[Oe List ...] The Order and Oaxtapec

[Jean Long via OE]

jean long -
John & Robyn - As in Neihbor's  "church as the sensitive and responsive
ones in each organization" I continue to look for and love the church as
they search for a way to care for the growing suffering of neighbor and
globe.

I remember Joe saying when the time comes when there is no longer a common
mission- go home.  It is only our passion for an agreed upon way to
alleviate human suffering that allows us to accept each others' warts and
bruises and sons of bitchedness and work together day after day in profound
forgiveness.

That had begun to happen in Denver before the house was sold out from under
us by some sons of bitchedness and we became the caring community in
dispersion.

The Order is alive and well in the persons of our ICA staff people.  They
hunger for the spirit dimension that they sense in us old Orderly people.
And they go after it in our Archives.  They found Brian Stanfield's
 Courage to Care with its end of chapter reflections and use it now as the
spirit intro for many of their meetings with the 77Neighborhoods and the
agency folks.

Bless Tim Wegner, MIke Tippett, John Cock who maintain our structural
connectedness -  and our master ITs, Wendell Rafior, Doug Druckenmiller,
Steve Eddiger - who lives in intentional community on the seventh floor -
and all the rest of us working with the Global Archives who have sweat
blood and underwritten the creation of the ICA Global Archives through
which to make our methods available to those who may be searching for them
as resources with which to deal with the suffering of these times.

You will be getting info soon about the Week of October 8-13 when the
Archives Sojourn week will host three tracks - 1. The Celebration of the
Band of the 24; 2. The ongoing work and unveiling of the Archives Website;
and 3. Tagging committee whose task it will be to, after identifying the
communities we interact with, list the tags (labels) that they might use to
find our documents.  Right now we have 2000 scanned and ready to drop into
the website, but without relevant tags after their document name on a
spreadsheet in the database, they will probably never connect to "The New
Religious Mode" - or as I see it "The New Mode of the Religious".  We are
having the joyous task of calling many of you who were in the projects to
make you aware of this wonderful week of celebration and giving our methods
to the future.

Any questions, call me at 720-633-5008.  Only costs, your time, air/carfair
and board and room - $30/single, $45/double on the 8th floor - $10/day
food.  After rooms go, hotel rooms and friends/relatives guest rooms.

The Order is, indeed, alive and well and doing our damdest to get our
methods into the future.

To you all I can say, Grace and Peace.,

Jean Long
Global Archives
Chicago

On Sun, Jun 18, 2017 at 2:07 AM, John & Robyn Hutchinson via OE <
oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:

