<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Dear Gordon, Roxana and the Harper family, </span></div><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION"><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION"><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><div><br></div><div>With such knowledge we stand in awe, because of your own and our own projected timelines—now at 75 for Lynda and soon-to-be 77 for John. </div></div></span><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br></span></div><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><div>Thank you for including us (the OE community) as part of your family. We salute your wisdom and humor that has been a creative force in our corporate life. John and I hold each other a little more tightly as we hold you all in our hearts, with deep gratitude for your journeys with us and our family. </div></div></div></span><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br></span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">We thought of you this morning on our walk after reading your epistle. The words from our walking ritual of “We are journeyed by <b><i>grace</i></b>: sustained, called, empowered, and fulfilled” rang more powerfully than usual as we think of our common journeys of purpose, community, and age.</span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br></span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">We celebrate more than ever your being here with <b><i>being</i></b> itself in history, together as part of the Earth community we have served through our common years together.</span></div><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><div><span style="font-size: 16px;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: 16px;">Grace and peace is yours, </span></div></div></div></span><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><br></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">Lynda and John </span></div><div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><br></span></div><div><font face="Calibri,sans-serif" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;">PS. We also sang the Mormon </span></font><font face="Calibri,sans-serif"><span style="font-size: 16px;">hymn “Come, Come Ye Saints … All is well, all is well”—that is, the parts we most affirm—with hearty affirmation of your/our common journeys.</span></font></div><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;"><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><div style="font-size: 18px;"><br></div><div style="font-size: 18px;"><br></div><span id="OLK_SRC_BODY_SECTION" style="font-size: 18px;"><div style="font-family:Calibri; font-size:11pt; text-align:left; color:black; BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none; BORDER-LEFT: medium none; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0in; PADDING-LEFT: 0in; PADDING-RIGHT: 0in; BORDER-TOP: #b5c4df 1pt solid; BORDER-RIGHT: medium none; PADDING-TOP: 3pt"><span style="font-weight:bold">From: </span> Gordon Harper via OE <<a href="mailto:oe@lists.wedgeblade.net">oe@lists.wedgeblade.net</a>><br><span style="font-weight:bold">Reply-To: </span> Gordon Harper <<a href="mailto:gharper1@gmail.com">gharper1@gmail.com</a>><br><span style="font-weight:bold">Date: </span> Friday, September 4, 2015 at 12:19 AM<br><span style="font-weight:bold">To: </span> ICA/OE List Serves <<a href="mailto:dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net">dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net</a>>, Order Ecumenical Community <<a href="mailto:oe@lists.wedgeblade.net">oe@lists.wedgeblade.net</a>><br><span style="font-weight:bold">Subject: </span> [Oe List ...] A Very Brief Collegium<br></div><div><br></div><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:'comic sans ms',sans-serif;font-size:large"><span id="docs-internal-guid-73b9fa4d-9687-64ee-d53e-a1bf4df4bcc4"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:14.6666666666667px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">Beloved Colleagues --</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:14.6666666666667px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">Few of us, as the end of life approaches, get the chance to speak directly to anything like our whole community. It appears that I have that opportunity, and I’m taking advantage of it.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:14.6666666666667px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">Last week, after two months of medical testing to find out what had suddenly landed on me and drained me of my strength and usual energy, Roxana and I got the diagnosis. It’s a rare form of fairly fast moving (typically two months to two years) leukemia, called CMML. There’s little to be done to treat it, especially in someone my age (about to be 79). I'm getting good medical care and have a fine local support community </span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;font-size:14.6666660308838px;line-height:18.3999996185303px;white-space:pre-wrap">here in Seattle</span><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Arial;font-size:14.6666666666667px;white-space:pre-wrap;line-height:1.38;background-color:transparent">.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:14.6666666666667px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">First of all, I want you all to know that I am at peace with this, as is Roxana. My life--in good part because of you--has been rich, crazy, wonder-filled and a unique and unrepeatable journey with the Mystery. And no one knows better than you and I how to celebrate both our being here and the completion of our journeys.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:14.6666666666667px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">I am taking this rare chance to express to all of you how much you’ve meant to me over the years--as the amazing collection of individual nobodies we are that rode out like the Man of La Mancha to throw our beings into the challenge of bending history. More than that, you all contributed your own weird and special gifts, neuroses and idiosyncrasies to the makeup of our corporate life and community, all over the world. Without you, there’d never have been such a community; so thank you, thank you, thank you. </span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:14.6666666666667px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">I hope to be able to chat with at least some of you individually or collectively over the time remaining to me, through one of the dizzying array of communication tools at hand today, and give you a little abuse. (What else would you expect from me? And please--do return the favor.) We’ll see how things work out. In the meantime, this note will have to stand for my salute to all of you, my heartfelt gratitude for your having been and continuing to be who you are and for that remarkable webbing and mission that connects us.</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:14.6666666666667px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent"> The peace of God is yours this day --</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:14.6666666666667px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent">Gordon </span></p><div><span style="font-size:14.6666666666667px;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(0,0,0);vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap;background-color:transparent"><br></span></div></span></div></div>
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