WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS?
WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Over coffee, this morning, i recopied the emails from this thread and tried to narrow down to just the questions that were posed. I think i missed an email that Lee Early was responding to in his message. A couple of reflections: Randy, in yours, i was struggling with the phrase "in peace", wondering, a bit like the word "church" or "religious" what that might point to that would seem true to life vs. sort of an ideal future. Wayne, your response that there may not be "a" question, but many and we each have to figure out our own for ourselves got me to reflecting on the evident complicatedness of things in a systemic or interconnected world. My auto mechanic was explaining to me how to simply fix the health care system in the US, and your comment came up for me, and i said that is a good idea, but i think we are looking too often for simple silver bullet solutions when thngs are actually much more complicated. And that made sense to both of us and moved the conversation on. Jim Baumbach's question put me back on my heels . "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" then, when in linking it with Bill Parker's notion that none of this is new, and why haven't we all woken up? Got me thinking, at least on the liberal or progressive side, whether the new religion arising is the religion of human rights . . . Progressives, at least, seem to hold these as sacred and as a moral obligation to be enforced. I could go on, but my eggs are getting cold, and the slice of cantelope from Judy's garden is calling. THE GIST AS I SEE IT Mary Hampton: Enough, all ready, its too good to miss and I am not ready to edit. Good stuff, folks! Ken Gilgren: why am I here? What am I doing? How am I being? What quickens the current action of my soul? what was the question again? Wayne Nelson: What are the pivotal moral issues of our moment? I think there are likely to be several. Of course there are many, many but there are probably some major ones. To reduce it to a single one makes it too abstract and denies the obvious complexity. We all have to name 'the moral issue of our time.' There's not likely to be one for everyone. It's a job we all have to do. Bill Parker: What are the warning signs of the destruction and endangerment of the entire human community? Then ask, what is the underlying question to be addressed and how it can be addressed. Why are people not being awakened to the clear, obvious truth of our crisis? Secondly, what methods must we develop or employ to radically reveal this all encompassing truth? John Cock: My take: If it does not have something like "on behalf of a transformed Earth community" in the statement, it is the WRONG right question, moral issue, or vocation. Lee Early: "Who is Tiger Woods?", What is his mission? Can we re-answer the second question? Mission, social pioneer, church, college, league, crimson line and movement? The answer to the question of mission will carry the first of who. (At least here in the West.) Sometimes the question of mission changes. Sometimes by chance and sometimes on purpose. What is our mission TODAY? Randy Williams: In reflecting on the dialogue around what is "the question," I realized we really were assuming two questions. How may "we" (all species) live together on this planet in peace, in a way that secures life for future generations? What is the new face, form and mission of the "movement" (the religious, the invisible college, the church with a little"c," ) and what stories, style and symbols will sustain it? Jan Sanders: What are the key images of the future of evolution? Steve Harrington: You had to say it, eh? What does it look like to be the Sensitive & Responsive. To what concerns? where? Karen Bueno: "How do we motivate the sensitive and reponsive ones who understand that the survival of the people of the earth and the earth itself depends on our working together to make that survival possible?" I like the idea of striving for a T-shirt phrase, like "Be one of those who dare to live the future now.", as someone suggested. David Walters: in the midst of a malaise of helplessness and an established / controlling economic and political elite, what can we do to support and help to form the emerging groups and movements (both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement) to be both effective and inclusive? Jack Gilles: Given the stance that "History rides on the back of the religious" that we embodied and lived..... "Who are the 'religious' today, where would you look to find them, what are the marks that tell you so, and what might we share (and how) with them so that they are empowered and connected?". The "we" in the question should refer to "those of us who are scattered" and who will take seriously the answers. Janice Ulangca: In this 50th year of EI/ICA, some of the questions to live with: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Missed the name: What was Neibhur's line? (and how do you spell his name?) Something about the sensitive and something ones. Nancy Lanphear: What is " MY GREAT WORK (IS) WHERE MY OWN GREAT JOY INTERSECTS WITH EARTH'S GREAT NEED" ....perhaps EARTH could be stretched to all my relations, the universe, life .... Jan and Steve: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? Jan: What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Jim Baumbach: "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" Karen Bueno: "How are we to live together and preserve this planet for the future?" Jim Wiegel Jfwiegel@yahoo.com “One cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.” – Carl Jung Partners in Participation Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details.
Jim, By "peace" I meant something more than the absence of war. I suppose I meant something like "with civility," " with mutual respect," "acknowledging the dignity and worth of all." This may be idealistic but without it I am skeptical that we can continue. The by-product of this kind of peace is sustainability, so my statement may have been a bit redundant. I agree with Wayne up to a point. I believe there is really one moral issue at a time, but there must be many ways to describe it and thus to articulate the question. With the way issues are so inter-related, it's difficult to talk about one without eventually getting into most of the others, and probably even more difficult to finally boil it down to "the" underlying root/moral issue of the time. I would have to say that the way we articulated it in the 70's as the disparity between the 85/15, or today maybe the 99/1, isn't that far off base for today as well. One thing I do feel fairly certain about. Whereas in RS-1 days we asked, "Who am I?" "What do I?" and "How be I?"--today I would insist that the question, whatever it is, is not an "I" question, but rather a "we" question. Randy "Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) ________________________________ From: James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>; Order Ecumenical Community <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 12:33 PM Subject: [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Over coffee, this morning, i recopied the emails from this thread and tried to narrow down to just the questions that were posed. I think i missed an email that Lee Early was responding to in his message. A couple of reflections: Randy, in yours, i was struggling with the phrase "in peace", wondering, a bit like the word "church" or "religious" what that might point to that would seem true to life vs. sort of an ideal future. Wayne, your response that there may not be "a" question, but many and we each have to figure out our own for ourselves got me to reflecting on the evident complicatedness of things in a systemic or interconnected world. My auto mechanic was explaining to me how to simply fix the health care system in the US, and your comment came up for me, and i said that is a good idea, but i think we are looking too often for simple silver bullet solutions when thngs are actually much more complicated. And that made sense to both of us and moved the conversation on. Jim Baumbach's question put me back on my heels . "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" then, when in linking it with Bill Parker's notion that none of this is new, and why haven't we all woken up? Got me thinking, at least on the liberal or progressive side, whether the new religion arising is the religion of human rights . . . Progressives, at least, seem to hold these as sacred and as a moral obligation to be enforced. I could go on, but my eggs are getting cold, and the slice of cantelope from Judy's garden is calling. THE GIST AS I SEE IT Mary Hampton: Enough, all ready, its too good to miss and I am not ready to edit. Good stuff, folks! Ken Gilgren: why am I here? What am I doing? How am I being? What quickens the current action of my soul? what was the question again? Wayne Nelson: What are the pivotal moral issues of our moment? I think there are likely to be several. Of course there are many, many but there are probably some major ones. To reduce it to a single one makes it too abstract and denies the obvious complexity. We all have to name 'the moral issue of our time.' There's not likely to be one for everyone. It's a job we all have to do. Bill Parker: What are the warning signs of the destruction and endangerment of the entire human community? Then ask, what is the underlying question to be addressed and how it can be addressed. Why are people not being awakened to the clear, obvious truth of our crisis? Secondly, what methods must we develop or employ to radically reveal this all encompassing truth? John Cock: My take: If it does not have something like "on behalf of a transformed Earth community" in the statement, it is the WRONG right question, moral issue, or vocation. Lee Early: "Who is Tiger Woods?", What is his mission? Can we re-answer the second question? Mission, social pioneer, church, college, league, crimson line and movement? The answer to the question of mission will carry the first of who. (At least here in the West.) Sometimes the question of mission changes. Sometimes by chance and sometimes on purpose. What is our mission TODAY? Randy Williams: In reflecting on the dialogue around what is "the question," I realized we really were assuming two questions. How may "we" (all species) live together on this planet in peace, in a way that secures life for future generations? What is the new face, form and mission of the "movement" (the religious, the invisible college, the church with a little"c," ) and what stories, style and symbols will sustain it? Jan Sanders: What are the key images of the future of evolution? Steve Harrington: You had to say it, eh? What does it look like to be the Sensitive & Responsive. To what concerns? where? Karen Bueno: "How do we motivate the sensitive and reponsive ones who understand that the survival of the people of the earth and the earth itself depends on our working together to make that survival possible?" I like the idea of striving for a T-shirt phrase, like "Be one of those who dare to live the future now.", as someone suggested. David Walters: in the midst of a malaise of helplessness and an established / controlling economic and political elite, what can we do to support and help to form the emerging groups and movements (both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement) to be both effective and inclusive? Jack Gilles: Given the stance that "History rides on the back of the religious" that we embodied and lived..... "Who are the 'religious' today, where would you look to find them, what are the marks that tell you so, and what might we share (and how) with them so that they are empowered and connected?". The "we" in the question should refer to "those of us who are scattered" and who will take seriously the answers. Janice Ulangca: In this 50th year of EI/ICA, some of the questions to live with: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Missed the name: What was Neibhur's line? (and how do you spell his name?) Something about the sensitive and something ones. Nancy Lanphear: What is " MY GREAT WORK (IS) WHERE MY OWN GREAT JOY INTERSECTS WITH EARTH'S GREAT NEED" ....perhaps EARTH could be stretched to all my relations, the universe, life .... Jan and Steve: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? Jan: What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Jim Baumbach: "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" Karen Bueno: "How are we to live together and preserve this planet for the future?" Jim Wiegel Jfwiegel@yahoo.com “One cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.” – Carl Jung Partners in Participation Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
My thought was simply that one of "the questions" for me is , What's the moral issue of our time? I do think there are a few key ones - no more than , say 5. I also think that this "we" is much larger, more diversified and less able to focus on a single moral issue. I'm sure the 99/1% is still the major moral issue we face. I think it is a bit of an abstraction in itself, because the fact that is our reality encompasses a complex of other issues. It's like the apartment building of issues - lots of apartments in there. I'd say without hesitation that the way we relate to the natural world and the natural resources of the planet is right up there as a moral issue. If you're killing your life source and know it, that's just not right in any moral context. I don't know quite how to state this, but it seems to me that there are some heavy duty moral questions in the ways organizations are structured and function and the way authority operates. Billions of people with few opportunities for genuinely empowered participation and real collaboration. We spend 1/3 of our lives at work. I think there's a moral issue there. It gets a little lost in the 99/1% conversation, because that part of the conversation tends to focus on poverty. Bill P and Jim B are asking a question with a funny shape. It seems to us that there is a new paradigm going and the world is not catching on. I think the world has seen several things (9/11 - Al Gore’s powerpoint presentation - 2008 financial collapse etc.) that say we can't go back, but there are people and structures actively and, i think, knowingly denying those realities for all they are worth. I think that 'denial of reality' is one of the forms of escape from an existential question that may run something like, "How do we be human together - in this interconnected, interdependent world?" There are plenty of people and structures and systems that are heavily invested in living off the contradictions of the old paradigm. It's one of the sure signs of a dead world view when it generates more problems than solutions and those problems become food for intensifying the inherent contadictions. Energy companies refuse to come to terms with the environmental crisis. The relationship between the West and the Islamic world is totally screwy. The way the banks operate is an aspect of the 99/1issue, but it is also an example of how defiance gets structured into the world as an operating modality - full-out, unvarnished Kirkegaardian style defiance at it's absolute best. Partisan politics has seriously devolved and is intentionally blocking anything remotely close to consensus on systemic solutions to serious social problems. It looks like defiance to me. We fog over the windshield and complain that we can't see. This is all kind of a slightly formed thought, but maybe 'how to move forward together' is one of the key questions for us - whoever the 'we' might be and how we may each be positioned to address it. \\/ - - - - - - - - - - Wayne Nelson wnelson@ica-associates.ca O - 416-691-2316 M - 647-229-6910 On 07-062012, at 2:30 PM, R Williams wrote:
Jim,
By "peace" I meant something more than the absence of war. I suppose I meant something like "with civility," " with mutual respect," "acknowledging the dignity and worth of all." This may be idealistic but without it I am skeptical that we can continue. The by-product of this kind of peace is sustainability, so my statement may have been a bit redundant.
I agree with Wayne up to a point. I believe there is really one moral issue at a time, but there must be many ways to describe it and thus to articulate the question. With the way issues are so inter-related, it's difficult to talk about one without eventually getting into most of the others, and probably even more difficult to finally boil it down to "the" underlying root/moral issue of the time. I would have to say that the way we articulated it in the 70's as the disparity between the 85/15, or today maybe the 99/1, isn't that far off base for today as well.
One thing I do feel fairly certain about. Whereas in RS-1 days we asked, "Who am I?" "What do I?" and "How be I?"--today I would insist that the question, whatever it is, is not an "I" question, but rather a "we" question.
Randy
"Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) From: James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>; Order Ecumenical Community <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 12:33 PM Subject: [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS?
WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS?
Over coffee, this morning, i recopied the emails from this thread and tried to narrow down to just the questions that were posed.
I think i missed an email that Lee Early was responding to in his message.
A couple of reflections:
Randy, in yours, i was struggling with the phrase "in peace", wondering, a bit like the word "church" or "religious" what that might point to that would seem true to life vs. sort of an ideal future.
Wayne, your response that there may not be "a" question, but many and we each have to figure out our own for ourselves got me to reflecting on the evident complicatedness of things in a systemic or interconnected world. My auto mechanic was explaining to me how to simply fix the health care system in the US, and your comment came up for me, and i said that is a good idea, but i think we are looking too often for simple silver bullet solutions when thngs are actually much more complicated. And that made sense to both of us and moved the conversation on.
Jim Baumbach's question put me back on my heels . "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" then, when in linking it with Bill Parker's notion that none of this is new, and why haven't we all woken up? Got me thinking, at least on the liberal or progressive side, whether the new religion arising is the religion of human rights . . . Progressives, at least, seem to hold these as sacred and as a moral obligation to be enforced.
I could go on, but my eggs are getting cold, and the slice of cantelope from Judy's garden is calling.
THE GIST AS I SEE IT Mary Hampton: Enough, all ready, its too good to miss and I am not ready to edit. Good stuff, folks!
Ken Gilgren: why am I here? What am I doing? How am I being? What quickens the current action of my soul? what was the question again?
Wayne Nelson: What are the pivotal moral issues of our moment? I think there are likely to be several. Of course there are many, many but there are probably some major ones. To reduce it to a single one makes it too abstract and denies the obvious complexity. We all have to name 'the moral issue of our time.' There's not likely to be one for everyone. It's a job we all have to do.
Bill Parker: What are the warning signs of the destruction and endangerment of the entire human community? Then ask, what is the underlying question to be addressed and how it can be addressed. Why are people not being awakened to the clear, obvious truth of our crisis? Secondly, what methods must we develop or employ to radically reveal this all encompassing truth?
John Cock: My take: If it does not have something like "on behalf of a transformed Earth community" in the statement, it is the WRONG right question, moral issue, or vocation.
Lee Early: "Who is Tiger Woods?", What is his mission? Can we re-answer the second question? Mission, social pioneer, church, college, league, crimson line and movement? The answer to the question of mission will carry the first of who. (At least here in the West.) Sometimes the question of mission changes. Sometimes by chance and sometimes on purpose. What is our mission TODAY?
Randy Williams: In reflecting on the dialogue around what is "the question," I realized we really were assuming two questions. How may "we" (all species) live together on this planet in peace, in a way that secures life for future generations? What is the new face, form and mission of the "movement" (the religious, the invisible college, the church with a little"c," ) and what stories, style and symbols will sustain it?
Jan Sanders: What are the key images of the future of evolution?
Steve Harrington: You had to say it, eh? What does it look like to be the Sensitive & Responsive. To what concerns? where?
Karen Bueno: "How do we motivate the sensitive and reponsive ones who understand that the survival of the people of the earth and the earth itself depends on our working together to make that survival possible?" I like the idea of striving for a T-shirt phrase, like "Be one of those who dare to live the future now.", as someone suggested.
David Walters: in the midst of a malaise of helplessness and an established / controlling economic and political elite, what can we do to support and help to form the emerging groups and movements (both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement) to be both effective and inclusive?
Jack Gilles: Given the stance that "History rides on the back of the religious" that we embodied and lived..... "Who are the 'religious' today, where would you look to find them, what are the marks that tell you so, and what might we share (and how) with them so that they are empowered and connected?". The "we" in the question should refer to "those of us who are scattered" and who will take seriously the answers.
Janice Ulangca: In this 50th year of EI/ICA, some of the questions to live with: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? What are some of the important partnerships the future needs?
Missed the name: What was Neibhur's line? (and how do you spell his name?) Something about the sensitive and something ones.
Nancy Lanphear: What is " MY GREAT WORK (IS) WHERE MY OWN GREAT JOY INTERSECTS WITH EARTH'S GREAT NEED" ....perhaps EARTH could be stretched to all my relations, the universe, life ....
Jan and Steve: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? Jan: What are some of the important partnerships the future needs?
Jim Baumbach: "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?"
Karen Bueno: "How are we to live together and preserve this planet for the future?"
