[Oe List ...] pater noster & Ken Burns

[Ken Fisher]

Dear Margaret,

Thank-you for your response.

I am aware that this thread is about Ken Burn’s Vietnam War series and memories. In Canada, at that time, I was considerably involved in the Anti-War protest movement (SUPA & SDS), protested in front of the American Embassy, in connection with Daniel Berrigan (& Philip), ran American Army deserters over the Ivy Lea Bridge into Canada and helped them establish (false) Canadian identities. In 1968, when I started the process to get a Green Card to immigrate to EI: Chicago, I kept waiting for the RCMP (or the FBI) to catch up with me. It never happened. I had a draft card.

Activism (the disestablishment) has been ‘my style’ throughout my life. What is recent for me is the experience of being enveloped in the warmth of ‘the all’ and ‘the now’. Thinking 'cause and effect', 'me-them', 'subjective-objective' seems to have melted. Not that I can’t get into it! (And yes, I can say the word ‘Trump’.)

Like so many, it seems that hopefulness is the only way forward. Over the past few years I have been deeply assisted by ‘our daily Rohr’ with his evocation of oneness and including everything. I am most fortunate to have a weekly, hour-long Facetime collegium with Don Bushman - where for years now, we pursue this conversation. I am most fortunate to be partnered with Patricia who deeply shares this context.

So it is, at 75, I have become a bit of a one-note orchestra - in eliciting conversation that expands ones mystical experience - of being in it all - all together. It is that cohort among humans on which I rely - for shared gratitude for life and shared loyalty to a new planet. (Does the sun say to the earth, you owe me?)

I have been attempting to write a simple daily prayer for myself. In conversation with you, I will experiment with the following.

Love,

Ken






Compassionate cosmos…



Of the stars, of the earth,

Of the air, of the water,

Of the plants, of the creatures;

Of all, we live.

With you, we find our meaning.


Grace us with your presence.

As we are given life by life itself,

May we choose all to love.

Trusting in your endless hospitality,

Be it so.












On Oct 1, 2017, at 2:40 AM, Isobel Bishop via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:

Thankyou Ken 

Sent from my iPhone

On 28 Sep 2017, at 1:14 am, Margaret Aiseayew via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net <mailto:oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>> wrote:

> I am sorry to say that even though I appreciate your secular pater noster, 
> I am still concerned with asking the cosmos for forgiveness for all the times I have stepped heavily on the earth.  It seems that admitting our culpability is essential to moving forward.  I could go on and on.  I am not trying to say that guilt is necessary, but it seems like co-creation requires a trust based in honesty.  Margaret
> From: OE [mailto:oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net <mailto:oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net>] On Behalf Of Ken Fisher via OE
> Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2017 9:24 AM
> To: George Holcombe; Order Ecumenical Community
> Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] conversation on white trash racism
>  
>  
>  
>  
> Friends,
>  
> Both through recent experiences and 'our daily Rohr', I’d like to share with you my wording of a current secular ‘pater noster'.
>  
>  
>  
>  
> Compassionate cosmos...
> In which we live,
> and with whom we find our meaning,
> Grace us with your presence.
> Support our freedom to be love as we are loved.
> Trusting in your never-ending hospitality,
> So be it.
>  
>  
> And, as I have already shared, I love this poem by Hafiz.
>  
> The sun never says to the earth, “You owe me.
>  
> Look what happens with a love like that.
>  
> It lights the whole sky.
>  
>  
>  
> Feeling the warmth of the sun (the immediate sustainer of our habitat) and wanting to ‘be sun too’,
>  
> Ken
>  
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