but the more Heaven the better. Thomas Berry spoke of a “viable”
human future and I like that more modest language, but he also spoke of an
“ecozoic” future and the need to care for the comprehensive community of
life even for the sake of the human.
A set of circumstances two years ago brought me into work related to
preparing for Rio+20, the third Earth Summit of the UN, which occurred last June
in Rio. Before engaging I took some time to study the “sustainable
development” history in relation to the UN. I came to the conclusion that this was
the language on the basis of which change will occur in the next few
decades if it is to occur. It is a language understood and used by all 192
member states of the UN (and no doubt those who are not members as well) is
readily understood by the business community, and is well understood in civil
society (there are 5,000 civil society groups with consultative status with
the UN). Of course, the language itself, which I found in the UN documents
produced over the last 20 years to be quite remarkable, will not bring about
change in the same way that say a local village project will. What we are
faced with, however, is the problem that we are in the planetary phase of
human development and there are no solutions to local problems without a
global shift, that is a change in the dominant mode of human civilization
globally. This statement doesn’t negate the idea of “think globally and act
locally,” of course that is where the dominant effort must occur.
I got involved in preparation for Rio+20 with a group that was advocating
for the inclusion of ethics and spirituality in the Outcome Document for the
conference. The group is known as the “Ethics and Spirituality Initiative
for Sustainable Development” or “ESI” for short. The simple ideas behind
ESI are two: (a) if the lack of sustainable development is an ethical and
spiritual problem then ethics and spirituality must have something to do with
the solution, and (b) if we look only to economics and science to address
the issues related to sustainable development, we will not make the needed
changes.
Let me illustrate what I mean on that second point by a quote from a book
by Jorgen Randers, called 2052:
As a consequence of the increase in the average global temperature of plus
2 degrees Centigrade by 2052, humanity will experience an increasing
number of bothersome climate effects over the decades to come. . . . Each event
will lead to public outrage and create fear for the future. But in most
cases the short-term costs of action will be seen as unacceptably high and
lead to a “well-considered” decision to postpone significant action.
Jorgen also writes of “last to lose” strategies where people will feel
there is no way to control globally either resource use or demand, so their
strategies will promote more economic growth to strengthen their own
strategic positions and ability to strengthen their own resource bases and
defenses. These strategies will only make matters worse.
Do you see the ethical and spiritual problems? People will need to do the “
un-well-considered,” that which in the short-term is not in conventional
terms in their own best interest.
Thomas Berry wrote that humans must become self-limiting. While this has
been honored in spiritual traditions, it is the opposite of the march of
civilization which has always been for more. He said we needed to “reinvent
the human at the species level with critical reflection within the community
of life systems, in a time-developmental context through story and shared
dream experience.”
Now I happen to feel that OE/ICA, or let me speak from my own experience,
the Ecumenical Institute, as I knew it, had a lot of knowledge about how to
call for, teach and prepare people for the task of large-scale change EI
also knew about spiritual formation, the kind that is needed to go through
challenging times and take risks.
Therefore I can see the role of a pedagogical effort coming out of the
historic OE/ICA community in relation to the transition from
economic-industrial civilization to ecological-cultural. I can also see the remaining
EI/ICA network as being helpful in this effort, and without focusing on the
institutional issue, I can see how this could provide an important role for
ICA.
I think there is no doubt a continuing important role for village projects
and local efforts such as the ones ICA US has undertaken in Chicago, but
that is not the subject of this particular email.
My own primary institution now is the Center for Ecozoic Societies. It is
pip-squeak big. My institution, CES, and others will engage in collaborative
efforts related to ESI, ESI will not be an organization in itself. We will
propose various projects and then people can take them up if they wish.
We had a meeting of all of 20 people in NYC on May 14 and came up with this
initial list:
There was a discussion of authoring a book on ESI (not what this ESI group
is about, but rather a call to leaders of values-based organizations) with
chapters from the people present. The book would also serve as an anchor
to this movement.
One common project all agreed upon was commenting collectively on the
post-2015 UN development agenda.
Other collaborations are possible and these were suggested at the meeting.
Please add to this list:
· Advocating for culture/spirituality as the fourth pillar of
sustainable development
· Developing an educational curriculum on sustainable development
for VBOs (this is to help enable people to understand how to be global
citizens and the relationship of ethics, spirituality and culture to
sustainable development).
· Host ecological civilization conferences
· Engage teams of interested persons in different regions of the
world to prepare a vision and pathway to ecological civilization (the
transition from economic-industrial civilization to ecological-cultural
civilization)
· Promote the International Ethics Panel for Ecological
Civilization, Ombudsmen for Future generations, Trusteeship of the Global Commons,
Office of Ethical Assessment in the UN Secretariat and other ethical
structures of governance
· Work on the Global Interfaith WASH Alliance (contribute to the
Global Interfaith WASH Alliance (WASH stands for water sanitation and
hygiene), and support a similar initiative focused on energy)
I can imagine that those who have had the training and experience I have
had through OE/ICA could be very helpful in preparing and carrying out these
two in particular:
· Developing an educational curriculum on sustainable development
for VBOs (this is to help enable people to understand how to be global
citizens and the relationship of ethics, spirituality and culture to
sustainable development).
· Host ecological civilization conferences
Another list that I want to put forward, without comment is this one:
The following were identified as areas where transformational leadership
is needed in books by David Orr and Paul Schafer:
(i) creating a new theoretical, practical, historical and
philosophical framework for the world of the future (with an emphasis on the importance
of the cultural dimension of life and of strengthening this dimension);
(ii) dealing with the intimate relationship between people and the
natural environment,
(iii) providing uncommon clarity about our best economic and energy
options,
(iv) helping people understand and face what will be increasingly
difficult circumstances, and
(v) fostering a vision of a humane and decent future.
I can imagine some of you want to be involved in ESI. I can imagine a new
Ecumenical or Ecozoic Institute to carry out the educational programs. I can
imagine this is connected with ICA though not that ICA would have to be
involved.
Well, I’ve gone on longer than I thought I would. I haven’t brought this
section to a conclusion, but I believe I have provided enough of a flavor
for you to “get it.” I’ll be interested in what you have to say either
through this listserve or by emailing me directly.
3. The Order (or EI/ICA) Legacy. The story of who we were needs to
be told and the past needs to be preserved. I have wondered from time to
time if there needs to be some kind of loose order going forward. Since I haven
’t had any brilliant insights into that I am letting that ride. In some
ways I would like an affiliation where I can honor my vows (the ones I took
long ago in EI to poverty, chastity and obedience), but I can only presently
see work in forming such an order as a distraction. It is part of our
history to say that what needs to come into being must come into being around
the mission and that is enough guidance for me. I am going to do this work
and let the forms emerge.
There are two troubling parts about the legacy about which I would like to
speak. One is the sense that “if we only do this ___________, everything
will change.” The second is the idea that everything is perfectly expressed
in a model. If we are to do this work, it is necessary to let go completely
of dogmatic certainty and the idea that we can make things happen.
A key event in the life of the Order which I keenly remember but no one
else to whom I have spoken seems to have remembered. McClesky gave a lecture
on the turn to the world. He drew a football diagram on the board and talked
of doing an end run around the church. He said we had a decision to make
about whether we would be a force or a leaven. At the time, the notion was
that we would be a force. So we mapped out the world and, being obsessed
with numbers in grids, went out to change it.
In this effort we can only be a leaven.
Herman
--
__________________________________________________
Herman F. Greene
2516 Winningham Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
919-942-4358 (ph & fax)
_hfgreenenc at gmail.com_ (mailto:hfgreenenc at gmail.com)
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