Jim Wiegel Jfwiegel@yahoo.com
“One cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.” – Carl Jung
Partners in Participation Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
_______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net
This is a very helpful stream to which I am lurking actively. Just a note about the 15/85 (or 99/1) issue: we never intended it to be economic. Joe was adamant that it had to do with effective participation in the decisions that affect one's life. With that understanding, it also relates to Wayne's comments about the work life in which we spend 1/3 of our time. An issue we've been working on for some time, both personally and through the ToP Network, is recovering a sense of meaning at work. Perhaps 99% regard work as something you have to do to be able to live significantly. In fact, one's work IS a mode of living significantly, and that's true not just for those of us who happen to love what we do. Anyway, let's keep the insights coming. Is there a way to tie these questions together? Jim's efforts are a great start. John At 02:08 PM 7/6/2012, you wrote:
My thought was simply that one of "the questions" for me is , What's the moral issue of our time? I do think there are a few key ones - no more than , say 5. I also think that this "we" is much larger, more diversified and less able to focus on a single moral issue.
I'm sure the 99/1% is still the major moral issue we face. I think it is a bit of an abstraction in itself, because the fact that is our reality encompasses a complex of other issues. It's like the apartment building of issues - lots of apartments in there.
I'd say without hesitation that the way we relate to the natural world and the natural resources of the planet is right up there as a moral issue. If you're killing your life source and know it, that's just not right in any moral context.
I don't know quite how to state this, but it seems to me that there are some heavy duty moral questions in the ways organizations are structured and function and the way authority operates. Billions of people with few opportunities for genuinely empowered participation and real collaboration. We spend 1/3 of our lives at work. I think there's a moral issue there. It gets a little lost in the 99/1% conversation, because that part of the conversation tends to focus on poverty.
Bill P and Jim B are asking a question with a funny shape. It seems to us that there is a new paradigm going and the world is not catching on. I think the world has seen several things (9/11 - Al Gores powerpoint presentation - 2008 financial collapse etc.) that say we can't go back, but there are people and structures actively and, i think, knowingly denying those realities for all they are worth.
I think that 'denial of reality' is one of the forms of escape from an existential question that may run something like, "How do we be human together - in this interconnected, interdependent world?"
There are plenty of people and structures and systems that are heavily invested in living off the contradictions of the old paradigm. It's one of the sure signs of a dead world view when it generates more problems than solutions and those problems become food for intensifying the inherent contadictions. Energy companies refuse to come to terms with the environmental crisis. The relationship between the West and the Islamic world is totally screwy. The way the banks operate is an aspect of the 99/1issue, but it is also an example of how defiance gets structured into the world as an operating modality - full-out, unvarnished Kirkegaardian style defiance at it's absolute best. Partisan politics has seriously devolved and is intentionally blocking anything remotely close to consensus on systemic solutions to serious social problems. It looks like defiance to me. We fog over the windshield and complain that we can't see.
This is all kind of a slightly formed thought, but maybe 'how to move forward together' is one of the key questions for us - whoever the 'we' might be and how we may each be positioned to address it.
<smb:///>\\/
- - - - - - - - - - Wayne Nelson <mailto:wnelson@ica-associates.ca>wnelson@ica-associates.ca O - 416-691-2316 M - 647-229-6910
On 07-062012, at 2:30 PM, R Williams wrote:
Jim,
By "peace" I meant something more than the absence of war. I suppose I meant something like "with civility," " with mutual respect," "acknowledging the dignity and worth of all." This may be idealistic but without it I am skeptical that we can continue. The by-product of this kind of peace is sustainability, so my statement may have been a bit redundant.
I agree with Wayne up to a point. I believe there is really one moral issue at a time, but there must be many ways to describe it and thus to articulate the question. With the way issues are so inter-related, it's difficult to talk about one without eventually getting into most of the others, and probably even more difficult to finally boil it down to "the" underlying root/moral issue of the time. I would have to say that the way we articulated it in the 70's as the disparity between the 85/15, or today maybe the 99/1, isn't that far off base for today as well.
One thing I do feel fairly certain about. Whereas in RS-1 days we asked, "Who am I?" "What do I?" and "How be I?"--today I would insist that the question, whatever it is, is not an "I" question, but rather a "we" question.
Randy
"Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) From: James Wiegel <<mailto:jfwiegel@yahoo.com>jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <<mailto:dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>; Order Ecumenical Community <<mailto:oe@lists.wedgeblade.net>oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 12:33 PM Subject: [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS?
WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS?
Over coffee, this morning, i recopied the emails from this thread and tried to narrow down to just the questions that were posed.
I think i missed an email that Lee Early was responding to in his message.
A couple of reflections:
Randy, in yours, i was struggling with the phrase "in peace", wondering, a bit like the word "church" or "religious" what that might point to that would seem true to life vs. sort of an ideal future.
Wayne, your response that there may not be "a" question, but many and we each have to figure out our own for ourselves got me to reflecting on the evident complicatedness of things in a systemic or interconnected world. My auto mechanic was explaining to me how to simply fix the health care system in the US, and your comment came up for me, and i said that is a good idea, but i think we are looking too often for simple silver bullet solutions when thngs are actually much more complicated. And that made sense to both of us and moved the conversation on.
Jim Baumbach's question put me back on my heels . "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" then, when in linking it with Bill Parker's notion that none of this is new, and why haven't we all woken up? Got me thinking, at least on the liberal or progressive side, whether the new religion arising is the religion of human rights . . . Progressives, at least, seem to hold these as sacred and as a moral obligation to be enforced.
I could go on, but my eggs are getting cold, and the slice of cantelope from Judy's garden is calling.
THE GIST AS I SEE IT Mary Hampton: Enough, all ready, its too good to miss and I am not ready to edit. Good stuff, folks!
Ken Gilgren: why am I here? What am I doing? How am I being? What quickens the current action of my soul? what was the question again?
Wayne Nelson: What are the pivotal moral issues of our moment? I think there are likely to be several. Of course there are many, many but there are probably some major ones. To reduce it to a single one makes it too abstract and denies the obvious complexity. We all have to name 'the moral issue of our time.' There's not likely to be one for everyone. It's a job we all have to do.
Bill Parker: What are the warning signs of the destruction and endangerment of the entire human community? Then ask, what is the underlying question to be addressed and how it can be addressed. Why are people not being awakened to the clear, obvious truth of our crisis? Secondly, what methods must we develop or employ to radically reveal this all encompassing truth?
John Cock: My take: If it does not have something like "on behalf of a transformed Earth community" in the statement, it is the WRONG right question, moral issue, or vocation.
Lee Early: "Who is Tiger Woods?", What is his mission? Can we re-answer the second question? Mission, social pioneer, church, college, league, crimson line and movement? The answer to the question of mission will carry the first of who. (At least here in the West.) Sometimes the question of mission changes. Sometimes by chance and sometimes on purpose. What is our mission TODAY?
Randy Williams: In reflecting on the dialogue around what is "the question," I realized we really were assuming two questions. How may "we" (all species) live together on this planet in peace, in a way that secures life for future generations? What is the new face, form and mission of the "movement" (the religious, the invisible college, the church with a little"c," ) and what stories, style and symbols will sustain it?
Jan Sanders: What are the key images of the future of evolution?
Steve Harrington: You had to say it, eh? What does it look like to be the Sensitive & Responsive. To what concerns? where?
Karen Bueno: "How do we motivate the sensitive and reponsive ones who understand that the survival of the people of the earth and the earth itself depends on our working together to make that survival possible?" I like the idea of striving for a T-shirt phrase, like "Be one of those who dare to live the future now.", as someone suggested.
David Walters: in the midst of a malaise of helplessness and an established / controlling economic and political elite, what can we do to support and help to form the emerging groups and movements (both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement) to be both effective and inclusive?
Jack Gilles: Given the stance that "History rides on the back of the religious" that we embodied and lived..... "Who are the 'religious' today, where would you look to find them, what are the marks that tell you so, and what might we share (and how) with them so that they are empowered and connected?". The "we" in the question should refer to "those of us who are scattered" and who will take seriously the answers.
Janice Ulangca: In this 50th year of EI/ICA, some of the questions to live with: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? What are some of the important partnerships the future needs?
Missed the name: What was Neibhur's line? (and how do you spell his name?) Something about the sensitive and something ones.
Nancy Lanphear: What is " MY GREAT WORK (IS) WHERE MY OWN GREAT JOY INTERSECTS WITH EARTH'S GREAT NEED" ....perhaps EARTH could be stretched to all my relations, the universe, life ....
Jan and Steve: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? Jan: What are some of the important partnerships the future needs?
Jim Baumbach: "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?"
Karen Bueno: "How are we to live together and preserve this planet for the future?"
Jim Wiegel <mailto:Jfwiegel@yahoo.com>Jfwiegel@yahoo.com
One cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of lifes morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie. Carl Jung
Partners in Participation Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video <http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55>http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. _______________________________________________ OE mailing list <mailto:OE@lists.wedgeblade.net>OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
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_______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net
I was just reminded of an old, old, friend, Kenneth Boulding, and a chapter from his book, The Meaning of the Twentieth Century -- The Great Transition, published in 1964. He described this "great transition" thusly: The Great Transition (1964) The twentieth century might be described as the crucial central period in the third great transition in the state of mankind. The first great transition was from the paleolithic to the neolithic about ten thousand years ago, which was characterized by the invention of agriculture, the domestication of animals, and the development of a settled life in villages. The second great transition, sometimes called the urban revolution, about five thousand years ago, was characterized by the development of political power and the centralization of the food surplus from agriculture in cities. This is the transition from neolithic agriculture to civilizations. What is underway now is a third great transition, in which civilization is passing away and a new order of society altogether, which I have sometimes called post-civilized but which perhaps deserves the name of the Developed Society, is coming into being. The twentieth century is the crucial midstage of this transition which will determine very largely whether it will be made successful or not. HERE ARE SOME PARAGRAPHS FROM THE FINAL CHAPTER. I FOUND THEM ON THE GOLDEN PATHWAYS: The fact of the great transition is not in dispute. Almost anyone in middle life today has simply to look back to his own childhood, or still more to the days of his grandparents, to realize that we are living in a world in which there is an enormous rate of change. If anyone in an advanced society today were to suddenly thrust back into the world of only a hundred years ago, he would feel utterly alien and strange. A considerable part of his vocabulary would be meaningless to the people around him. He would find it hard to adapt to the inconveniences and to the restricted life which would have to lead. He would feel indeed in an alien society. .................................................... I, therefore, have no hesitation in recommending the attitude toward the great transition which I have described as critical acceptance. There may be times when we wish nostalgically that it had never started, for then at least the danger that the evolutionary experiment in this part of the universe would be terminated would be more remote. Now that the transition is under way, however, there is no going back on it. We must learn to use its enormous potential for good rather than for evil, and we must learn to diminish and eventually eliminate the dangers which are inherent in it. If I had to sum up the situation in a sentence I would say that the situation has arisen because of the development of certain methods of reality testing applied to our images of nature. If we are to ride out the transition successfully we must apply these or similar methods for reality testing to our images of man and his society. There is in the world today an "invisible college" of people in many different countries and many different cultures, who have this vision of the nature of the transition through which we are passing and who are determined to devote their lives to contributing toward its successful fulfillment. Membership in this college is consistent with many different philosophical, religious, and political positions. It is a college without a founder and without a president, without buildings and without organization. Its founding members might have included a Jesuit like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a humanist like Aldous Huxley, a writer of science fiction like H. G. Wells, and it might even have given honorary degrees to Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Pope John XXIII, and even Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy. Its living representatives are still a pretty small group of people. I think, however, that it is they who hold the future of the world in their hands or at least in their minds. For this invisible college I am an unashamed propagandist and I confess without a blush that this book is a tract. Our precious little planet, this blue green cradle of life with its rosy mantle, is in one of the most critical stages of its whole existence. It is in a position of immense danger and immense potentiality. There are no doubt many experiments in evolution going on in different parts of this big universe. But this happens to be my planet and I am very much attached to it, and I am desperately anxious that this particular experiment should be a success. If this be ethnocentrism, then let me be ethnocentric! I am pretty sure, however, that it will not be a success unless something is done. There is danger both of the bang of nuclear detonation and of the whimper of exhausted overpopulation, and either would mean an end of the evolutionary process in these parts. If man were merely capable of destroying himself, one could perhaps bear the thought. One could at least console oneself with the thought of elementary justice, that if man does destroy himself it is his own silly fault. He is captain, however, of a frai1 and delicate vessel, and in the course of destroying himself he might easily destroy the vessel that is, the planet which carries him, with its immense wealth and variety of evolutionary freight and evolutionary potential. This makes the dangers of the transition doubly intolerable, and demands a desperate effort to remove them. Jim Wiegel "The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel@yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. --- On Fri, 7/6/12, R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> wrote: From: R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net>, "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 11:30 AM Jim, By "peace" I meant something more than the absence of war. I suppose I meant something like "with civility," " with mutual respect," "acknowledging the dignity and worth of all." This may be idealistic but without it I am skeptical that we can continue. The by-product of this kind of peace is sustainability, so my statement may have been a bit redundant. I agree with Wayne up to a point. I believe there is really one moral issue at a time, but there must be many ways to describe it and thus to articulate the question. With the way issues are so inter-related, it's difficult to talk about one without eventually getting into most of the others, and probably even more difficult to finally boil it down to "the" underlying root/moral issue of the time. I would have to say that the way we articulated it in the 70's as the disparity between the 85/15, or today maybe the 99/1, isn't that far off base for today as well. One thing I do feel fairly certain about. Whereas in RS-1 days we asked, "Who am I?" "What do I?" and "How be I?"--today I would insist that the question, whatever it is, is not an "I" question, but rather a "we" question. Randy "Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) From: James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>; Order Ecumenical Community <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 12:33 PM Subject: [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Over coffee, this morning, i recopied the emails from this thread and tried to narrow down to just the questions that were posed. I think i missed an email that Lee Early was responding to in his message. A couple of reflections: Randy, in yours, i was struggling with the phrase "in peace", wondering, a bit like the word "church" or "religious" what that might point to that would seem true to life vs. sort of an ideal future. Wayne, your response that there may not be "a" question, but many and we each have to figure out our own for ourselves got me to reflecting on the evident complicatedness of things in a systemic or interconnected world. My auto mechanic was explaining to me how to simply fix the health care system in the US, and your comment came up for me, and i said that is a good idea, but i think we are looking too often for simple silver bullet solutions when thngs are actually much more complicated. And that made sense to both of us and moved the conversation on. Jim Baumbach's question put me back on my heels . "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" then, when in linking it with Bill Parker's notion that none of this is new, and why haven't we all woken up? Got me thinking, at least on the liberal or progressive side, whether the new religion arising is the religion of human rights . . . Progressives, at least, seem to hold these as sacred and as a moral obligation to be enforced. I could go on, but my eggs are getting cold, and the slice of cantelope from Judy's garden is calling. THE GIST AS I SEE IT Mary Hampton: Enough, all ready, its too good to miss and I am not ready to edit. Good stuff, folks! Ken Gilgren: why am I here? What am I doing? How am I being? What quickens the current action of my soul? what was the question again? Wayne Nelson: What are the pivotal moral issues of our moment? I think there are likely to be several. Of course there are many, many but there are probably some major ones. To reduce it to a single one makes it too abstract and denies the obvious complexity. We all have to name 'the moral issue of our time.' There's not likely to be one for everyone. It's a job we all have to do. Bill Parker: What are the warning signs of the destruction and endangerment of the entire human community? Then ask, what is the underlying question to be addressed and how it can be addressed. Why are people not being awakened to the clear, obvious truth of our crisis? Secondly, what methods must we develop or employ to radically reveal this all encompassing truth? John Cock: My take: If it does not have something like "on behalf of a transformed Earth community" in the statement, it is the WRONG right question, moral issue, or vocation. Lee Early: "Who is Tiger Woods?", What is his mission? Can we re-answer the second question? Mission, social pioneer, church, college, league, crimson line and movement? The answer to the question of mission will carry the first of who. (At least here in the West.) Sometimes the question of mission changes. Sometimes by chance and sometimes on purpose. What is our mission TODAY? Randy Williams: In reflecting on the dialogue around what is "the question," I realized we really were assuming two questions. How may "we" (all species) live together on this planet in peace, in a way that secures life for future generations? What is the new face, form and mission of the "movement" (the religious, the invisible college, the church with a little"c," ) and what stories, style and symbols will sustain it? Jan Sanders: What are the key images of the future of evolution? Steve Harrington: You had to say it, eh? What does it look like to be the Sensitive & Responsive. To what concerns? where? Karen Bueno: "How do we motivate the sensitive and reponsive ones who understand that the survival of the people of the earth and the earth itself depends on our working together to make that survival possible?" I like the idea of striving for a T-shirt phrase, like "Be one of those who dare to live the future now.", as someone suggested. David Walters: in the midst of a malaise of helplessness and an established / controlling economic and political elite, what can we do to support and help to form the emerging groups and movements (both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement) to be both effective and inclusive? Jack Gilles: Given the stance that "History rides on the back of the religious" that we embodied and lived..... "Who are the 'religious' today, where would you look to find them, what are the marks that tell you so, and what might we share (and how) with them so that they are empowered and connected?". The "we" in the question should refer to "those of us who are scattered" and who will take seriously the answers. Janice Ulangca: In this 50th year of EI/ICA, some of the questions to live with: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Missed the name: What was Neibhur's line? (and how do you spell his name?) Something about the sensitive and something ones. Nancy Lanphear: What is " MY GREAT WORK (IS) WHERE MY OWN GREAT JOY INTERSECTS WITH EARTH'S GREAT NEED" ....perhaps EARTH could be stretched to all my relations, the universe, life .... Jan and Steve: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? Jan: What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Jim Baumbach: "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" Karen Bueno: "How are we to live together and preserve this planet for the future?" Jim Wiegel Jfwiegel@yahoo.com “One cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.” – Carl Jung Partners in Participation Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net
Certainly Boulding was aware of some of the ominous crises and saw within them a potential for extinction of our human species. But several other crises are also pending including global warming (environmental change), unending wars, physical and chemical pollution, droughts and starvation, declining water sources, etc. My question was not intended to be supercilious but as a thought regarding how fragile our own current existence is. Measured in a geologic time frame, the total presence of human life is so minuscule as to be in all probability essentially zero. Yet within that time frame, human beings have been able to so threaten their own existence that one can hardly imagine any other life form as suicidal. Despite all of the dire scientific projections I, for one, am unable to stop doing exactly what I, and many like me, have been doing for decades and centuries--consuming the Earth's resources in unsustainable amounts. And now the populations of China and India are also anticipating doing what I am doing! I don't see anything changing so profoundly that we will reverse our present course. There are, of course, many band aid-type remedies such as alternative energy sources but these only prolong this process. Is it possible to change human nature to such an extent that we, in Biblical tradition when Jonah proclaimed disaster to Nineveh: "...Then tidings reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he made proclamation and published through Nineveh, "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them cry mightily to God; yea, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands." (Jonah 3:3-8 RSV), actually change our habits? Without this dramatic turn-around possibly our question will be: "How do we prepare all human life to face the inevitable extinction of our species?" Jim Baumbach On 7/6/2012 3:56 PM, James Wiegel wrote:
I was just reminded of an old, old, friend, Kenneth Boulding, and a chapter from his book, The Meaning of the Twentieth Century -- The Great Transition, published in 1964. He described this "great transition" thusly:
*The Great Transition (1964)*
The twentieth century might be described as the crucial central period in the third great transition in the state of mankind. The first great transition was from the paleolithic to the neolithic about ten thousand years ago, which was characterized by the invention of agriculture, the domestication of animals, and the development of a settled life in villages. The second great transition, sometimes called the urban revolution, about five thousand years ago, was characterized by the development of political power and the centralization of the food surplus from agriculture in cities. This is the transition from neolithic agriculture to civilizations. What is underway now is a third great transition, in which civilization is passing away and a new order of society altogether, which I have sometimes called post-civilized but which perhaps deserves the name of the Developed Society, is coming into being. The twentieth century is the crucial midstage of this transition which will determine very largely whether it will be made successful or not.
