[Oe List ...] Some thoughts about the future

[Jeanette Stanfield]

Hi Herman,
Thank you for your reflections on culture and sustainability and OE/ICA/EI
role.

When I received your May newsletter there was a declaration from your UN
China meeting relative to placing culture at the heart of sustainable
policies.  I shared that article with Martin Gilbraith, ICAI president, and
with Robyn Hutchinson in Australia.   Robyn and John Miesen  along with
others are the editors  of ICAI newsletter: Wind and Waves.  Would you
being willing to write something for  Wind and Waves on this declaration ?

Go well,

Jeanette Stanfield





On Sun, Jun 23, 2013 at 12:59 PM, Herman Greene <hfgreenenc at gmail.com>wrote:

> 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 18thcentury. 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
>
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>
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