[Oe List ...] Memories from the Urban Academy

Tue Jan 8 02:36:18 PST 2019

Thank you Dawn for this memory. What a journey we have all come! 
With love to you,
Isobel B

Sent from my iPhone

> On 8 Jan 2019, at 11:38 am, Dharmalingam Vinasithamby via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
> 
> Thank you Dawn for your post – it triggered my own memories of the urban academy – I think we also called it the Black Academy. The one that I taught at was in a convent surrounded by corn fields in De Kalp. As an “international intern”, I found it “edgy” compared to The Academy. Thanks to Shropshire, I got an insider’s view of the US that few other foreigners would have been privy to. I spent evenings in our dorm listening to him pour out his heart about the struggle of being black and celebrating identity in a white-dominated society. I learnt what “mother fucker” meant – not incest but the name children gave to slave owners who violated their mothers. Joyce Ollison amazed me with the way she handled a participant, a Vietnam vet, going through a “flashback”. She was then pregnant and we were clustered around her discussing something. He walked up to her, pointed a gun and began talking incoherently. She just talked him into putting it away! I saw the impact the academy made on Gay Gay, a participant from Fifth City, when RS1 got to him.  I still remember the send-off – You are accepted – that he gave me before I left the US when my internship ended. 
> 
> Dharma
> 
> On Tuesday, 8 January 2019, 06:51:54 GMT+8, Mary Kurian D'Souza via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> Thank you Dawn for the memories 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On 07-Jan-2019, at 10:00 PM, Nancy Lanphear via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>> 
> 
> Push send button too soon!  Shropshire’ wisdom and magic!  Thanks Bob for all of it!
> 
>> On Jan 7, 2019, at 8:28 AM, Nancy Lanphear <nancylanphear at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
> 
> One more great story of Shropsire’s 
> 
>> On Jan 7, 2019, at 7:44 AM, Dawn Collins via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>> 
>> And thank you, Janet! I was sitting here about to tear my hair out looking for the "Send" button! 
>> 
>> G&P,
>> 
>> dawn
>> On Monday, January 7, 2019, 8:39:44 AM MST, Janet Sanders via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Thank you for the memories!
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>> On Jan 7, 2019, at 10:30 AM, Dawn Collins via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>> 
>>> Remember the "Take me to the Airport" conversation in RS-1, Lynda?
>>> 
>>> Well, we had a similar situation during the early days of the second Urban Academy of the 70s out in the suburbs of Chicago. We were domiciled for 6 weeks in a large white secluded edifice at the end of a long driveway that was purported to be a hideout(?) for Al Capone and his mob in the 1920s. It was large enough to house our staff of 6 and 15 or so participants of color largely from urban areas recruited by the staff in the initial phases of creating a structural form to offer comprehensive leadership training to participants of color to uplift their communities with a vision and methods of potential implementation of renewal.
>>> 
>>> I'll get to the incident that reoriented the focus of the second Academy in a moment. First, the staff was composed of George and Rose West, Larry Ward. Greg Shropshire, Nancy Prather and myself. Nancy is Japanese and gave a stunning lecture on the Yellow Ur that called into question my efforts to educate myself on the black experience and heritage up to that point.
>>> 
>>> Our staff meetings were congenial yet lengthy and instructive and smoke-filled with cigars by the men; I tried a stogy once in the first Academy and went back to cigarettes. (Stopped smoking in '89). Oh, and I would often fall asleep before the meetings ended. Lost a contact lens from my hand that cracked under a radiator near the window when I woke up after a long meeting to an empty room late one evening!
>>>  
>>> At any rate, when we came to the solitary time in the culminating stages of the curriculum where participants were to spend time sequestered in their rooms, two young fellows decided they had enough. They waited until we all met together back in our collegium room and announced they would be leaving on the 10:10 bus (or train) that morning.
>>> 
>>> After a bit of back and forth with the whole Academy participating; we all sensed we were struggling to keep the group together as a part of our corporate soul which had been created from a bunch of strangers who shared bonds of melanin and adventure that was perhaps deeper for some than others.
>>> 
>>> It took the late Bob Shropshire to radically shift the context. to an everyday yet somehow sacred communion analogy who very softly asked the two young men, to "take another piece of bread".  In other words to move forward into life and take the charge to live it completely and give themselves to the struggle.
>>> 
>>> As they continued their line of reasoning, Shropshire softly repeated, "Take another piece of bread, man." It worked; they stayed until the end of our sojourn together.
>>> 
>>> Again, the whole issue of authenticity was raised for me as I was as much a participant in the Urban Academy as I was a part of the staff. Larry and Bob were gifted pedagogues who shared their gifts of imaginal education tools in their lectures, seminars and workshops.  And I knew that was a path of even more intentionality I would be taking into the future. Shortly thereafter, additional staff took the Urban Academy on the road. I did not accompany them to keep peace in the family.
>>> 
>>> Thank you, Lynda, for giving me the opportunity to recapture the role of that chapter in the participation of a corporate encounter where there have been others who left the experience of the Academies enlightened,  enriched, radically changed and open to a life of service.
>>> 
>>> G&P.
>>> dawn
>>> 
>>> P.S. The "These are the Times, We are the People" ritual was created in the first Urban Academy in a tiny town of  Teleopolis (sp), near Chicago in a Catholic facility where they treated us with great care and respect. Larry Ward and Sharon Turner may be good prospects to further flesh out the Urban Academy history.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> We love the Creator/Source because the Source/Creator loved us first.
>>> - 1 John 4:19
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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