[Oe List ...] An Open Letter to the Order Ecumenical from Bill Parker

[Bill Parker]

Greetings to all. I had promised the small group meeting on "A Path Forward" that I would send this letter composed in 2022. I waited to post it until I could decide it was appropriate to who we are now. My view is not looking back but at the present urgent world we all live in and to that which we have all been called to respond. I do this in hopes that you can be a part of forming a path forward. Peace be with you in whatever decision you make but receive the following letter as an affirmation of who you are, wherever you are, in the time you are. Bill
An Open Letter to the Order Ecumenical: June 30, 2022
Dear Colleagues, (Please read this through. It is too long, I agree, but I want to communicate with you. It’s been a while.)
You may not know me well but I have been a part of you since 1966. Suzanne and I spent very little time in Chicago but rather in various Religious Houses: Oklahoma City, Miami, Indianapolis, Paris, and Abidjan over a period of more than 15 years. I am currently in Oklahoma City and have been working under the name of the Human Community Network, an organization committed to systemic transformation of the social structures to benefit the entire human community and not just some small portion of it. I hope you will bear with me on the length of this letter because I believe we live in a time in which we are approaching what Sun Tsu called “Death Ground” in his “Art of War” volume. I say this because of the obvious urgency of this historical moment and the necessity of radical action in response to it.
I believe the historical moment calls for a people who understand the urgency of this moment without falling into a state of panic from it. Also, this moment calls for radical action without the frantic-ness of the activists of all causes. It requires a people who are grounded in being the nobodies of history but who grasp themselves as global servants for the sake of all the human community. It also requires a people whose eyes are wide open about the source of power, how it is used, and the destruction of the global and local social structures and processes essential for the well-being of the human community. This means a cool, lucid people but not paralyzed by the largeness of the task. Do you know of such people?
I know some, but certainly not all, of what some are working on and I believe all of it is necessary work. I could go on to talk about what we have done, and learned here in Oklahoma in our 12 years of research, programs, and expound on the emerging consciousness we have seen as well as the emerging consensus within the human community about the shape of the future. As some have said, we are living with a paradigm that is no longer working for anyone: even those who think it is working for them, and before the emergence of a new paradigm that makes sense to the human community. But I am not focused on Oklahoma. Rather, I am focused on the question: Where in the world would I find a people who have survived the Dark Night of the Soul, and who have moved beyond their native parochialism to a global worldview, and who possess a self-understanding of selfless servant-hood? Yet, who would have the courage, initiative, and creativity to forge a way to effectively respond without falling into the traps of their past.
Our unique past: grounded faith and a corporate life, focus on local community globally, experience the totally other by going global, organizational and institutional transformation, living with contradiction, experienced in global strategy, self-sufficiency and a host of other qualities. All these qualities have prepared us, yes us, old as we are, for this moment of history! I know of no other people who fit what is necessary now to guide, mentor, teach, and facilitate a broad human migration to the new human consciousness already present within them, and to give form to those shaping the human consensus for the social transition already underway. The world we know is in a state of collapse and the question of what it means to be human in the midst of this transition is an existential question we must answer. How will we answer? I know in the midst of every one of us, we are asking that question, even if we are feeble, even if we are broken, or bound to our life as it is now. You have always been the people and while the historical situation has changed dramatically, you still are the people, needed now, not for your past, but for the present. How?
How to answer? What to do? How can we find the power to do anything? What is this pointing to for me? There are so many questions and no answers, at least no easy answers. We know what to do because we have already done it, but we have to step out of our past to be able to see it, or to hear it. We have to enter into the silence of our lives and let it speak to us. We have to move beyond the fabricated selves we have come to endure or accept. We have to leave our wisdom we believed to have and set it aside so we can hear anew the call of history now. We have to turn loose of our accomplishments and our failures, both collectively and personally. An artist turns away from his finished canvas, even their masterpieces, and turns to a new, blank canvas with no thought of replicating the masterpiece. To not do so would destroy the masterpiece and the new painting would be trash and not art.
In order to make that turn, we must know and understand the forces with which we are dealing. We have to understand how those forces got their power and what they do to maintain it. We have to find the threads that connect all of us as a human community so that we do not become a victim of all the causes and issues put forth designed to divide, dilute, and distract us from addressing the underlying reality we face. We have to find ways to cut through the surface of the important movements to get to the bedrock of our situation and connect the critical movements already caring for the human community and are capable of initiating or enabling the transition underway. We have to think strategically and tactically to formulate maneuvers to confuse, distract, and threaten the powers while initiating actions capable to enabling the transition to a more just, and merciful social reality.
We need a broadside attack, not a head on attack, on the economic powers that control the political process and now the cultural process as well. The human community needs to know how they are paying for, and suffering with, the exponential transfer of wealth from ordinary people to the wealthy. They need to understand the endemic corruption of our economic, political and cultural processes. They need to understand how the economic powers fund, support and control virtually all major and minor endeavors for improvement and then get paid by the common people through taxes for doing it as a tax write-off as the costs of doing business.
We need to focus on fleshing out a non-partisan political process to engage the people at the local and regional levels in practical deliberative forms to create their voice and to learn how to use their voices in communicating to the human community at large. A part of this means to provide ways for people to vent their rage and despair as a method for preparing them to enter into a responsible deliberation and discernment process for shaping their priorities and directions. The content of the economic corruption would provide some levels of detachment from the set of beliefs of validation, the massive bribes of decision-making bodies, and the diversion tactics used to deflect the focus of the people away from the control of the economic powers.