HERE ARE SOME PARAGRAPHS FROM THE FINAL CHAPTER. I FOUND THEM ON THE GOLDEN PATHWAYS:
The fact of the great transition is not in dispute. Almost anyone in middle life today has simply to look back to his own childhood, or still more to the days of his grandparents, to realize that we are living in a world in which there is an enormous rate of change. If anyone in an advanced society today were to suddenly thrust back into the world of only a hundred years ago, he would feel utterly alien and strange. A considerable part of his vocabulary would be meaningless to the people around him. He would find it hard to adapt to the inconveniences and to the restricted life which would have to lead. He would feel indeed in an alien society.
....................................................
I, therefore, have no hesitation in recommending the attitude toward the great transition which I have described as critical acceptance. There may be times when we wish nostalgically that it had never started, for then at least the danger that the evolutionary experiment in this part of the universe would be terminated would be more remote. Now that the transition is under way, however, there is no going back on it. We must learn to use its enormous potential for good rather than for evil, and we must learn to diminish and eventually eliminate the dangers which are inherent in it. If I had to sum up the situation in a sentence I would say that the situation has arisen because of the development of certain methods of reality testing applied to our images of nature. If we are to ride out the transition successfully we must apply these or similar methods for reality testing to our images of man and his society.
There is in the world today an "invisible college" of people in many different countries and many different cultures, who have this vision of the nature of the transition through which we are passing and who are determined to devote their lives to contributing toward its successful fulfillment. Membership in this college is consistent with many different philosophical, religious, and political positions. It is a college without a founder and without a president, without buildings and without organization. Its founding members might have included a Jesuit like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a humanist like Aldous Huxley, a writer of science fiction like H. G. Wells, and it might even have given honorary degrees to Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Pope John XXIII, and even Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy. Its living representatives are still a pretty small group of people. I think, however, that it is they who hold the future of the world in their hands or at least in their minds.
For this invisible college I am an unashamed propagandist and I confess without a blush that this book is a tract. Our precious little planet, this blue green cradle of life with its rosy mantle, is in one of the most critical stages of its whole existence. It is in a position of immense danger and immense potentiality. There are no doubt many experiments in evolution going on in different parts of this big universe. But this happens to be my planet and I am very much attached to it, and I am desperately anxious that this particular experiment should be a success. If this be ethnocentrism, then let me be ethnocentric! I am pretty sure, however, that it will not be a success unless something is done. There is danger both of the bang of nuclear detonation and of the whimper of exhausted overpopulation, and either would mean an end of the evolutionary process in these parts. If man were merely capable of destroying himself, one could perhaps bear the thought. One could at least console oneself with the thought of elementary justice, that if man does destroy himself it is his own silly fault. He is captain, however, of a frai1 and delicate vessel, and in the course of destroying himself he might easily destroy the vessel that is, the planet which carries him, with its immense wealth and variety of evolutionary freight and evolutionary potential. This makes the dangers of the transition doubly intolerable, and demands a desperate effort to remove them.
Jim Wiegel
"The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln
401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel@yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com
Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details.
--- On *Fri, 7/6/12, R Williams /<rcwmbw@yahoo.com>/* wrote:
From: R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net>, "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 11:30 AM
Jim, By "peace" I meant something more than the absence of war. I suppose I meant something like "with civility," " with mutual respect," "acknowledging the dignity and worth of all." This may be idealistic but without it I am skeptical that we can continue. The by-product of this kind of peace is sustainability, so my statement may have been a bit redundant. I agree with Wayne up to a point. I believe there is really one moral issue at a time, but there must be many ways to describe it and thus to articulate the question. With the way issues are so inter-related, it's difficult to talk about one without eventually getting into most of the others, and probably even more difficult to finally boil it down to "the" underlying root/moral issue of the time. I would have to say that the way we articulated it in the 70's as the disparity between the 85/15, or today maybe the 99/1, isn't that far off base for today as well. One thing I do feel fairly certain about. Whereas in RS-1 days we asked, "Who am I?" "What do I?" and "How be I?"--today I would insist that the question, whatever it is, is not an "I" question, but rather a "we" question. Randy "Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) *From:* James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> *To:* Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>; Order Ecumenical Community <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> *Sent:* Friday, July 6, 2012 12:33 PM *Subject:* [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS?
WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS?
Over coffee, this morning, i recopied the emails from this thread and tried to narrow down to just the questions that were posed.
I think i missed an email that Lee Early was responding to in his message.
A couple of reflections:
Randy, in yours, i was struggling with the phrase "in peace", wondering, a bit like the word "church" or "religious" what that might point to that would seem true to life vs. sort of an ideal future.
Wayne, your response that there may not be "a" question, but many and we each have to figure out our own for ourselves got me to reflecting on the evident complicatedness of things in a systemic or interconnected world. My auto mechanic was explaining to me how to simply fix the health care system in the US, and your comment came up for me, and i said that is a good idea, but i think we are looking too often for simple silver bullet solutions when thngs are actually much more complicated. And that made sense to both of us and moved the conversation on.
Jim Baumbach's question put me back on my heels . "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" then, when in linking it with Bill Parker's notion that none of this is new, and why haven't we all woken up? Got me thinking, at least on the liberal or progressive side, whether the new religion arising is the religion of human rights . . . Progressives, at least, seem to hold these as sacred and as a moral obligation to be enforced.
I could go on, but my eggs are getting cold, and the slice of cantelope from Judy's garden is calling.
THE GIST AS I SEE IT Mary Hampton: Enough, all ready, its too good to miss and I am not ready to edit. Good stuff, folks!
Ken Gilgren: why am I here? What am I doing? How am I being? What quickens the current action of my soul? what was the question again?
Wayne Nelson: What are the pivotal moral issues of our moment? I think there are likely to be several. Of course there are many, many but there are probably some major ones. To reduce it to a single one makes it too abstract and denies the obvious complexity. We all have to name 'the moral issue of our time.' There's not likely to be one for everyone. It's a job we all have to do.
Bill Parker: What are the warning signs of the destruction and endangerment of the entire human community? Then ask, what is the underlying question to be addressed and how it can be addressed. Why are people not being awakened to the clear, obvious truth of our crisis? Secondly, what methods must we develop or employ to radically reveal this all encompassing truth?
John Cock: My take: If it does not have something like "on behalf of a transformed Earth community" in the statement, it is the WRONG right question, moral issue, or vocation.
Lee Early: "Who is Tiger Woods?", What is his mission? Can we re-answer the second question? Mission, social pioneer, church, college, league, crimson line and movement? The answer to the question of mission will carry the first of who. (At least here in the West.) Sometimes the question of mission changes. Sometimes by chance and sometimes on purpose. What is our mission TODAY?
Randy Williams: In reflecting on the dialogue around what is "the question," I realized we really were assuming two questions. How may "we" (all species) live together on this planet in peace, in a way that secures life for future generations? What is the new face, form and mission of the "movement" (the religious, the invisible college, the church with a little"c," ) and what stories, style and symbols will sustain it?
Jan Sanders: What are the key images of the future of evolution?
Steve Harrington: You had to say it, eh? What does it look like to be the Sensitive & Responsive. To what concerns? where?
Karen Bueno: "How do we motivate the sensitive and reponsive ones who understand that the survival of the people of the earth and the earth itself depends on our working together to make that survival possible?" I like the idea of striving for a T-shirt phrase, like "Be one of those who dare to live the future now.", as someone suggested.
David Walters: in the midst of a malaise of helplessness and an established / controlling economic and political elite, what can we do to support and help to form the emerging groups and movements (both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement) to be both effective and inclusive?
Jack Gilles: Given the stance that "History rides on the back of the religious" that we embodied and lived..... "Who are the 'religious' today, where would you look to find them, what are the marks that tell you so, and what might we share (and how) with them so that they are empowered and connected?". The "we" in the question should refer to "those of us who are scattered" and who will take seriously the answers.
Janice Ulangca: In this 50th year of EI/ICA, some of the questions to live with: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? What are some of the important partnerships the future needs?
Missed the name: What was Neibhur's line? (and how do you spell his name?) Something about the sensitive and something ones.
Nancy Lanphear: What is " MY GREAT WORK (IS) WHERE MY OWN GREAT JOY INTERSECTS WITH EARTH'S GREAT NEED" ....perhaps EARTH could be stretched to all my relations, the universe, life ....
Jan and Steve: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? Jan: What are some of the important partnerships the future needs?
Jim Baumbach: "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?"
Karen Bueno: "How are we to live together and preserve this planet for the future?"
Jim Wiegel Jfwiegel@yahoo.com </mc/compose?to=Jfwiegel@yahoo.com>
"One cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life's morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie." -- Carl Jung
Partners in Participation Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net </mc/compose?to=OE@lists.wedgeblade.net> http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
-----Inline Attachment Follows-----
_______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net </mc/compose?to=Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net
_______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net
Wow. Thanks, Jim. Someone on this list recommended Prophetic Imagination by Walter Bruggemann, and I found it as an ebook and downloaded and read it. He is very much in line with your perspective, and points to the experience of the prophets and their role and function as what we need. Since reading it, I have been saying to myself, we are moving into a prophetic moment. Jim Wiegel "The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel@yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. --- On Fri, 7/6/12, Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl@new.rr.com> wrote: From: Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl@new.rr.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 4:55 PM Certainly Boulding was aware of some of the ominous crises and saw within them a potential for extinction of our human species. But several other crises are also pending including global warming (environmental change), unending wars, physical and chemical pollution, droughts and starvation, declining water sources, etc. My question was not intended to be supercilious but as a thought regarding how fragile our own current existence is. Measured in a geologic time frame, the total presence of human life is so minuscule as to be in all probability essentially zero. Yet within that time frame, human beings have been able to so threaten their own existence that one can hardly imagine any other life form as suicidal. Despite all of the dire scientific projections I, for one, am unable to stop doing exactly what I, and many like me, have been doing for decades and centuries--consuming the Earth's resources in unsustainable amounts. And now the populations of China and India are also anticipating doing what I am doing! I don't see anything changing so profoundly that we will reverse our present course. There are, of course, many band aid-type remedies such as alternative energy sources but these only prolong this process. Is it possible to change human nature to such an extent that we, in Biblical tradition when Jonah proclaimed disaster to Nineveh: "...Then tidings reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he made proclamation and published through Nineveh, "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them cry mightily to God; yea, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands." (Jonah 3:3-8 RSV), actually change our habits? Without this dramatic turn-around possibly our question will be: "How do we prepare all human life to face the inevitable extinction of our species?" Jim Baumbach On 7/6/2012 3:56 PM, James Wiegel wrote: I was just reminded of an old, old, friend, Kenneth Boulding, and a chapter from his book, The Meaning of the Twentieth Century -- The Great Transition, published in 1964. He described this "great transition" thusly: The Great Transition (1964) The twentieth century might be described as the crucial central period in the third great transition in the state of mankind. The first great transition was from the paleolithic to the neolithic about ten thousand years ago, which was characterized by the invention of agriculture, the domestication of animals, and the development of a settled life in villages. The second great transition, sometimes called the urban revolution, about five thousand years ago, was characterized by the development of political power and the centralization of the food surplus from agriculture in cities. This is the transition from neolithic agriculture to civilizations. What is underway now is a third great transition, in which civilization is passing away and a new order of society altogether, which I have sometimes called post-civilized but which perhaps deserves the name of the Developed Society, is coming into being. The twentieth century is the crucial midstage of this transition which will determine very largely whether it will be made successful or not. HERE ARE SOME PARAGRAPHS FROM THE FINAL CHAPTER. I FOUND THEM ON THE GOLDEN PATHWAYS: The fact of the great transition is not in dispute. Almost anyone in middle life today has simply to look back to his own childhood, or still more to the days of his grandparents, to realize that we are living in a world in which there is an enormous rate of change. If anyone in an advanced society today were to suddenly thrust back into the world of only a hundred years ago, he would feel utterly alien and strange. A considerable part of his vocabulary would be meaningless to the people around him. He would find it hard to adapt to the inconveniences and to the restricted life which would have to lead. He would feel indeed in an alien society. .................................................... I, therefore, have no hesitation in recommending the attitude toward the great transition which I have described as critical acceptance. There may be times when we wish nostalgically that it had never started, for then at least the danger that the evolutionary experiment in this part of the universe would be terminated would be more remote. Now that the transition is under way, however, there is no going back on it. We must learn to use its enormous potential for good rather than for evil, and we must learn to diminish and eventually eliminate the dangers which are inherent in it. If I had to sum up the situation in a sentence I would say that the situation has arisen because of the development of certain methods of reality testing applied to our images of nature. If we are to ride out the transition successfully we must apply these or similar methods for reality testing to our images of man and his society. There is in the world today an "invisible college" of people in many different countries and many different cultures, who have this vision of the nature of the transition through which we are passing and who are determined to devote their lives to contributing toward its successful fulfillment. Membership in this college is consistent with many different philosophical, religious, and political positions. It is a college without a founder and without a president, without buildings and without organization. Its founding members might have included a Jesuit like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a humanist like Aldous Huxley, a writer of science fiction like H. G. Wells, and it might even have given honorary degrees to Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Pope John XXIII, and even Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy. Its living representatives are still a pretty small group of people. I think, however, that it is they who hold the future of the world in their hands or at least in their minds. For this invisible college I am an unashamed propagandist and I confess without a blush that this book is a tract. Our precious little planet, this blue green cradle of life with its rosy mantle, is in one of the most critical stages of its whole existence. It is in a position of immense danger and immense potentiality. There are no doubt many experiments in evolution going on in different parts of this big universe. But this happens to be my planet and I am very much attached to it, and I am desperately anxious that this particular experiment should be a success. If this be ethnocentrism, then let me be ethnocentric! I am pretty sure, however, that it will not be a success unless something is done. There is danger both of the bang of nuclear detonation and of the whimper of exhausted overpopulation, and either would mean an end of the evolutionary process in these parts. If man were merely capable of destroying himself, one could perhaps bear the thought. One could at least console oneself with the thought of elementary justice, that if man does destroy himself it is his own silly fault. He is captain, however, of a frai1 and delicate vessel, and in the course of destroying himself he might easily destroy the vessel that is, the planet which carries him, with its immense wealth and variety of evolutionary freight and evolutionary potential. This makes the dangers of the transition doubly intolerable, and demands a desperate effort to remove them. Jim Wiegel "The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel@yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. --- On Fri, 7/6/12, R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> wrote: From: R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net>, "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 11:30 AM Jim, By "peace" I meant something more than the absence of war. I suppose I meant something like "with civility," " with mutual respect," "acknowledging the dignity and worth of all." This may be idealistic but without it I am skeptical that we can continue. The by-product of this kind of peace is sustainability, so my statement may have been a bit redundant. I agree with Wayne up to a point. I believe there is really one moral issue at a time, but there must be many ways to describe it and thus to articulate the question. With the way issues are so inter-related, it's difficult to talk about one without eventually getting into most of the others, and probably even more difficult to finally boil it down to "the" underlying root/moral issue of the time. I would have to say that the way we articulated it in the 70's as the disparity between the 85/15, or today maybe the 99/1, isn't that far off base for today as well. One thing I do feel fairly certain about. Whereas in RS-1 days we asked, "Who am I?" "What do I?" and "How be I?"--today I would insist that the question, whatever it is, is not an "I" question, but rather a "we" question. Randy "Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) From: James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>; Order Ecumenical Community <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 12:33 PM Subject: [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Over coffee, this morning, i recopied the emails from this thread and tried to narrow down to just the questions that were posed. I think i missed an email that Lee Early was responding to in his message. A couple of reflections: Randy, in yours, i was struggling with the phrase "in peace", wondering, a bit like the word "church" or "religious" what that might point to that would seem true to life vs. sort of an ideal future. Wayne, your response that there may not be "a" question, but many and we each have to figure out our own for ourselves got me to reflecting on the evident complicatedness of things in a systemic or interconnected world. My auto mechanic was explaining to me how to simply fix the health care system in the US, and your comment came up for me, and i said that is a good idea, but i think we are looking too often for simple silver bullet solutions when thngs are actually much more complicated. And that made sense to both of us and moved the conversation on. Jim Baumbach's question put me back on my heels . "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" then, when in linking it with Bill Parker's notion that none of this is new, and why haven't we all woken up? Got me thinking, at least on the liberal or progressive side, whether the new religion arising is the religion of human rights . . . Progressives, at least, seem to hold these as sacred and as a moral obligation to be enforced. I could go on, but my eggs are getting cold, and the slice of cantelope from Judy's garden is calling. THE GIST AS I SEE IT Mary Hampton: Enough, all ready, its too good to miss and I am not ready to edit. Good stuff, folks! Ken Gilgren: why am I here? What am I doing? How am I being? What quickens the current action of my soul? what was the question again? Wayne Nelson: What are the pivotal moral issues of our moment? I think there are likely to be several. Of course there are many, many but there are probably some major ones. To reduce it to a single one makes it too abstract and denies the obvious complexity. We all have to name 'the moral issue of our time.' There's not likely to be one for everyone. It's a job we all have to do. Bill Parker: What are the warning signs of the destruction and endangerment of the entire human community? Then ask, what is the underlying question to be addressed and how it can be addressed. Why are people not being awakened to the clear, obvious truth of our crisis? Secondly, what methods must we develop or employ to radically reveal this all encompassing truth? John Cock: My take: If it does not have something like "on behalf of a transformed Earth community" in the statement, it is the WRONG right question, moral issue, or vocation. Lee Early: "Who is Tiger Woods?", What is his mission? Can we re-answer the second question? Mission, social pioneer, church, college, league, crimson line and movement? The answer to the question of mission will carry the first of who. (At least here in the West.) Sometimes the question of mission changes. Sometimes by chance and sometimes on purpose. What is our mission TODAY? Randy Williams: In reflecting on the dialogue around what is "the question," I realized we really were assuming two questions. How may "we" (all species) live together on this planet in peace, in a way that secures life for future generations? What is the new face, form and mission of the "movement" (the religious, the invisible college, the church with a little"c," ) and what stories, style and symbols will sustain it? Jan Sanders: What are the key images of the future of evolution? Steve Harrington: You had to say it, eh? What does it look like to be the Sensitive & Responsive. To what concerns? where? Karen Bueno: "How do we motivate the sensitive and reponsive ones who understand that the survival of the people of the earth and the earth itself depends on our working together to make that survival possible?" I like the idea of striving for a T-shirt phrase, like "Be one of those who dare to live the future now.", as someone suggested. David Walters: in the midst of a malaise of helplessness and an established / controlling economic and political elite, what can we do to support and help to form the emerging groups and movements (both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement) to be both effective and inclusive? Jack Gilles: Given the stance that "History rides on the back of the religious" that we embodied and lived..... "Who are the 'religious' today, where would you look to find them, what are the marks that tell you so, and what might we share (and how) with them so that they are empowered and connected?". The "we" in the question should refer to "those of us who are scattered" and who will take seriously the answers. Janice Ulangca: In this 50th year of EI/ICA, some of the questions to live with: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Missed the name: What was Neibhur's line? (and how do you spell his name?) Something about the sensitive and something ones. Nancy Lanphear: What is " MY GREAT WORK (IS) WHERE MY OWN GREAT JOY INTERSECTS WITH EARTH'S GREAT NEED" ....perhaps EARTH could be stretched to all my relations, the universe, life .... Jan and Steve: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? Jan: What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Jim Baumbach: "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" Karen Bueno: "How are we to live together and preserve this planet for the future?" Jim Wiegel Jfwiegel@yahoo.com “One cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.” – Carl Jung Partners in Participation Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net
