[Oe List ...] John Gibson Appreciation

[Herman Greene]

Thank you for this Dick. My heart weighs heavy with each passing. John was
one of the great ones.

Herman

On Wed, Jun 3, 2020 at 12:18 PM Richard Alton via OE <
oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:

> An ICA Tribute to John Gibson
>
> The Ecumenical Institute (EI) and (ICA) Institute of Cultural Affairs
> exist today because of dedicated people who decided to live their lives on
> behalf of something bigger than themselves. Individuals who decided to
> operate out of a different value system than the world was accustomed to,
> and who demonstrated with their lives that that which seemed impossible,
> was in fact, possible.
>
> Today we celebrate the life of John Gibson who for 37 years was deeply
> involved in the life and work of the Institute. In 1966 Joseph Mathews,
> Dean of the Ecumenical Institute was the keynote speaker at the Pastor
> School in South Dakota. Mathew’s vision of a renewed church as the catalyst
> for healing the world, spoke to John, which motivated him to attend a
> Pastoral Leadership Colloquy at the Institute’s westside Chicago campus.
> Soon after, the Church leaders in Rapid City invited EI to conduct an RS-1
> course, and out of that inaugural course the Local Church Experiment in
> Rapid City started in 1970.
>
> In 1973 John and Anita participated in the Institute’s Global Odyssey that
> circled the earth to study the cultures of the world. Shortly thereafter,
> their Bishop, James Armstrong, appointed John to work with EI so Anita and
> John joined the EI staff. They were deployed to start a Religious House in
> Green Bay, Wisconsin. In the region they worked on The Bicentennial Town
> Meeting Campaign, and LENS (Living Effectively in a New Society) designed
> to help government agencies and corporations grow cultures of participation.
>
> In 1977 Anita and John and their children, were deployed to Malaysia to
> coordinate a social and economic reconstruction project at Sungai Lui, a
> small village about 20 miles from the capital city, Kuala Lumpur. Anita
> started a pre-school and ran the Well-baby Clinic. John did a gravity-fed
> water system and worked in training and collective village planning.
>
> In 1980, the Gibsons came back to Indianapolis, Indiana where Anita helped
> start Training, Inc and John coordinated ICA programs in Kentucky, Ohio and
> Indiana. John became very involved on neighborhood boards and citywide
> boards. After John left the Institute in 1999, he ran as an independent
> candidate for Mayor of Indianapolis and became the co- founder of Earth
> Charter Indiana serving as an executive Director from 2003 to 2011.
>
> The question the ICA posed to John over 37 years ago, was ‘What will you
> DO with your unique and unrepeatable life’, and we can see John’s answer
> clearly through his mission and work. And I bet, John would like nothing
> more than for us all to ponder, what will we do with our unique and
> unrepeatable life, and how are we willing to actively, not passively -make
> the change we know the world so desperately needs.
>
> In the face of great loss, no words convey the sadness we feel for those
> who loved John Gibson. Yet we dare to say Death is neither a curse nor a
> blessing, an end or a beginning, but only that it is a wondrous,
> frightening and redemptive reality. It is a step into the Unknown Unknown.
> It is sacred, and it is good
>
> --
> Richard H. T. Alton
> One Earth Film Fest ( OEFF)
> Green Community Connections
> Interfaith Green Network
> T: 773.344.7172
> richard.alton at gmail.com
> **Save the Date! One Earth Film Festival 2021, March *
> http:www.oneearthfilmfestival.org
>
> Make Plain the Vision, Habakkuh 2:2
> Won't you be my neighbor?
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>


-- 
__________________________________________________
Herman F. Greene
2516 Winningham Road
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
919-942-4358 (ph & fax)
hfgreenenc at gmail.com
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