We need to provide support to faith communities that they themselves cannot supply to their faith communities. In our research with faith-leaders they have stated the support needed, and essential, for the faith communities is in three areas. One arena of support needed is to ground the theological basis of the faith tradition. Another arena needed is the methods and processes for the faith community to discern their role in social responsibility which would define their mission. The third arena is that they are not equipped with tools to facilitate the faith community’s exploration of their interior universe. This is not an effort to “renew” the faith community but rather an essential support system for the faith leaders.
We need to focus on the political process with a non-partisan view of what is needed to alter the current political culture. Many situations prevent people from voting for their first-choice candidate for fear that their vote would be wasted and would be an advantage to their least favored candidate. At times candidates can win the election with less than the majority of the votes, or no votes at all. In fact, we have had Presidents of the United States win the election without a majority of the peoples’ vote. We have seen the current crisis revolving around the Electoral College rather than the number of votes a candidate received. Much work is required in this arena in order to preserve democracy. Again, the economic intrusion in the political sphere is central to the tragic events in so many nations and now we are seeing it in the US.
We need to focus on the education of the human community and what the gaps are in education that are essential to a free, vibrant and responsible citizen. The past forms of curriculum in the education of the human community have been euro-centric, selective, and geared toward the affluent school districts with property tax as the basis of funding. This mechanism curtails the inclusive nature of public education and limits the opportunities of those who reside in poorer areas. Given the breakdown of our other social structures educators tell us the student is totally preoccupied with survival and distracted from the endeavor of education. The student cannot see viability far enough out in their future to see the value of education at hand. The need is to find ways in which people wanting to learn can have access to education that is comprehensive without meeting some financial, academic or social criteria.
We need to focus on universal health care that includes mental health for all people, including women. The economic has dictated the terms of health care through the insurance industry. The number of students in medical schools has been limited to the detriment of the human community. Insurance companies determine, define, and restrict access of health care from multiple levels. The current pandemic has illustrated the breakdown of the health system and while the public funds have flowed to address the situation the insurance companies have continued to flourish in their profits and large salaries for their executives. The crisis of the pandemic and now the women’s health crisis show the inadequacy of the system of health. The unspoken crisis is within the health care professions where the paperwork, accountability, procedure justifications consume the human energy.
We need to focus on the climate change threatening major segments of the human community with impending threats to every person and creature on the planet. We have known for 70 years the hazards we are putting in play that spoil our soil, water, air, food, animals, plants, oceans and so much more only to have very little change. Yes, we stopped DDT here, but globally not so much. We use Roundup to get rid of the weeds in our fields but we have to use Monsanto’s hybrid seed that can grow in it. Carbon, methane, mercury, and all the rest of the detrimental substances continue to rise without significant change. The people want significant change to happen in response to the awaiting climate disaster, the oligarchs don’t, so we must focus dramatically on the necessary changes for life, all of life. The great human migration is connected directly or indirectly to the climate crisis. The care of the earth can be one of the threads, along with the economic controls over the human factor, connecting us all together.
In summary, if a global people got connected, who were grounded theologically, who knew how to enable people to discern their role in social responsibility, and who had the tools for people to access and explore the interior universe, who had the courage to attack the corruption of the economic powers, who had demonstrated the viability of an alternative deliberation process from the local level up, who could call into being the role of social responsibility of the faith communities, who already possessed an effective human approach to education, learning, and community, who can work with professionals in healthcare to formulate a transition to universal health, who were decades into addressing climate change, if such a people exist and got connected there would be a historic response that would have a decisive impact on the future of the human community. There are already movements waiting for these people to emerge from the shadows into the light and be what they prepared to be for decades.
It is not too late. You are not too old! Even if you have lost some of your genius, you still know more about this change, response, and transition than all of the Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT geniuses combined. I know you are not too busy. The question is do you have the will for one more fight? If you don’t, that is fine, but if you do this is a call to arms, not out of panic or fear, but out of a cold, hard, calculated decision to respond. Do you have the volition to act on what is already at work deep inside your consciousness? If so, respond to this “Open Letter to the Order Ecumenical”. Nothing is fixed, set, or defined. I know this is a burden in your deliberation already. But I am not asking you to join me, or the Human Community Network, or anything else. I’m asking you to make a conscious decision about how you are going to live with the balance of your life. You, of all people, have something essential to the human community that others do not have and cannot have. Also, I want to say this is not about a facilitation gig, or training facilitators gig, or a pedagogical gig, or a spiritual gig. It is not about a gig at all. It is not about the O:E. It is about how people from all walks of life with all kinds of activities and causes under their belts can come together and focus on what they can be, must be, for the sake of the human community.
I can give you more information. You can respond through the listserv or to me directly: bparker1251963 at gmail.com or +1 405 850 0195. Peace to each of you. Bill Parker

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