> Dear John and Dharma and all,
>
> So well said. To this day we are part of the spirit movement – the  order
> ecumenical – the crimson line - and always will be. We are grateful that
> this spirit dynamic could never be called out of being, and is still so
> alive today.
>
>
>
> When we speak about this with others, who are not part of this particular
> order – occasionally – they do understand what that means. There are so
> many people today, who are part of this wider spirit movement. All this is
> what energizes us to keep at ‘the mission’ until we can no more.
>
>
>
> Dharma, the question that JWM asked me (John) 50 years ago was: DO YOU
> LOVE THE CHURCH? (repeated 3 x) The question and  answer is no different
> today (albeit the words are secular), and we see people asking and
> answering that question in so many practical secular ways, undergirded by
> spirit – the invisible/visible order we are a part of – standing between
> the no longer and the not yet. The new 40 year timeline has started again
> with profound new questions and responses to be created.
>
> Grace and Peace, John
>
>
>
> PS John and Dharma, this seems like the beginning of a good
> secular-religious article for Winds and Waves on medium.com!!!??? Robyn
>
>
>
> *From:* OE [mailto:oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net] *On Behalf Of *Dharmalingam
> Vinasithamby via OE
> *Sent:* Friday, 16 June 2017 10:14 AM
> *To:* Catherine Welch; John Epps; Order Ecumenical Community; Order
> Ecumenical Community
> *Subject:* Re: [Oe List ...] The Order and Oaxtapec
>
>
>
> Thank you John for initiating this fabulous discussion that I have long
> wanted to have. Yes, no one can call this community out of being. It was
> not man-made but by spirit. Only the grave after the inevitable greying
> will put an end to us.
>
>
>
> The Order was an overwhelming part of my identity. It is still there but
> in the background. Now it is those whom I meet or work with face to face
> who are my community. As we say, change begins in the local. But there are
> moments when I am at a meeting - either at my workplace or with a community
> group - when I look at the people around the table and think "This is a
> community, a profound reality, but it is not aware of itself." We were not
> like that because we had learnt a discipline. We knew what was happening
> and had the language to discuss it. So that is where part of our non-ending
> mission is.
>
>
>
> I remember three things that JWM said. We had a 40-year task and when it
> was done, we would call ourselves out of being. Another was that when we
> met, we would expect the other to expect me to be plugging away at that one
> task that I had decided was important. And finally, he said when he died
> and went to heaven, he would stand outside waiting for us to show up.
>
>
>
> One question I have John and others who know. What do you remember that
> JWM said that you feel relates to the time after our 40-year task?
>
>
>
> regards
>
> Dharma
>
>
>
> On Friday, 16 June 2017, 2:35, Catherine Welch via OE <
> oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> Thank you, John, for articulating the “life after Oaxtapec” so well.
>
>
>
> Catherine Welch
>
>
>
> *From:* John Epps via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, June 14, 2017 3:57 PM
>
> *To:* Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net>
>
> *Subject:* [Oe List ...] The Order and Oaxtapec
>
>
>
> It has long been claimed that at the Oaxtapec gathering, the Order was
> called out of being. That assertion has long troubled me, and it seems time
> to clear the air.
>
> IMHO, the statement is both sociologically and theologically inaccurate. A
> more accurate formulation of what happened in Mexico was that we went from
> a structured to a dispersed form. Something was definitely dissolved at
> Oaxtapec, but it was not the Order, only a particular form of the Order.
>
> On the sociological side, there is still a lively “we” that once went
> under the name “Order Ecumenical.” This list-serve and the archives
> workshops represent some manifestations, but more significant are the
> personal collegial relationships that persist despite great demographic,
> cultural, and geographic differences. “We” continue to communicate and to
> celebrate the life milestones of each other.
>
> “We” continue to engage in the mission of catalyzing and caring for those
> who care – in multiple sectors and with far greater impact than a single
> organization could have managed. Some examples include the ToP Network, the
> IAF, ICA community development work in India, Nepal, Australia, and South
> America, and environmental preservation efforts in the USA. “We” have
> published a good number of books making insights available to a wide
> audience. Colleagues could fill out the list.
>
> Theologically, the Order is a historical dynamic that we’ve been
> privileged to participate in. It is not something we can disband, even if
> we wanted to. Just as Niebuhr described the Church as the “sensitive and
> responsive ones…” that takes many forms, so also is the Order composed of
> those awakened and catalytic ones who care for those who care. The notion
> that some of us could dissolve that dynamic confuses the form from the
> content (the baby from the bathwater to use a less abstract metaphor). I’ve
> come (reluctantly) to see that we were led to dissolve a particular
> structure so that the historical dynamic might continue in an enhanced
> fashion.
>
> Why does this matter? Is it simply a verbal difference having little to do
> with anything except the neurosis of an old theologian?
>
> It matters because thinking that there is no longer an Order prevents us
> from wrestling with pertinent questions: How can we remain in touch with
> the Profound Mystery? How can we continue to access our common insights?
> What rites and celebrations are appropriate to a dispersed body? How can we
> account to each other and support each other? How can we stay on the
> religious and secular edge? What (if any) forms are appropriate for the
> global and diverse participants in this historical dynamic? In a time when
> hatred and fear of differences is so rampant, what new experiments might
> make a difference? What might we learn from *Journey to the East*?
>
> Collegial comments, clarifications, corrections, and additions are most
> welcome.
>
>
>
> Thanks for reading this.
>
> John Epps
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> OE mailing list
> OE at lists.wedgeblade.net
> http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
>
> _______________________________________________
> OE mailing list
> OE at lists.wedgeblade.net
> http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
>
>
>
>
> <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient> Virus-free.
> www.avast.com
> <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=emailclient>
> <#m_-5569319134808935950_DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>
>
> _______________________________________________
> OE mailing list
> OE at lists.wedgeblade.net
> http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe-wedgeblade.net/attachments/20170622/e4f038e9/attachment.html>