From: Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl@new.rr.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 4:55 PM
Certainly Boulding was aware of some of the ominous crises and saw within them a potential for extinction of our human species. But several other crises are also pending including global warming (environmental change), unending wars, physical and chemical pollution, droughts and starvation, declining water sources, etc. My question was not intended to be supercilious but as a thought regarding how fragile our own current existence is. Measured in a geologic time frame, the total presence of human life is so minuscule as to be in all probability essentially zero. Yet within that time frame, human beings have been able to so threaten their own existence that one can hardly imagine any other life form as suicidal. Despite all of the dire scientific projections I, for one, am unable to stop doing exactly what I, and many like me, have been doing for decades and centuries--consuming the Earth's resources in unsustainable amounts. And now the
On 7/6/2012 3:56 PM, James Wiegel wrote: I was just reminded of an old, old, friend, Kenneth Boulding, and a chapter from his book, The Meaning of the Twentieth Century -- The Great Transition, published in 1964. He described this "great transition" thusly:
The Great Transition (1964) The twentieth century might be described as the crucial central period in the third great transition in the state of mankind. The first great transition was from the paleolithic to the neolithic about ten thousand years ago, which was characterized by the invention of agriculture, the domestication of animals, and the development of a settled life in villages. The second great transition, sometimes called the urban revolution, about five thousand years ago, was characterized by the development of political power and the centralization of the food surplus from agriculture in cities. This is the transition from neolithic agriculture to civilizations. What is underway now is a third great transition, in which civilization is passing away and a new order of society altogether, which I have sometimes called post-civilized but which perhaps deserves the name of the Developed Society, is coming into being. The twentieth century is the crucial midstage of this
HERE ARE SOME PARAGRAPHS FROM THE FINAL CHAPTER. I FOUND THEM ON THE GOLDEN PATHWAYS:
The fact of the great transition is not in dispute. Almost anyone in middle life today has simply to look back to his own childhood, or still more to the days of his grandparents, to realize that we are living in a world in which there is an enormous rate of change. If anyone in an advanced society today were to suddenly thrust back into the world of only a hundred years ago, he would feel utterly alien and strange. A considerable part of his vocabulary would be meaningless to the people around him. He would find it hard to adapt to the inconveniences and to the restricted life which would have to lead. He would feel indeed in an alien society.
....................................................
I, therefore, have no hesitation in recommending the attitude toward the great transition which I have described as critical acceptance. There may be times when we wish nostalgically that it had never started, for then at least the danger that the evolutionary experiment in this part of the universe would be terminated would be more remote. Now that the transition is under way, however, there is no going back on it. We must learn to use its enormous potential for good rather than for evil, and we must learn to diminish and eventually eliminate the dangers which are inherent in it. If I had to sum up the situation in a sentence I would say that the situation has arisen because of the development of certain methods of reality testing applied to our images of nature. If we are to ride out the transition successfully we must apply these or similar methods for reality testing to our images of man and his society. There is in the world today an "invisible college" of people in many different countries and many different cultures, who have this vision of the nature of the transition through which we are passing and who are determined to devote their lives to contributing toward its successful fulfillment. Membership in this college is consistent with many different philosophical, religious, and political positions. It is a college without a founder and without a president, without buildings and without organization. Its founding members might have included a Jesuit like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a humanist like Aldous Huxley, a writer of science fiction like H. G. Wells, and it might even have given honorary degrees to Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Pope John XXIII, and even Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy. Its living representatives are still a pretty small group of people. I think, however, that it is they who hold the future of the world in their hands or at least in
For this invisible college I am an unashamed propagandist and I confess without a blush that this book is a tract. Our precious little planet, this blue green cradle of life with its rosy mantle, is in one of the most critical stages of its whole existence. It is in a position of immense danger and immense potentiality. There are no doubt many experiments in evolution going on in different parts of this big universe. But this happens to be my planet and I am very much attached to it, and I am desperately anxious that this particular experiment should be a success. If this be ethnocentrism, then let me be ethnocentric! I am pretty sure, however, that it will not be a success unless something is done. There is danger both of the bang of nuclear detonation and of the whimper of exhausted overpopulation, and either would mean an end of the evolutionary process in these parts. If man were merely capable of destroying himself, one could perhaps bear the
Jim Wiegel
"The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is
hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln
401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel@yahoo.com http://www.partnersinparticipation.com/
Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7,
2012
Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details.
--- On Fri, 7/6/12, R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net>, "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 11:30 AM
Jim, By "peace" I meant something more than the absence of war. I suppose I meant something like "with civility," " with mutual respect," "acknowledging the dignity and worth of all." This may be idealistic but without it I am skeptical that we can continue. The by-product of this kind of peace is sustainability, so my statement may have been a bit redundant. I agree with Wayne up to a point. I believe there is really one moral issue at a time, but there must be many ways to describe it and thus to articulate the question. With the way issues are so inter-related, it's difficult to talk about one without eventually getting into most of the others, and probably even more difficult to finally boil it down to "the" underlying root/moral issue of the time. I would have to say that the way we articulated it in the 70's as the disparity between the 85/15, or today maybe the 99/1, isn't that far off base for today as well. One thing I do feel fairly certain about. Whereas in RS-1 days we asked, "Who am I?" "What do I?" and "How be I?"--today I would insist that the question, whatever it is, is not an "I" question, but rather a "we" question. Randy
"Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) From: James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>; Order Ecumenical Community <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 12:33 PM Subject: [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Over coffee, this morning, i recopied the emails from this thread and tried to narrow down to just the questions that were posed. I think i missed an email that Lee Early was responding to in his message. A couple of reflections: Randy, in yours, i was struggling with the phrase "in peace", wondering, a bit like the word "church" or "religious" what that might point to that would seem true to life vs. sort of an ideal future. Wayne, your response that there may not be "a" question, but many and we each have to figure out our own for ourselves got me to reflecting on the evident complicatedness of things in a systemic or interconnected world. My auto mechanic was explaining to me how to simply fix the health care system in the US, and your comment came up for me, and i said that is a good idea, but i think we are looking too often for simple silver bullet solutions when thngs are actually much more complicated. And that made sense to both of us and moved the conversation on. Jim Baumbach's question put me back on my heels . "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" then, when in linking it with Bill Parker's notion that none of this is new, and why haven't we all woken up? Got me thinking, at least on the liberal or progressive side, whether the new religion arising is the religion of human rights . . . Progressives, at least, seem to hold these as sacred and as a moral obligation to be enforced. I could go on, but my eggs are getting cold, and the slice of cantelope from Judy's garden is calling. THE GIST AS I SEE IT Mary Hampton: Enough, all ready, its too good to miss and I am not ready to edit. Good stuff, folks! Ken Gilgren: why am I here? What am I doing? How am I being? What quickens the current action of my soul? what was the question again? Wayne Nelson: What are the pivotal moral issues of our moment? I think there are likely to be several. Of course there are many, many but there are probably some major ones. To reduce it to a single one makes it too abstract and denies the obvious complexity. We all have to name 'the moral issue of our time.' There's not likely to be one for everyone. It's a job we all have to do. Bill Parker: What are the warning signs of the destruction and endangerment of the entire human community? Then ask, what is the underlying question to be addressed and how it can be addressed. Why are people not being awakened to the clear, obvious truth of our crisis? Secondly, what methods must we develop or employ to radically reveal this all encompassing truth? John Cock: My take: If it does not have something like "on behalf of a transformed Earth community" in the statement, it is the WRONG right question, moral issue, or vocation. Lee Early: "Who is Tiger Woods?", What is his mission? Can we re-answer the second question? Mission, social pioneer, church, college, league, crimson line and movement? The answer to the question of mission will carry the first of who. (At least here in the West.) Sometimes the question of mission changes. Sometimes by chance and sometimes on purpose. What is our mission TODAY? Randy Williams: In reflecting on the dialogue around what is "the question," I realized we really were assuming two questions. How may "we" (all species) live together on this planet in peace, in a way that secures life for future generations? What is the new face, form and mission of the "movement" (the religious, the invisible college, the church with a little"c," ) and what stories, style and symbols will sustain it? Jan Sanders: What are the key images of the future of evolution? Steve Harrington: You had to say it, eh? What does it look like to be the Sensitive & Responsive. To what concerns? where? Karen Bueno: "How do we motivate the sensitive and reponsive ones who understand that the survival of the people of the earth and the earth itself depends on our working together to make that survival possible?" I like the idea of striving for a T-shirt phrase, like "Be one of those who dare to live the future now.", as someone suggested. David Walters: in the midst of a malaise of helplessness and an established / controlling economic and political elite, what can we do to support and help to form the emerging groups and movements (both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement) to be both effective and inclusive? Jack Gilles: Given the stance that "History rides on the back of the religious" that we embodied and lived..... "Who are the 'religious' today, where would you look to find them, what are the marks that tell you so, and what might we share (and how) with them so that they are empowered and connected?". The "we" in the question should refer to "those of us who are scattered" and who will take seriously the answers. Janice Ulangca: In this 50th year of EI/ICA, some of the questions to live with: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Missed the name: What was Neibhur's line? (and how do you spell his name?) Something about the sensitive and something ones. Nancy Lanphear: What is " MY GREAT WORK (IS) WHERE MY OWN GREAT JOY INTERSECTS WITH EARTH'S GREAT NEED" ....perhaps EARTH could be stretched to all my relations, the universe, life .... Jan and Steve: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? Jan: What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Jim Baumbach: "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" Karen Bueno: "How are we to live together and
Jim and Jim, I find myself wanting to be realistic without being skeptical and thinking that the situation is hopeless. Jim W., you mention Walter Brueggemann's book The Prophetic Imagination. Brueggemann suggests, as I understand what he is saying, that the task of the ancient prophets was to imagine a future that was an alternative to the dominant cultural reality of the time, and to narrate that alternative in such a way that the people would participate in its emergence. By "imagination" he meant the ability to discern what YHWH was bringing into being. In the sequel, called The Practice of Prophetic Imagination, Brueggemann says the following: Can YHWH create, yet again, a new history for Israel, after the old history has come to a dismal end? Here we are at the deepest theological question of biblical faith--is the God of faith contained within and informed by what the world knows to be possible? Or is it within the capacity of God to create a newness that defies the categories of the "possible" that are commonly and reasonably accepted in the world? He then refers Karl Barth's second volume of Church Dogmatics. Karl Barth...faces the issue of what is "real" and what is "possible..." Barth's insistence that the issue of "possibility" must not claim to precede the question of "reality'" is crucial. And because God is free, much is possible with God that would not otherwise be possible. Brueggemann continues: It is useful to recognize, in our own context, that when faith is contained within modern rationality, there is a rejection of the God who can "do the impossible." The present casting of that rejection concerns "an interventionist God" who violates our notion of the possible... The question left...is a question about the freedom of God that we seek to ponder without any recourse to crude supernaturalism. By "crude supernaturalism" Brueggemann is pointing to something like uttering magical prayers for a person to be cured of an illness, or a town to be saved from violent weather, etc. with the expectation that God will intervene in a spontaneous, spasmodic instant to the immediate situation and prayers will be answered. He does not, however, dismiss the idea that God is an interventionist. What he does suggest is that, rather than spontaneous, God is an active player in human history and is continuously intervening in every "now," in the midst of which all things are always being made new. He concludes: In each new articulation, Israel must ask again in wonderment if God, in God's freedom, can push beyond ordinary "possibility" to the "impossible..." The tradition of faith continues to be dazzled by specific memories, in narrative form, of instances in which the "impossibility of God" has overridden the "possibility" of human wisdom...that exhibit God's faithful power beyond our expectation or explanation. Thus the role of the prophet is to discern the "possible impossibility" (my words) that is emerging in the midst of the death of the old, "narrate" it in a compelling fashion, and participate in "bring(ing) it to reality as it desires." (Martin Buber's phrase.) So to bring this back to where we started, perhaps the question in all of this, and perhaps a timeless one at that, is "What is the newness that is seeking to emerge in our time and, what story shall we tell about it, and what is required of us to participate in having it emerge?" Randy "Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) ________________________________ From: James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 8:09 PM Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Wow. Thanks, Jim. Someone on this list recommended Prophetic Imagination by Walter Bruggemann, and I found it as an ebook and downloaded and read it. He is very much in line with your perspective, and points to the experience of the prophets and their role and function as what we need. Since reading it, I have been saying to myself, we are moving into a prophetic moment. Jim Wiegel "The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel@yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. --- On Fri, 7/6/12, Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl@new.rr.com> wrote: populations of China and India are also anticipating doing what I am doing! I don't see anything changing so profoundly that we will reverse our present course. There are, of course, many band aid-type remedies such as alternative energy sources but these only prolong this process. Is it possible to change human nature to such an extent that we, in Biblical tradition when Jonah proclaimed disaster to Nineveh: "...Then tidings reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he made proclamation and published through Nineveh, "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them cry mightily to God; yea, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands." (Jonah 3:3-8 RSV), actually change our habits? Without this dramatic turn-around possibly our question will be: "How do we prepare all human life to face the inevitable extinction of our species?" Jim Baumbach transition which will determine very largely whether it will be made successful or not. their minds. thought. One could at least console oneself with the thought of elementary justice, that if man does destroy himself it is his own silly fault. He is captain, however, of a frai1 and delicate vessel, and in the course of destroying himself he might easily destroy the vessel that is, the planet which carries him, with its immense wealth and variety of evolutionary freight and evolutionary potential. This makes the dangers of the transition doubly intolerable, and demands a desperate effort to remove them. preserve this planet for the future?" Jim Wiegel Jfwiegel@yahoo.com “One cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.” – Carl Jung Partners in Participation Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
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Sometimes being realistic is more than skeptical. Jim's mention of climate change for me certainly is a game changer regarding the right question. Climate scientist are not that rosy about the future, and with the greatest polluters ignoring the data it does not hold much promise. Jean Watts' husband, Bob, could probably give us more data here. The increase in heat, shifting seasons, intensity of storms, rising seas and all the things our media does not cover, e.g. South Sea Islanders seeking to migrate to New Zealand and Australia because they are losing ground month by month, even here in our garden we have insects that were confined to the South of us now showing up. The intensity of Monsoon seasons which is destroying top soil among other things, that our colleague, Rupert Barnes, used to trace around the world in the 80's and 90's, the expanding population and the shortage of water, the list goes on and on. I understand that Climatologists are concerned about the CO2 in sea waters, where it is and what it's doing, and rising acidity. I remember we had an illustration about the guy being chased by the bear and falling into the well clinging to a rope that a rat is gnawing away. With Theology and Philosophy being outflanked by Science disciplines, I begin to wonder if the "meaning of life" issues we enjoy tossing around is any longer at the heart of the issue. Are we left with preparing for future extinction, whatever that looks like, or attempting to rectify the damages we've done to mother earth in hopes she changes her mind. Do we really have a wider range of options or questions? George Holcombe 14900 Yellowleaf Tr. Austin, TX 78728 Mobile 512/252-2756 geowanda@earthlink.net Hope appeareth, but it is not your Hope—you do not have anything to do with it. It just appeareth. It comes as a stranger, as an alien—it just appeareth! You do not even know why you hope. How in the world could you hope when there is absolutely nothing to justify any hope? ~Joseph W. Mathews On Jul 7, 2012, at 12:17 PM, R Williams wrote:
Jim and Jim,
I find myself wanting to be realistic without being skeptical and thinking that the situation is hopeless. Jim W., you mention Walter Brueggemann's book The Prophetic Imagination. Brueggemann suggests, as I understand what he is saying, that the task of the ancient prophets was to imagine a future that was an alternative to the dominant cultural reality of the time, and to narrate that alternative in such a way that the people would participate in its emergence. By "imagination" he meant the ability to discern what YHWH was bringing into being.
In the sequel, called The Practice of Prophetic Imagination, Brueggemann says the following:
Can YHWH create, yet again, a new history for Israel, after the old history has come to a dismal end? Here we are at the deepest theological question of biblical faith--is the God of faith contained within and informed by what the world knows to be possible? Or is it within the capacity of God to create a newness that defies the categories of the "possible" that are commonly and reasonably accepted in the world?
He then refers Karl Barth's second volume of Church Dogmatics.
Karl Barth...faces the issue of what is "real" and what is "possible..." Barth's insistence that the issue of "possibility" must not claim to precede the question of "reality'" is crucial. And because God is free, much is possible with God that would not otherwise be possible.
Brueggemann continues:
It is useful to recognize, in our own context, that when faith is contained within modern rationality, there is a rejection of the God who can "do the impossible." The present casting of that rejection concerns "an interventionist God" who violates our notion of the possible... The question left...is a question about the freedom of God that we seek to ponder without any recourse to crude supernaturalism.
By "crude supernaturalism" Brueggemann is pointing to something like uttering magical prayers for a person to be cured of an illness, or a town to be saved from violent weather, etc. with the expectation that God will intervene in a spontaneous, spasmodic instant to the immediate situation and prayers will be answered. He does not, however, dismiss the idea that God is an interventionist. What he does suggest is that, rather than spontaneous, God is an active player in human history and is continuously intervening in every "now," in the midst of which all things are always being made new. He concludes:
In each new articulation, Israel must ask again in wonderment if God, in God's freedom, can push beyond ordinary "possibility" to the "impossible..." The tradition of faith continues to be dazzled by specific memories, in narrative form, of instances in which the "impossibility of God" has overridden the "possibility" of human wisdom...that exhibit God's faithful power beyond our expectation or explanation.
Thus the role of the prophet is to discern the "possible impossibility" (my words) that is emerging in the midst of the death of the old, "narrate" it in a compelling fashion, and participate in "bring(ing) it to reality as it desires." (Martin Buber's phrase.) So to bring this back to where we started, perhaps the question in all of this, and perhaps a timeless one at that, is "What is the newness that is seeking to emerge in our time and, what story shall we tell about it, and what is required of us to participate in having it emerge?"
Randy
"Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) From: James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 8:09 PM Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Wow. Thanks, Jim. Someone on this list recommended Prophetic Imagination by Walter Bruggemann, and I found it as an ebook and downloaded and read it. He is very much in line with your perspective, and points to the experience of the prophets and their role and function as what we need. Since reading it, I have been saying to myself, we are moving into a prophetic moment.
Jim Wiegel
"The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln
401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel@yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com
Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details.
--- On Fri, 7/6/12, Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl@new.rr.com> wrote:
From: Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl@new.rr.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 4:55 PM
Certainly Boulding was aware of some of the ominous crises and saw within them a potential for extinction of our human species. But several other crises are also pending including global warming (environmental change), unending wars, physical and chemical pollution, droughts and starvation, declining water sources, etc. My question was not intended to be supercilious but as a thought regarding how fragile our own current existence is. Measured in a geologic time frame, the total presence of human life is so minuscule as to be in all probability essentially zero. Yet within that time frame, human beings have been able to so threaten their own existence that one can hardly imagine any other life form as suicidal. Despite all of the dire scientific projections I, for one, am unable to stop doing exactly what I, and many like me, have been doing for decades and centuries--consuming the Earth's resources in unsustainable amounts. And now the populations of China and India are also anticipating doing what I am doing! I don't see anything changing so profoundly that we will reverse our present course. There are, of course, many band aid-type remedies such as alternative energy sources but these only prolong this process. Is it possible to change human nature to such an extent that we, in Biblical tradition when Jonah proclaimed disaster to Nineveh: "...Then tidings reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he made proclamation and published through Nineveh, "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them cry mightily to God; yea, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands." (Jonah 3:3-8 RSV), actually change our habits? Without this dramatic turn-around possibly our question will be: "How do we prepare all human life to face the inevitable extinction of our species?" Jim Baumbach On 7/6/2012 3:56 PM, James Wiegel wrote:
I was just reminded of an old, old, friend, Kenneth Boulding, and a chapter from his book, The Meaning of the Twentieth Century -- The Great Transition, published in 1964. He described this "great transition" thusly: The Great Transition (1964) The twentieth century might be described as the crucial central period in the third great transition in the state of mankind. The first great transition was from the paleolithic to the neolithic about ten thousand years ago, which was characterized by the invention of agriculture, the domestication of animals, and the development of a settled life in villages. The second great transition, sometimes called the urban revolution, about five thousand years ago, was characterized by the development of political power and the centralization of the food surplus from agriculture in cities. This is the transition from neolithic agriculture to civilizations. What is underway now is a third great transition, in which civilization is passing away and a new order of society altogether, which I have sometimes called post-civilized but which perhaps deserves the name of the Developed Society, is coming into being. The twentieth century is the crucial midstage of this transition which will determine very largely whether it will be made successful or not.
HERE ARE SOME PARAGRAPHS FROM THE FINAL CHAPTER. I FOUND THEM ON THE GOLDEN PATHWAYS:
The fact of the great transition is not in dispute. Almost anyone in middle life today has simply to look back to his own childhood, or still more to the days of his grandparents, to realize that we are living in a world in which there is an enormous rate of change. If anyone in an advanced society today were to suddenly thrust back into the world of only a hundred years ago, he would feel utterly alien and strange. A considerable part of his vocabulary would be meaningless to the people around him. He would find it hard to adapt to the inconveniences and to the restricted life which would have to lead. He would feel indeed in an alien society.
.................................................... I, therefore, have no hesitation in recommending the attitude toward the great transition which I have described as critical acceptance. There may be times when we wish nostalgically that it had never started, for then at least the danger that the evolutionary experiment in this part of the universe would be terminated would be more remote. Now that the transition is under way, however, there is no going back on it. We must learn to use its enormous potential for good rather than for evil, and we must learn to diminish and eventually eliminate the dangers which are inherent in it. If I had to sum up the situation in a sentence I would say that the situation has arisen because of the development of certain methods of reality testing applied to our images of nature. If we are to ride out the transition successfully we must apply these or similar methods for reality testing to our images of man and his society. There is in the world today an "invisible college" of people in many different countries and many different cultures, who have this vision of the nature of the transition through which we are passing and who are determined to devote their lives to contributing toward its successful fulfillment. Membership in this college is consistent with many different philosophical, religious, and political positions. It is a college without a founder and without a president, without buildings and without organization. Its founding members might have included a Jesuit like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a humanist like Aldous Huxley, a writer of science fiction like H. G. Wells, and it might even have given honorary degrees to Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Pope John XXIII, and even Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy. Its living representatives are still a pretty small group of people. I think, however, that it is they who hold the future of the world in their hands or at least in their minds. For this invisible college I am an unashamed propagandist and I confess without a blush that this book is a tract. Our precious little planet, this blue green cradle of life with its rosy mantle, is in one of the most critical stages of its whole existence. It is in a position of immense danger and immense potentiality. There are no doubt many experiments in evolution going on in different parts of this big universe. But this happens to be my planet and I am very much attached to it, and I am desperately anxious that this particular experiment should be a success. If this be ethnocentrism, then let me be ethnocentric! I am pretty sure, however, that it will not be a success unless something is done. There is danger both of the bang of nuclear detonation and of the whimper of exhausted overpopulation, and either would mean an end of the evolutionary process in these parts. If man were merely capable of destroying himself, one could perhaps bear the thought. One could at least console oneself with the thought of elementary justice, that if man does destroy himself it is his own silly fault. He is captain, however, of a frai1 and delicate vessel, and in the course of destroying himself he might easily destroy the vessel that is, the planet which carries him, with its immense wealth and variety of evolutionary freight and evolutionary potential. This makes the dangers of the transition doubly intolerable, and demands a desperate effort to remove them.
Jim Wiegel
"The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln
401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel@yahoo.com http://www.partnersinparticipation.com/
Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details.
--- On Fri, 7/6/12, R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net>, "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 11:30 AM
Jim,
By "peace" I meant something more than the absence of war. I suppose I meant something like "with civility," " with mutual respect," "acknowledging the dignity and worth of all." This may be idealistic but without it I am skeptical that we can continue. The by-product of this kind of peace is sustainability, so my statement may have been a bit redundant.
I agree with Wayne up to a point. I believe there is really one moral issue at a time, but there must be many ways to describe it and thus to articulate the question. With the way issues are so inter-related, it's difficult to talk about one without eventually getting into most of the others, and probably even more difficult to finally boil it down to "the" underlying root/moral issue of the time. I would have to say that the way we articulated it in the 70's as the disparity between the 85/15, or today maybe the 99/1, isn't that far off base for today as well.
One thing I do feel fairly certain about. Whereas in RS-1 days we asked, "Who am I?" "What do I?" and "How be I?"--today I would insist that the question, whatever it is, is not an "I" question, but rather a "we" question.
Randy
"Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) From: James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>; Order Ecumenical Community <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 12:33 PM Subject: [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Over coffee, this morning, i recopied the emails from this thread and tried to narrow down to just the questions that were posed. I think i missed an email that Lee Early was responding to in his message. A couple of reflections: Randy, in yours, i was struggling with the phrase "in peace", wondering, a bit like the word "church" or "religious" what that might point to that would seem true to life vs. sort of an ideal future. Wayne, your response that there may not be "a" question, but many and we each have to figure out our own for ourselves got me to reflecting on the evident complicatedness of things in a systemic or interconnected world. My auto mechanic was explaining to me how to simply fix the health care system in the US, and your comment came up for me, and i said that is a good idea, but i think we are looking too often for simple silver bullet solutions when thngs are actually much more complicated. And that made sense to both of us and moved the conversation on. Jim Baumbach's question put me back on my heels . "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" then, when in linking it with Bill Parker's notion that none of this is new, and why haven't we all woken up? Got me thinking, at least on the liberal or progressive side, whether the new religion arising is the religion of human rights . . . Progressives, at least, seem to hold these as sacred and as a moral obligation to be enforced. I could go on, but my eggs are getting cold, and the slice of cantelope from Judy's garden is calling. THE GIST AS I SEE IT Mary Hampton: Enough, all ready, its too good to miss and I am not ready to edit. Good stuff, folks! Ken Gilgren: why am I here? What am I doing? How am I being? What quickens the current action of my soul? what was the question again? Wayne Nelson: What are the pivotal moral issues of our moment? I think there are likely to be several. Of course there are many, many but there are probably some major ones. To reduce it to a single one makes it too abstract and denies the obvious complexity. We all have to name 'the moral issue of our time.' There's not likely to be one for everyone. It's a job we all have to do. Bill Parker: What are the warning signs of the destruction and endangerment of the entire human community? Then ask, what is the underlying question to be addressed and how it can be addressed. Why are people not being awakened to the clear, obvious truth of our crisis? Secondly, what methods must we develop or employ to radically reveal this all encompassing truth? John Cock: My take: If it does not have something like "on behalf of a transformed Earth community" in the statement, it is the WRONG right question, moral issue, or vocation. Lee Early: "Who is Tiger Woods?", What is his mission? Can we re-answer the second question? Mission, social pioneer, church, college, league, crimson line and movement? The answer to the question of mission will carry the first of who. (At least here in the West.) Sometimes the question of mission changes. Sometimes by chance and sometimes on purpose. What is our mission TODAY? Randy Williams: In reflecting on the dialogue around what is "the question," I realized we really were assuming two questions. How may "we" (all species) live together on this planet in peace, in a way that secures life for future generations? What is the new face, form and mission of the "movement" (the religious, the invisible college, the church with a little"c," ) and what stories, style and symbols will sustain it? Jan Sanders: What are the key images of the future of evolution? Steve Harrington: You had to say it, eh? What does it look like to be the Sensitive & Responsive. To what concerns? where? Karen Bueno: "How do we motivate the sensitive and reponsive ones who understand that the survival of the people of the earth and the earth itself depends on our working together to make that survival possible?" I like the idea of striving for a T-shirt phrase, like "Be one of those who dare to live the future now.", as someone suggested. David Walters: in the midst of a malaise of helplessness and an established / controlling economic and political elite, what can we do to support and help to form the emerging groups and movements (both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement) to be both effective and inclusive? Jack Gilles: Given the stance that "History rides on the back of the religious" that we embodied and lived..... "Who are the 'religious' today, where would you look to find them, what are the marks that tell you so, and what might we share (and how) with them so that they are empowered and connected?". The "we" in the question should refer to "those of us who are scattered" and who will take seriously the answers. Janice Ulangca: In this 50th year of EI/ICA, some of the questions to live with: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Missed the name: What was Neibhur's line? (and how do you spell his name?) Something about the sensitive and something ones. Nancy Lanphear: What is " MY GREAT WORK (IS) WHERE MY OWN GREAT JOY INTERSECTS WITH EARTH'S GREAT NEED" ....perhaps EARTH could be stretched to all my relations, the universe, life .... Jan and Steve: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? Jan: What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Jim Baumbach: "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" Karen Bueno: "How are we to live together and preserve this planet for the future?" Jim Wiegel Jfwiegel@yahoo.com “One cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.” – Carl Jung Partners in Participation Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
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Thanks, George and John, earlier. I believe Earth is the primary referent for whatever question is posed. Ellie Stock -----Original Message----- From: George Holcombe <geowanda@earthlink.net> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Sat, Jul 7, 2012 6:07 pm Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Sometimes being realistic is more than skeptical. Jim's mention of climate change for me certainly is a game changer regarding the right question. Climate scientist are not that rosy about the future, and with the greatest polluters ignoring the data it does not hold much promise. Jean Watts' husband, Bob, could probably give us more data here. The increase in heat, shifting seasons, intensity of storms, rising seas and all the things our media does not cover, e.g. South Sea Islanders seeking to migrate to New Zealand and Australia because they are losing ground month by month, even here in our garden we have insects that were confined to the South of us now showing up. The intensity of Monsoon seasons which is destroying top soil among other things, that our colleague, Rupert Barnes, used to trace around the world in the 80's and 90's, the expanding population and the shortage of water, the list goes on and on. I understand that Climatologists are concerned about the CO2 in sea waters, where it is and what it's doing, and rising acidity. I remember we had an illustration about the guy being chased by the bear and falling into the well clinging to a rope that a rat is gnawing away. With Theology and Philosophy being outflanked by Science disciplines, I begin to wonder if the "meaning of life" issues we enjoy tossing around is any longer at the heart of the issue. Are we left with preparing for future extinction, whatever that looks like, or attempting to rectify the damages we've done to mother earth in hopes she changes her mind. Do we really have a wider range of options or questions? George Holcombe 14900 Yellowleaf Tr. Austin, TX 78728 Mobile 512/252-2756 geowanda@earthlink.net Hope appeareth, but it is not your Hope—you do not have anything to do with it. It just appeareth. It comes as a stranger, as an alien—it just appeareth! You do not even know why you hope. How in the world could you hope when there is absolutely nothing to justify any hope? ~Joseph W. Mathews On Jul 7, 2012, at 12:17 PM, R Williams wrote: Jim and Jim, I find myself wanting to be realistic without being skeptical and thinking that the situation is hopeless. Jim W., you mention Walter Brueggemann's book The Prophetic Imagination. Brueggemann suggests, as I understand what he is saying, that the task of the ancient prophets was to imagine a future that was an alternative to the dominant cultural reality of the time, and to narrate that alternative in such a way that the people would participate in its emergence. By "imagination" he meant the ability to discern what YHWH was bringing into being. In the sequel, called The Practice of Prophetic Imagination, Brueggemann says the following: Can YHWH create, yet again, a new history for Israel, after the old history has come to a dismal end? Here we are at the deepest theological question of biblical faith--is the God of faith contained within and informed by what the world knows to be possible? Or is it within the capacity of God to create a newness that defies the categories of the "possible" that are commonly and reasonably accepted in the world? He then refers Karl Barth's second volume of Church Dogmatics. Karl Barth...faces the issue of what is "real" and what is "possible..." Barth's insistence that the issue of "possibility" must not claim to precede the question of "reality'" is crucial. And because God is free, much is possible with God that would not otherwise be possible. Brueggemann continues: It is useful to recognize, in our own context, that when faith is contained within modern rationality, there is a rejection of the God who can "do the impossible." The present casting of that rejection concerns "an interventionist God" who violates our notion of the possible... The question left...is a question about the freedom of God that we seek to ponder without any recourse to crude supernaturalism. By "crude supernaturalism" Brueggemann is pointing to something like uttering magical prayers for a person to be cured of an illness, or a town to be saved from violent weather, etc. with the expectation that God will intervene in a spontaneous, spasmodic instant to the immediate situation and prayers will be answered. He does not, however, dismiss the idea that God is an interventionist. What he does suggest is that, rather than spontaneous, God is an active player in human history and is continuously intervening in every "now," in the midst of which all things are always being made new. He concludes: In each new articulation, Israel must ask again in wonderment if God, in God's freedom, can push beyond ordinary "possibility" to the "impossible..." The tradition of faith continues to be dazzled by specific memories, in narrative form, of instances in which the "impossibility of God" has overridden the "possibility" of human wisdom...that exhibit God's faithful power beyond our expectation or explanation. Thus the role of the prophet is to discern the "possible impossibility" (my words) that is emerging in the midst of the death of the old, "narrate" it in a compelling fashion, and participate in "bring(ing) it to reality as it desires." (Martin Buber's phrase.) So to bring this back to where we started, perhaps the question in all of this, and perhaps a timeless one at that, is "What is the newness that is seeking to emerge in our time and, what story shall we tell about it, and what is required of us to participate in having it emerge?" Randy "Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) From: James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 8:09 PM Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Wow. Thanks, Jim. Someone on this list recommended Prophetic Imagination by Walter Bruggemann, and I found it as an ebook and downloaded and read it. He is very much in line with your perspective, and points to the experience of the prophets and their role and function as what we need. Since reading it, I have been saying to myself, we are moving into a prophetic moment. Jim Wiegel "The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel@yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. --- On Fri, 7/6/12, Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl@new.rr.com> wrote: From: Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl@new.rr.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 4:55 PM Certainly Boulding was aware of some of the ominous crises and saw within them a potential for extinction of our human species. But several other crises are also pending including global warming (environmental change), unending wars, physical and chemical pollution, droughts and starvation, declining water sources, etc. My question was not intended to be supercilious but as a thought regarding how fragile our own current existence is. Measured in a geologic time frame, the total presence of human life is so minuscule as to be in all probability essentially zero. Yet within that time frame, human beings have been able to so threaten their own existence that one can hardly imagine any other life form as suicidal. Despite all of the dire scientific projections I, for one, am unable to stop doing exactly what I, and many like me, have been doing for decades and centuries--consuming the Earth's resources in unsustainable amounts. And now the populations of China and India are also anticipating doing what I am doing! I don't see anything changing so profoundly that we will reverse our present course. There are, of course, many band aid-type remedies such as alternative energy sources but these only prolong this process. Is it possible to change human nature to such an extent that we, in Biblical tradition when Jonah proclaimed disaster to Nineveh: "...Then tidings reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he made proclamation and published through Nineveh, "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them cry mightily to God; yea, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands." (Jonah 3:3-8 RSV), actually change our habits? Without this dramatic turn-around possibly our question will be: "How do we prepare all human life to face the inevitable extinction of our species?" Jim Baumbach On 7/6/2012 3:56 PM, James Wiegel wrote: I was just reminded of an old, old, friend, Kenneth Boulding, and a chapter from his book, The Meaning of the Twentieth Century -- The Great Transition, published in 1964. He described this "great transition" thusly: The Great Transition (1964) The twentieth century might be described as the crucial central period in the third great transition in the state of mankind. The first great transition was from the paleolithic to the neolithic about ten thousand years ago, which was characterized by the invention of agriculture, the domestication of animals, and the development of a settled life in villages. The second great transition, sometimes called the urban revolution, about five thousand years ago, was characterized by the development of political power and the centralization of the food surplus from agriculture in cities. This is the transition from neolithic agriculture to civilizations. What is underway now is a third great transition, in which civilization is passing away and a new order of society altogether, which I have sometimes called post-civilized but which perhaps deserves the name of the Developed Society, is coming into being. The twentieth century is the crucial midstage of this transition which will determine very largely whether it will be made successful or not. HERE ARE SOME PARAGRAPHS FROM THE FINAL CHAPTER. I FOUND THEM ON THE GOLDEN PATHWAYS: The fact of the great transition is not in dispute. Almost anyone in middle life today has simply to look back to his own childhood, or still more to the days of his grandparents, to realize that we are living in a world in which there is an enormous rate of change. If anyone in an advanced society today were to suddenly thrust back into the world of only a hundred years ago, he would feel utterly alien and strange. A considerable part of his vocabulary would be meaningless to the people around him. He would find it hard to adapt to the inconveniences and to the restricted life which would have to lead. He would feel indeed in an alien society. .................................................... I, therefore, have no hesitation in recommending the attitude toward the great transition which I have described as critical acceptance. There may be times when we wish nostalgically that it had never started, for then at least the danger that the evolutionary experiment in this part of the universe would be terminated would be more remote. Now that the transition is under way, however, there is no going back on it. We must learn to use its enormous potential for good rather than for evil, and we must learn to diminish and eventually eliminate the dangers which are inherent in it. If I had to sum up the situation in a sentence I would say that the situation has arisen because of the development of certain methods of reality testing applied to our images of nature. If we are to ride out the transition successfully we must apply these or similar methods for reality testing to our images of man and his society. There is in the world today an "invisible college" of people in many different countries and many different cultures, who have this vision of the nature of the transition through which we are passing and who are determined to devote their lives to contributing toward its successful fulfillment. Membership in this college is consistent with many different philosophical, religious, and political positions. It is a college without a founder and without a president, without buildings and without organization. Its founding members might have included a Jesuit like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a humanist like Aldous Huxley, a writer of science fiction like H. G. Wells, and it might even have given honorary degrees to Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Pope John XXIII, and even Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy. Its living representatives are still a pretty small group of people. I think, however, that it is they who hold the future of the world in their hands or at least in their minds. For this invisible college I am an unashamed propagandist and I confess without a blush that this book is a tract. Our precious little planet, this blue green cradle of life with its rosy mantle, is in one of the most critical stages of its whole existence. It is in a position of immense danger and immense potentiality. There are no doubt many experiments in evolution going on in different parts of this big universe. But this happens to be my planet and I am very much attached to it, and I am desperately anxious that this particular experiment should be a success. If this be ethnocentrism, then let me be ethnocentric! I am pretty sure, however, that it will not be a success unless something is done. There is danger both of the bang of nuclear detonation and of the whimper of exhausted overpopulation, and either would mean an end of the evolutionary process in these parts. If man were merely capable of destroying himself, one could perhaps bear the thought. One could at least console oneself with the thought of elementary justice, that if man does destroy himself it is his own silly fault. He is captain, however, of a frai1 and delicate vessel, and in the course of destroying himself he might easily destroy the vessel that is, the planet which carries him, with its immense wealth and variety of evolutionary freight and evolutionary potential. This makes the dangers of the transition doubly intolerable, and demands a desperate effort to remove them. Jim Wiegel "The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel@yahoo.com http://www.partnersinparticipation.com/ Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. --- On Fri, 7/6/12, R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> wrote: From: R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net>, "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 11:30 AM Jim, By "peace" I meant something more than the absence of war. I suppose I meant something like "with civility," " with mutual respect," "acknowledging the dignity and worth of all." This may be idealistic but without it I am skeptical that we can continue. The by-product of this kind of peace is sustainability, so my statement may have been a bit redundant. I agree with Wayne up to a point. I believe there is really one moral issue at a time, but there must be many ways to describe it and thus to articulate the question. With the way issues are so inter-related, it's difficult to talk about one without eventually getting into most of the others, and probably even more difficult to finally boil it down to "the" underlying root/moral issue of the time. I would have to say that the way we articulated it in the 70's as the disparity between the 85/15, or today maybe the 99/1, isn't that far off base for today as well. One thing I do feel fairly certain about. Whereas in RS-1 days we asked, "Who am I?" "What do I?" and "How be I?"--today I would insist that the question, whatever it is, is not an "I" question, but rather a "we" question. Randy "Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) From: James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>; Order Ecumenical Community <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 12:33 PM Subject: [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Over coffee, this morning, i recopied the emails from this thread and tried to narrow down to just the questions that were posed. I think i missed an email that Lee Early was responding to in his message. A couple of reflections: Randy, in yours, i was struggling with the phrase "in peace", wondering, a bit like the word "church" or "religious" what that might point to that would seem true to life vs. sort of an ideal future. Wayne, your response that there may not be "a" question, but many and we each have to figure out our own for ourselves got me to reflecting on the evident complicatedness of things in a systemic or interconnected world. My auto mechanic was explaining to me how to simply fix the health care system in the US, and your comment came up for me, and i said that is a good idea, but i think we are looking too often for simple silver bullet solutions when thngs are actually much more complicated. And that made sense to both of us and moved the conversation on. Jim Baumbach's question put me back on my heels . "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" then, when in linking it with Bill Parker's notion that none of this is new, and why haven't we all woken up? Got me thinking, at least on the liberal or progressive side, whether the new religion arising is the religion of human rights . . . Progressives, at least, seem to hold these as sacred and as a moral obligation to be enforced. I could go on, but my eggs are getting cold, and the slice of cantelope from Judy's garden is calling. THE GIST AS I SEE IT Mary Hampton: Enough, all ready, its too good to miss and I am not ready to edit. Good stuff, folks! Ken Gilgren: why am I here? What am I doing? How am I being? What quickens the current action of my soul? what was the question again? Wayne Nelson: What are the pivotal moral issues of our moment? I think there are likely to be several. Of course there are many, many but there are probably some major ones. To reduce it to a single one makes it too abstract and denies the obvious complexity. We all have to name 'the moral issue of our time.' There's not likely to be one for everyone. It's a job we all have to do. Bill Parker: What are the warning signs of the destruction and endangerment of the entire human community? Then ask, what is the underlying question to be addressed and how it can be addressed. Why are people not being awakened to the clear, obvious truth of our crisis? Secondly, what methods must we develop or employ to radically reveal this all encompassing truth? John Cock: My take: If it does not have something like "on behalf of a transformed Earth community" in the statement, it is the WRONG right question, moral issue, or vocation. Lee Early: "Who is Tiger Woods?", What is his mission? Can we re-answer the second question? Mission, social pioneer, church, college, league, crimson line and movement? The answer to the question of mission will carry the first of who. (At least here in the West.) Sometimes the question of mission changes. Sometimes by chance and sometimes on purpose. What is our mission TODAY? Randy Williams: In reflecting on the dialogue around what is "the question," I realized we really were assuming two questions. How may "we" (all species) live together on this planet in peace, in a way that secures life for future generations? What is the new face, form and mission of the "movement" (the religious, the invisible college, the church with a little"c," ) and what stories, style and symbols will sustain it? Jan Sanders: What are the key images of the future of evolution? Steve Harrington: You had to say it, eh? What does it look like to be the Sensitive & Responsive. To what concerns? where? Karen Bueno: "How do we motivate the sensitive and reponsive ones who understand that the survival of the people of the earth and the earth itself depends on our working together to make that survival possible?" I like the idea of striving for a T-shirt phrase, like "Be one of those who dare to live the future now.", as someone suggested. David Walters: in the midst of a malaise of helplessness and an established / controlling economic and political elite, what can we do to support and help to form the emerging groups and movements (both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement) to be both effective and inclusive? Jack Gilles: Given the stance that "History rides on the back of the religious" that we embodied and lived..... "Who are the 'religious' today, where would you look to find them, what are the marks that tell you so, and what might we share (and how) with them so that they are empowered and connected?". The "we" in the question should refer to "those of us who are scattered" and who will take seriously the answers. Janice Ulangca: In this 50th year of EI/ICA, some of the questions to live with: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Missed the name: What was Neibhur's line? (and how do you spell his name?) Something about the sensitive and something ones. Nancy Lanphear: What is " MY GREAT WORK (IS) WHERE MY OWN GREAT JOY INTERSECTS WITH EARTH'S GREAT NEED" ....perhaps EARTH could be stretched to all my relations, the universe, life .... Jan and Steve: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? Jan: What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Jim Baumbach: "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" Karen Bueno: "How are we to live together and preserve this planet for the future?" Jim Wiegel Jfwiegel@yahoo.com “One cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.” – Carl Jung Partners in Participation Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details._______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________Dialogue mailing listDialogue@lists.wedgeblade.nethttp://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________Dialogue mailing listDialogue@lists.wedgeblade.nethttp://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net
Just for fun, George, I remember that story about the bear and the rat. The person clinging to the rope the rat was gnawing saw "a wild strawberry growing on the side of the well, reached over, picked it and ate it. It was so sweet." John At 08:43 PM 7/7/2012, you wrote:
Thanks, George and John, earlier. I believe Earth is the primary referent for whatever question is posed. Ellie Stock -----Original Message----- From: George Holcombe <geowanda@earthlink.net> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Sat, Jul 7, 2012 6:07 pm Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS?
Sometimes being realistic is more than skeptical. Jim's mention of climate change for me certainly is a game changer regarding the right question. Climate scientist are not that rosy about the future, and with the greatest polluters ignoring the data it does not hold much promise. Jean Watts' husband, Bob, could probably give us more data here. The increase in heat, shifting seasons, intensity of storms, rising seas and all the things our media does not cover, e.g. South Sea Islanders seeking to migrate to New Zealand and Australia because they are losing ground month by month, even here in our garden we have insects that were confined to the South of us now showing up. The intensity of Monsoon seasons which is destroying top soil among other things, that our colleague, Rupert Barnes, used to trace around the world in the 80's and 90's, the expanding population and the shortage of water, the list goes on and on. I understand that Climatologists are concerned about the CO2 in sea waters, where it is and what it's doing, and rising acidity.
I remember we had an illustration about the guy being chased by the bear and falling into the well clinging to a rope that a rat is gnawing away. With Theology and Philosophy being outflanked by Science disciplines, I begin to wonder if the "meaning of life" issues we enjoy tossing around is any longer at the heart of the issue. Are we left with preparing for future extinction, whatever that looks like, or attempting to rectify the damages we've done to mother earth in hopes she changes her mind. Do we really have a wider range of options or questions?
George Holcombe 14900 Yellowleaf Tr. Austin, TX 78728 Mobile 512/252-2756 <mailto:geowanda@earthlink.net>geowanda@earthlink.net
Hope appeareth, but it is not your Hopeâyou do not have anything to do with it. It just appeareth. It comes as a stranger, as an alienit just appeareth! You do not even know why you hope. How in the world could you hope when there is absolutely nothing to justify any hope? ~Joseph W. Mathews
On Jul 7, 2012, at 12:17 PM, R Williams wrote:
Jim and Jim,
I find myself wanting to be realistic without being skeptical and thinking that the situation is hopeless. Jim W., you mention Walter Brueggemann's book The Prophetic Imagination. Brueggemann suggests, as I understand what he is saying, that the task of the ancient prophets was to imagine a future that was an alternative to the dominant cultural reality of the time, and to narrate that alternative in such a way that the people would participate in its emergence. By "imagination" he meant the ability to discern what YHWH was bringing into being.
In the sequel, called The Practice of Prophetic Imagination, Brueggemann says the following:
Can YHWH create, yet again, a new history for Israel, after the old history has come to a dismal end? Here we are at the deepest theological question of biblical faith--is the God of faith contained within and informed by what the world knows to be possible? Or is it within the capacity of God to create a newness that defies the categories of the "possible" that are commonly and reasonably accepted in the world?
He then refers Karl Barth's second volume of Church Dogmatics.
Karl Barth...faces the issue of what is "real" and what is "possible..." Barth's insistence that the issue of "possibility" must not claim to precede the question of "reality'" is crucial. And because God is free, much is possible with God that would not otherwise be possible.
Brueggemann continues:
It is useful to recognize, in our own context, that when faith is contained within modern rationality, there is a rejection of the God who can "do the impossible." The present casting of that rejection concerns "an interventionist God" who violates our notion of the possible... The question left...is a question about the freedom of God that we seek to ponder without any recourse to crude supernaturalism.
By "crude supernaturalism" Brueggemann is pointing to something like uttering magical prayers for a person to be cured of an illness, or a town to be saved from violent weather, etc. with the expectation that God will intervene in a spontaneous, spasmodic instant to the immediate situation and prayers will be answered. He does not, however, dismiss the idea that God is an interventionist. What he does suggest is that, rather than spontaneous, God is an active player in human history and is continuously intervening in every "now," in the midst of which all things are always being made new. He concludes:
In each new articulation, Israel must ask again in wonderment if God, in God's freedom, can push beyond ordinary "possibility" to the "impossible..." The tradition of faith continues to be dazzled by specific memories, in narrative form, of instances in which the "impossibility of God" has overridden the "possibility" of human wisdom...that exhibit God's faithful power beyond our expectation or explanation.
Thus the role of the prophet is to discern the "possible impossibility" (my words) that is emerging in the midst of the death of the old, "narrate" it in a compelling fashion, and participate in "bring(ing) it to reality as it desires." (Martin Buber's phrase.) So to bring this back to where we started, perhaps the question in all of this, and perhaps a timeless one at that, is "What is the newness that is seeking to emerge in our time and, what story shall we tell about it, and what is required of us to participate in having it emerge?"
Randy
"Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) From: James Wiegel <<mailto:jfwiegel@yahoo.com>jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <<mailto:dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 8:09 PM Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Wow. Thanks, Jim. Someone on this list recommended Prophetic Imagination by Walter Bruggemann, and I found it as an ebook and downloaded and read it. He is very much in line with your perspective, and points to the experience of the prophets and their role and function as what we need. Since reading it, I have been saying to myself, we are moving into a prophetic moment.
Jim Wiegel
"The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln
401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel <mailto:jfwiegel@yahoo.com>jfwiegel@yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com
Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video <http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55>http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details.
--- On Fri, 7/6/12, Jim Baumbach <<mailto:wtw0bl@new.rr.com>wtw0bl@new.rr.com> wrote:
From: Jim Baumbach <<mailto:wtw0bl@new.rr.com>wtw0bl@new.rr.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: "Colleague Dialogue" <<mailto:dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 4:55 PM
Certainly Boulding was aware of some of the ominous crises and saw within them a potential for extinction of our human species. But several other crises are also pending including global warming (environmental change), unending wars, physical and chemical pollution, droughts and starvation, declining water sources, etc. My question was not intended to be supercilious but as a thought regarding how fragile our own current existence is. Measured in a geologic time frame, the total presence of human life is so minuscule as to be in all probability essentially zero. Yet within that time frame, human beings have been able to so threaten their own existence that one can hardly imagine any other life form as suicidal. Despite all of the dire scientific projections I, for one, am unable to stop doing exactly what I, and many like me, have been doing for decades and centuries--consuming the Earth's resources in unsustainable amounts. And now the populations of China and India are also anticipating doing what I am doing! I don't see anything changing so profoundly that we will reverse our present course. There are, of course, many band aid-type remedies such as alternative energy sources but these only prolong this process. Is it possible to change human nature to such an extent that we, in Biblical tradition when Jonah proclaimed disaster to Nineveh: "...Then tidings reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he made proclamation and published through Nineveh, "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them cry mightily to God; yea, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands." (Jonah 3:3-8 RSV), actually change our habits? Without this dramatic turn-around possibly our question will be: "How do we prepare all human life to face the inevitable extinction of our species?" Jim Baumbach On 7/6/2012 3:56 PM, James Wiegel wrote:
I was just reminded of an old, old, friend, Kenneth Boulding, and a chapter from his book, The Meaning of the Twentieth Century -- The Great Transition, published in 1964. He described this "great transition" thusly: The Great Transition (1964) The twentieth century might be described as the crucial central period in the third great transition in the state of mankind. The first great transition was from the paleolithic to the neolithic about ten thousand years ago, which was characterized by the invention of agriculture, the domestication of animals, and the development of a settled life in villages. The second great transition, sometimes called the urban revolution, about five thousand years ago, was characterized by the development of political power and the centralization of the food surplus from agriculture in cities. This is the transition from neolithic agriculture to civilizations. What is underway now is a third great transition, in which civilization is passing away and a new order of society altogether, which I have sometimes called post-civilized but which perhaps deserves the name of the Developed Society, is coming into being. The twentieth century is the crucial midstage of this transition which will determine very largely whether it will be made successful or not.
HERE ARE SOME PARAGRAPHS FROM THE FINAL CHAPTER. I FOUND THEM ON THE GOLDEN PATHWAYS:
The fact of the great transition is not in dispute. Almost anyone in middle life today has simply to look back to his own childhood, or still more to the days of his grandparents, to realize that we are living in a world in which there is an enormous rate of change. If anyone in an advanced society today were to suddenly thrust back into the world of only a hundred years ago, he would feel utterly alien and strange. A considerable part of his vocabulary would be meaningless to the people around him. He would find it hard to adapt to the inconveniences and to the restricted life which would have to lead. He would feel indeed in an alien society.
.................................................... I, therefore, have no hesitation in recommending the attitude toward the great transition which I have described as critical acceptance. There may be times when we wish nostalgically that it had never started, for then at least the danger that the evolutionary experiment in this part of the universe would be terminated would be more remote. Now that the transition is under way, however, there is no going back on it. We must learn to use its enormous potential for good rather than for evil, and we must learn to diminish and eventually eliminate the dangers which are inherent in it. If I had to sum up the situation in a sentence I would say that the situation has arisen because of the development of certain methods of reality testing applied to our images of nature. If we are to ride out the transition successfully we must apply these or similar methods for reality testing to our images of man and his society. There is in the world today an "invisible college" of people in many different countries and many different cultures, who have this vision of the nature of the transition through which we are passing and who are determined to devote their lives to contributing toward its successful fulfillment. Membership in this college is consistent with many different philosophical, religious, and political positions. It is a college without a founder and without a president, without buildings and without organization. Its founding members might have included a Jesuit like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a humanist like Aldous Huxley, a writer of science fiction like H. G. Wells, and it might even have given honorary degrees to Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Pope John XXIII, and even Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy. Its living representatives are still a pretty small group of people. I think, however, that it is they who hold the future of the world in their hands or at least in their minds. For this invisible college I am an unashamed propagandist and I confess without a blush that this book is a tract. Our precious little planet, this blue green cradle of life with its rosy mantle, is in one of the most critical stages of its whole existence. It is in a position of immense danger and immense potentiality. There are no doubt many experiments in evolution going on in different parts of this big universe. But this happens to be my planet and I am very much attached to it, and I am desperately anxious that this particular experiment should be a success. If this be ethnocentrism, then let me be ethnocentric! I am pretty sure, however, that it will not be a success unless something is done. There is danger both of the bang of nuclear detonation and of the whimper of exhausted overpopulation, and either would mean an end of the evolutionary process in these parts. If man were merely capable of destroying himself, one could perhaps bear the thought. One could at least console oneself with the thought of elementary justice, that if man does destroy himself it is his own silly fault. He is captain, however, of a frai1 and delicate vessel, and in the course of destroying himself he might easily destroy the vessel that is, the planet which carries him, with its immense wealth and variety of evolutionary freight and evolutionary potential. This makes the dangers of the transition doubly intolerable, and demands a desperate effort to remove them.
Jim Wiegel
"The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln
401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel@yahoo.com http://www.partnersinparticipation.com/
Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video <http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55>http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details.
--- On Fri, 7/6/12, R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net>, "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 11:30 AM
Jim,
By "peace" I meant something more than the absence of war. I suppose I meant something like "with civility," " with mutual respect," "acknowledging the dignity and worth of all." This may be idealistic but without it I am skeptical that we can continue. The by-product of this kind of peace is sustainability, so my statement may have been a bit redundant.
I agree with Wayne up to a point. I believe there is really one moral issue at a time, but there must be many ways to describe it and thus to articulate the question. With the way issues are so inter-related, it's difficult to talk about one without eventually getting into most of the others, and probably even more difficult to finally boil it down to "the" underlying root/moral issue of the time. I would have to say that the way we articulated it in the 70's as the disparity between the 85/15, or today maybe the 99/1, isn't that far off base for today as well.
One thing I do feel fairly certain about. Whereas in RS-1 days we asked, "Who am I?" "What do I?" and "How be I?"--today I would insist that the question, whatever it is, is not an "I" question, but rather a "we" question.
Randy
"Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) From: James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>; Order Ecumenical Community <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 12:33 PM Subject: [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Over coffee, this morning, i recopied the emails from this thread and tried to narrow down to just the questions that were posed. I think i missed an email that Lee Early was responding to in his message. A couple of reflections: Randy, in yours, i was struggling with the phrase "in peace", wondering, a bit like the word "church" or "religious" what that might point to that would seem true to life vs. sort of an ideal future. Wayne, your response that there may not be "a" question, but many and we each have to figure out our own for ourselves got me to reflecting on the evident complicatedness of things in a systemic or interconnected world. My auto mechanic was explaining to me how to simply fix the health care system in the US, and your comment came up for me, and i said that is a good idea, but i think we are looking too often for simple silver bullet solutions when thngs are actually much more complicated. And that made sense to both of us and moved the conversation on. Jim Baumbach's question put me back on my heels . "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" then, when in linking it with Bill Parker's notion that none of this is new, and why haven't we all woken up? Got me thinking, at least on the liberal or progressive side, whether the new religion arising is the religion of human rights . . . Progressives, at least, seem to hold these as sacred and as a moral obligation to be enforced. I could go on, but my eggs are getting cold, and the slice of cantelope from Judy's garden is calling. THE GIST AS I SEE IT Mary Hampton: Enough, all ready, its too good to miss and I am not ready to edit. Good stuff, folks! Ken Gilgren: why am I here? What am I doing? How am I being? What quickens the current action of my soul? what was the question again? Wayne Nelson: What are the pivotal moral issues of our moment? I think there are likely to be several. Of course there are many, many but there are probably some major ones. To reduce it to a single one makes it too abstract and denies the obvious complexity. We all have to name 'the moral issue of our time.' There's not likely to be one for everyone. It's a job we all have to do. Bill Parker: What are the warning signs of the destruction and endangerment of the entire human community? Then ask, what is the underlying question to be addressed and how it can be addressed. Why are people not being awakened to the clear, obvious truth of our crisis? Secondly, what methods must we develop or employ to radically reveal this all encompassing truth? John Cock: My take: If it does not have something like "on behalf of a transformed Earth community" in the statement, it is the WRONG right question, moral issue, or vocation. Lee Early: "Who is Tiger Woods?", What is his mission? Can we re-answer the second question? Mission, social pioneer, church, college, league, crimson line and movement? The answer to the question of mission will carry the first of who. (At least here in the West.) Sometimes the question of mission changes. Sometimes by chance and sometimes on purpose. What is our mission TODAY? Randy Williams: In reflecting on the dialogue around what is "the question," I realized we really were assuming two questions. How may "we" (all species) live together on this planet in peace, in a way that secures life for future generations? What is the new face, form and mission of the "movement" (the religious, the invisible college, the church with a little"c," ) and what stories, style and symbols will sustain it? Jan Sanders: What are the key images of the future of evolution? Steve Harrington: You had to say it, eh? What does it look like to be the Sensitive & Responsive. To what concerns? where? Karen Bueno: "How do we motivate the sensitive and reponsive ones who understand that the survival of the people of the earth and the earth itself depends on our working together to make that survival possible?" I like the idea of striving for a T-shirt phrase, like "Be one of those who dare to live the future now.", as someone suggested. David Walters: in the midst of a malaise of helplessness and an established / controlling economic and political elite, what can we do to support and help to form the emerging groups and movements (both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement) to be both effective and inclusive? Jack Gilles: Given the stance that "History rides on the back of the religious" that we embodied and lived..... "Who are the 'religious' today, where would you look to find them, what are the marks that tell you so, and what might we share (and how) with them so that they are empowered and connected?". The "we" in the question should refer to "those of us who are scattered" and who will take seriously the answers. Janice Ulangca: In this 50th year of EI/ICA, some of the questions to live with: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Missed the name: What was Neibhur's line? (and how do you spell his name?) Something about the sensitive and something ones. Nancy Lanphear: What is " MY GREAT WORK (IS) WHERE MY OWN GREAT JOY INTERSECTS WITH EARTH'S GREAT NEED" ....perhaps EARTH could be stretched to all my relations, the universe, life .... Jan and Steve: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? Jan: What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Jim Baumbach: "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" Karen Bueno: "How are we to live together and preserve this planet for the future?" Jim Wiegel Jfwiegel@yahoo.com âOne cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of lifeâs morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.â Carl Jung Partners in Participation Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video <http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55>http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
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What a great discussion this is! Thanks to all who have contributed their thinking, including reminding us of Boulding's paper on the 1964 Great Transition in which he speaks of the "invisible college". I agree that care for the entire planet, the site of what Boulding calls the "evolutionary process" in our part of the universe, is the most urgent single matter. But the Pachamama Alliance is onto something when they put their vision in terms of three aspects. Not only environmentally sustainable, which was their original grounding, but also socially just and spiritually fulfilled. That means keeping our eye on not just one ball, but three. We have such strong grounding in the spiritual, leading to the socially just (including participation tools and skills), that we may take them for granted. In a conference call July 2 to over 60 facilitators for the Pachamama Symposium called "Awakening the Dreamer - Changing the Dream" the organization leadership mentioned their concern for strong spiritual grounding if the hard work is to be done of making the needed changes in systems and structures for planetary survival. And they are looking for paths toward the socially just - having been convinced that justice is a necessary component of sustainability. On the web page www.pachamama.org/about/mission-and-vision I am drawn to these Values and Principles, among others: ----------------------------- a.. One of the most effective ways to produce results is to empower other organizations through skillful alliances, and a principle of skillful alliances is that amazing things can be accomplished when people aren’t worrying about who’s getting credit. a.. People’s actions are correlated with how they see the world—the story they tell themselves about the world. Transforming how people see and relate to the world and the possibilities they see for the future is a powerful way to effect social change. a.. Consciously and unconsciously created systems of ongoing oppression and inequality exist in the world and the outcomes generated by those systems are directly in opposition to our vision of a thriving, just and sustainable world. We are accountable to and stand in solidarity with those whose access to material resources and to free and full self-expression is limited by unjust systems of power and privilege. ------------------------------ Karen Snyder, I'm printing your fine report of the summer work to take with me as I join the folks in Chicago this Tues. for 10 days. Thanks very much! And John Epps, I love the song All God's Creatures Got a Place in the Choir. The video is perfect! And Randy, oh yes, it's no longer an "I" question, (what do I? what be I?) but a "we" question. So in terms of getting to "we", what does that mean re building consensus, changing the story? Thanks to all. Janice Ulangca On Jul 7, 2012, at 12:17 PM, R Williams wrote: Jim and Jim, I find myself wanting to be realistic without being skeptical and thinking that the situation is hopeless. Jim W., you mention Walter Brueggemann's book The Prophetic Imagination. Brueggemann suggests, as I understand what he is saying, that the task of the ancient prophets was to imagine a future that was an alternative to the dominant cultural reality of the time, and to narrate that alternative in such a way that the people would participate in its emergence. By "imagination" he meant the ability to discern what YHWH was bringing into being. In the sequel, called The Practice of Prophetic Imagination, Brueggemann says the following: Can YHWH create, yet again, a new history for Israel, after the old history has come to a dismal end? Here we are at the deepest theological question of biblical faith--is the God of faith contained within and informed by what the world knows to be possible? Or is it within the capacity of God to create a newness that defies the categories of the "possible" that are commonly and reasonably accepted in the world? He then refers Karl Barth's second volume of Church Dogmatics. Karl Barth...faces the issue of what is "real" and what is "possible..." Barth's insistence that the issue of "possibility" must not claim to precede the question of "reality'" is crucial. And because God is free, much is possible with God that would not otherwise be possible. Brueggemann continues: It is useful to recognize, in our own context, that when faith is contained within modern rationality, there is a rejection of the God who can "do the impossible." The present casting of that rejection concerns "an interventionist God" who violates our notion of the possible... The question left...is a question about the freedom of God that we seek to ponder without any recourse to crude supernaturalism. By "crude supernaturalism" Brueggemann is pointing to something like uttering magical prayers for a person to be cured of an illness, or a town to be saved from violent weather, etc. with the expectation that God will intervene in a spontaneous, spasmodic instant to the immediate situation and prayers will be answered. He does not, however, dismiss the idea that God is an interventionist. What he does suggest is that, rather than spontaneous, God is an active player in human history and is continuously intervening in every "now," in the midst of which all things are always being made new. He concludes: In each new articulation, Israel must ask again in wonderment if God, in God's freedom, can push beyond ordinary "possibility" to the "impossible..." The tradition of faith continues to be dazzled by specific memories, in narrative form, of instances in which the "impossibility of God" has overridden the "possibility" of human wisdom...that exhibit God's faithful power beyond our expectation or explanation. Thus the role of the prophet is to discern the "possible impossibility" (my words) that is emerging in the midst of the death of the old, "narrate" it in a compelling fashion, and participate in "bring(ing) it to reality as it desires." (Martin Buber's phrase.) So to bring this back to where we started, perhaps the question in all of this, and perhaps a timeless one at that, is "What is the newness that is seeking to emerge in our time and, what story shall we tell about it, and what is required of us to participate in having it emerge?" Randy "Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) From: James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 8:09 PM Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Wow. Thanks, Jim. Someone on this list recommended Prophetic Imagination by Walter Bruggemann, and I found it as an ebook and downloaded and read it. He is very much in line with your perspective, and points to the experience of the prophets and their role and function as what we need. Since reading it, I have been saying to myself, we are moving into a prophetic moment. Jim Wiegel "The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel@yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. --- On Fri, 7/6/12, Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl@new.rr.com> wrote: From: Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl@new.rr.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 4:55 PM Certainly Boulding was aware of some of the ominous crises and saw within them a potential for extinction of our human species. But several other crises are also pending including global warming (environmental change), unending wars, physical and chemical pollution, droughts and starvation, declining water sources, etc. My question was not intended to be supercilious but as a thought regarding how fragile our own current existence is. Measured in a geologic time frame, the total presence of human life is so minuscule as to be in all probability essentially zero. Yet within that time frame, human beings have been able to so threaten their own existence that one can hardly imagine any other life form as suicidal. Despite all of the dire scientific projections I, for one, am unable to stop doing exactly what I, and many like me, have been doing for decades and centuries--consuming the Earth's resources in unsustainable amounts. And now the populations of China and India are also anticipating doing what I am doing! I don't see anything changing so profoundly that we will reverse our present course. There are, of course, many band aid-type remedies such as alternative energy sources but these only prolong this process. Is it possible to change human nature to such an extent that we, in Biblical tradition when Jonah proclaimed disaster to Nineveh: "...Then tidings reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he made proclamation and published through Nineveh, "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them cry mightily to God; yea, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands." (Jonah 3:3-8 RSV), actually change our habits? Without this dramatic turn-around possibly our question will be: "How do we prepare all human life to face the inevitable extinction of our species?" Jim Baumbach On 7/6/2012 3:56 PM, James Wiegel wrote: I was just reminded of an old, old, friend, Kenneth Boulding, and a chapter from his book, The Meaning of the Twentieth Century -- The Great Transition, published in 1964. He described this "great transition" thusly: The Great Transition (1964) The twentieth century might be described as the crucial central period in the third great transition in the state of mankind. The first great transition was from the paleolithic to the neolithic about ten thousand years ago, which was characterized by the invention of agriculture, the domestication of animals, and the development of a settled life in villages. The second great transition, sometimes called the urban revolution, about five thousand years ago, was characterized by the development of political power and the centralization of the food surplus from agriculture in cities. This is the transition from neolithic agriculture to civilizations. What is underway now is a third great transition, in which civilization is passing away and a new order of society altogether, which I have sometimes called post-civilized but which perhaps deserves the name of the Developed Society, is coming into being. The twentieth century is the crucial midstage of this transition which will determine very largely whether it will be made successful or not. HERE ARE SOME PARAGRAPHS FROM THE FINAL CHAPTER. I FOUND THEM ON THE GOLDEN PATHWAYS: The fact of the great transition is not in dispute. Almost anyone in middle life today has simply to look back to his own childhood, or still more to the days of his grandparents, to realize that we are living in a world in which there is an enormous rate of change. If anyone in an advanced society today were to suddenly thrust back into the world of only a hundred years ago, he would feel utterly alien and strange. A considerable part of his vocabulary would be meaningless to the people around him. He would find it hard to adapt to the inconveniences and to the restricted life which would have to lead. He would feel indeed in an alien society. .................................................... I, therefore, have no hesitation in recommending the attitude toward the great transition which I have described as critical acceptance. There may be times when we wish nostalgically that it had never started, for then at least the danger that the evolutionary experiment in this part of the universe would be terminated would be more remote. Now that the transition is under way, however, there is no going back on it. We must learn to use its enormous potential for good rather than for evil, and we must learn to diminish and eventually eliminate the dangers which are inherent in it. If I had to sum up the situation in a sentence I would say that the situation has arisen because of the development of certain methods of reality testing applied to our images of nature. If we are to ride out the transition successfully we must apply these or similar methods for reality testing to our images of man and his society. There is in the world today an "invisible college" of people in many different countries and many different cultures, who have this vision of the nature of the transition through which we are passing and who are determined to devote their lives to contributing toward its successful fulfillment. Membership in this college is consistent with many different philosophical, religious, and political positions. It is a college without a founder and without a president, without buildings and without organization. Its founding members might have included a Jesuit like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a humanist like Aldous Huxley, a writer of science fiction like H. G. Wells, and it might even have given honorary degrees to Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Pope John XXIII, and even Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy. Its living representatives are still a pretty small group of people. I think, however, that it is they who hold the future of the world in their hands or at least in their minds. For this invisible college I am an unashamed propagandist and I confess without a blush that this book is a tract. Our precious little planet, this blue green cradle of life with its rosy mantle, is in one of the most critical stages of its whole existence. It is in a position of immense danger and immense potentiality. There are no doubt many experiments in evolution going on in different parts of this big universe. But this happens to be my planet and I am very much attached to it, and I am desperately anxious that this particular experiment should be a success. If this be ethnocentrism, then let me be ethnocentric! I am pretty sure, however, that it will not be a success unless something is done. There is danger both of the bang of nuclear detonation and of the whimper of exhausted overpopulation, and either would mean an end of the evolutionary process in these parts. If man were merely capable of destroying himself, one could perhaps bear the thought. One could at least console oneself with the thought of elementary justice, that if man does destroy himself it is his own silly fault. He is captain, however, of a frai1 and delicate vessel, and in the course of destroying himself he might easily destroy the vessel that is, the planet which carries him, with its immense wealth and variety of evolutionary freight and evolutionary potential. This makes the dangers of the transition doubly intolerable, and demands a desperate effort to remove them. Jim Wiegel "The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel@yahoo.com http://www.partnersinparticipation.com/ Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. --- On Fri, 7/6/12, R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> wrote: From: R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net>, "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 11:30 AM Jim, By "peace" I meant something more than the absence of war. I suppose I meant something like "with civility," " with mutual respect," "acknowledging the dignity and worth of all." This may be idealistic but without it I am skeptical that we can continue. The by-product of this kind of peace is sustainability, so my statement may have been a bit redundant. I agree with Wayne up to a point. I believe there is really one moral issue at a time, but there must be many ways to describe it and thus to articulate the question. With the way issues are so inter-related, it's difficult to talk about one without eventually getting into most of the others, and probably even more difficult to finally boil it down to "the" underlying root/moral issue of the time. I would have to say that the way we articulated it in the 70's as the disparity between the 85/15, or today maybe the 99/1, isn't that far off base for today as well. One thing I do feel fairly certain about. Whereas in RS-1 days we asked, "Who am I?" "What do I?" and "How be I?"--today I would insist that the question, whatever it is, is not an "I" question, but rather a "we" question. Randy "Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) From: James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>; Order Ecumenical Community <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 12:33 PM Subject: [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Over coffee, this morning, i recopied the emails from this thread and tried to narrow down to just the questions that were posed. I think i missed an email that Lee Early was responding to in his message. A couple of reflections: Randy, in yours, i was struggling with the phrase "in peace", wondering, a bit like the word "church" or "religious" what that might point to that would seem true to life vs. sort of an ideal future. Wayne, your response that there may not be "a" question, but many and we each have to figure out our own for ourselves got me to reflecting on the evident complicatedness of things in a systemic or interconnected world. My auto mechanic was explaining to me how to simply fix the health care system in the US, and your comment came up for me, and i said that is a good idea, but i think we are looking too often for simple silver bullet solutions when thngs are actually much more complicated. And that made sense to both of us and moved the conversation on. Jim Baumbach's question put me back on my heels . "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" then, when in linking it with Bill Parker's notion that none of this is new, and why haven't we all woken up? Got me thinking, at least on the liberal or progressive side, whether the new religion arising is the religion of human rights . . . Progressives, at least, seem to hold these as sacred and as a moral obligation to be enforced. I could go on, but my eggs are getting cold, and the slice of cantelope from Judy's garden is calling. THE GIST AS I SEE IT Mary Hampton: Enough, all ready, its too good to miss and I am not ready to edit. Good stuff, folks! Ken Gilgren: why am I here? What am I doing? How am I being? What quickens the current action of my soul? what was the question again? Wayne Nelson: What are the pivotal moral issues of our moment? I think there are likely to be several. Of course there are many, many but there are probably some major ones. To reduce it to a single one makes it too abstract and denies the obvious complexity. We all have to name 'the moral issue of our time.' There's not likely to be one for everyone. It's a job we all have to do. Bill Parker: What are the warning signs of the destruction and endangerment of the entire human community? Then ask, what is the underlying question to be addressed and how it can be addressed. Why are people not being awakened to the clear, obvious truth of our crisis? Secondly, what methods must we develop or employ to radically reveal this all encompassing truth? John Cock: My take: If it does not have something like "on behalf of a transformed Earth community" in the statement, it is the WRONG right question, moral issue, or vocation. Lee Early: "Who is Tiger Woods?", What is his mission? Can we re-answer the second question? Mission, social pioneer, church, college, league, crimson line and movement? The answer to the question of mission will carry the first of who. (At least here in the West.) Sometimes the question of mission changes. Sometimes by chance and sometimes on purpose. What is our mission TODAY? Randy Williams: In reflecting on the dialogue around what is "the question," I realized we really were assuming two questions. How may "we" (all species) live together on this planet in peace, in a way that secures life for future generations? What is the new face, form and mission of the "movement" (the religious, the invisible college, the church with a little"c," ) and what stories, style and symbols will sustain it? Jan Sanders: What are the key images of the future of evolution? Steve Harrington: You had to say it, eh? What does it look like to be the Sensitive & Responsive. To what concerns? where? Karen Bueno: "How do we motivate the sensitive and reponsive ones who understand that the survival of the people of the earth and the earth itself depends on our working together to make that survival possible?" I like the idea of striving for a T-shirt phrase, like "Be one of those who dare to live the future now.", as someone suggested. David Walters: in the midst of a malaise of helplessness and an established / controlling economic and political elite, what can we do to support and help to form the emerging groups and movements (both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement) to be both effective and inclusive? Jack Gilles: Given the stance that "History rides on the back of the religious" that we embodied and lived..... "Who are the 'religious' today, where would you look to find them, what are the marks that tell you so, and what might we share (and how) with them so that they are empowered and connected?". The "we" in the question should refer to "those of us who are scattered" and who will take seriously the answers. Janice Ulangca: In this 50th year of EI/ICA, some of the questions to live with: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Missed the name: What was Neibhur's line? (and how do you spell his name?) Something about the sensitive and something ones. Nancy Lanphear: What is " MY GREAT WORK (IS) WHERE MY OWN GREAT JOY INTERSECTS WITH EARTH'S GREAT NEED" ....perhaps EARTH could be stretched to all my relations, the universe, life .... Jan and Steve: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? Jan: What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Jim Baumbach: "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" Karen Bueno: "How are we to live together and preserve this planet for the future?" Jim Wiegel Jfwiegel@yahoo.com “One cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.” – Carl Jung Partners in Participation Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________Dialogue mailing listDialogue@lists.wedgeblade.nethttp://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________Dialogue mailing listDialogue@lists.wedgeblade.nethttp://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net
Before we get too deep in our entanglements with global disaster and what God is and is not going to do about it, it might be helpful to put some concretion to the dilemna. We need 19 million barrels of oil every morning at 6:00 just to maintain what 300 million people need to live through that day and then we need another 19 million barrels by 6 am the next morning and on and on it goes until it climbs to 20 million. That is just the USA. The whole world has to have 83 million barrels every morning at 6 am. Take a look around you. Everything you see in your office, bedroom, kitchen, transportation, your entire house is petroleum based or dependent upon some portion of those barrels. Hospitals, schools, all technology equipments, communications, food supply...I could go on, but these things are not going to change significantly, they can't change. Sure, they can be reduced some, maybe eventually a lot, but there will not be a significant change. Why? Because we have not finished the structural revolution. The climate situation is a product of the breakdown of the social reality we live in. The economic, political, and cultural realities are unsustainable and long before the climate change destroys the earth's population, the economic, political, and cultural dimensions (those parts we can do something about) will destroy it first. We may think big oil keeps anyone from addressing the climate situation, but we are the ones fueling big oil. We may think Walmart killed small towns but small towns abandoned local shops and spent their money in Walmart. My point is that the world needs a body of people who 1) embraces the possibility of radical change; 2) unites the forces of transformation; 3) works toward local empowerment; 4) prepares the emerging generation of leaders; 5) reveals the deepest aspects of being human within faith traditions, religious or not; 7) focuses on critical points of non-cooperation and non-violent opposition; 8) utilizes a process of constant strategy development, or we might say "evergreening development". This body of people would have many faces, you know, like the Seven Faces of Dr. Lao. Many faces, one people. This is another way of saying that what needs to be done, needs to be done, regardless of whether humankind will survive or not. On a personal level, isn't it a little like saying I am going to die no matter what I do so it doesn't matter what I do. I believe that given a healthy social process, we could dramatically change course and stop adding to the disaster and simultaneously develop effective adaptation efforts to reduce the impact of what we cannot stop. So, who are these people going to be? Who is going to make up the human community that is networked to get this done? It may need to have many faces in each of the processes. Like a local face, a University face, an inter-faith face, a leadership face, a church face, and economic alternative face, a public education face, a public health face, or a human reformation face, and finally, a climate response face! I think of Gilles' work a couple of years ago on the guild, but focused, radicalized, strategic, firm in commitment for a viable human future! Bill ----- Original Message ----- From: George Holcombe To: Colleague Dialogue Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2012 6:06 PM Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Sometimes being realistic is more than skeptical. Jim's mention of climate change for me certainly is a game changer regarding the right question. Climate scientist are not that rosy about the future, and with the greatest polluters ignoring the data it does not hold much promise. Jean Watts' husband, Bob, could probably give us more data here. The increase in heat, shifting seasons, intensity of storms, rising seas and all the things our media does not cover, e.g. South Sea Islanders seeking to migrate to New Zealand and Australia because they are losing ground month by month, even here in our garden we have insects that were confined to the South of us now showing up. The intensity of Monsoon seasons which is destroying top soil among other things, that our colleague, Rupert Barnes, used to trace around the world in the 80's and 90's, the expanding population and the shortage of water, the list goes on and on. I understand that Climatologists are concerned about the CO2 in sea waters, where it is and what it's doing, and rising acidity. I remember we had an illustration about the guy being chased by the bear and falling into the well clinging to a rope that a rat is gnawing away. With Theology and Philosophy being outflanked by Science disciplines, I begin to wonder if the "meaning of life" issues we enjoy tossing around is any longer at the heart of the issue. Are we left with preparing for future extinction, whatever that looks like, or attempting to rectify the damages we've done to mother earth in hopes she changes her mind. Do we really have a wider range of options or questions? George Holcombe 14900 Yellowleaf Tr. Austin, TX 78728 Mobile 512/252-2756 geowanda@earthlink.net Hope appeareth, but it is not your Hope—you do not have anything to do with it. It just appeareth. It comes as a stranger, as an alien—it just appeareth! You do not even know why you hope. How in the world could you hope when there is absolutely nothing to justify any hope? ~Joseph W. Mathews On Jul 7, 2012, at 12:17 PM, R Williams wrote: Jim and Jim, I find myself wanting to be realistic without being skeptical and thinking that the situation is hopeless. Jim W., you mention Walter Brueggemann's book The Prophetic Imagination. Brueggemann suggests, as I understand what he is saying, that the task of the ancient prophets was to imagine a future that was an alternative to the dominant cultural reality of the time, and to narrate that alternative in such a way that the people would participate in its emergence. By "imagination" he meant the ability to discern what YHWH was bringing into being. In the sequel, called The Practice of Prophetic Imagination, Brueggemann says the following: Can YHWH create, yet again, a new history for Israel, after the old history has come to a dismal end? Here we are at the deepest theological question of biblical faith--is the God of faith contained within and informed by what the world knows to be possible? Or is it within the capacity of God to create a newness that defies the categories of the "possible" that are commonly and reasonably accepted in the world? He then refers Karl Barth's second volume of Church Dogmatics. Karl Barth...faces the issue of what is "real" and what is "possible..." Barth's insistence that the issue of "possibility" must not claim to precede the question of "reality'" is crucial. And because God is free, much is possible with God that would not otherwise be possible. Brueggemann continues: It is useful to recognize, in our own context, that when faith is contained within modern rationality, there is a rejection of the God who can "do the impossible." The present casting of that rejection concerns "an interventionist God" who violates our notion of the possible... The question left...is a question about the freedom of God that we seek to ponder without any recourse to crude supernaturalism. By "crude supernaturalism" Brueggemann is pointing to something like uttering magical prayers for a person to be cured of an illness, or a town to be saved from violent weather, etc. with the expectation that God will intervene in a spontaneous, spasmodic instant to the immediate situation and prayers will be answered. He does not, however, dismiss the idea that God is an interventionist. What he does suggest is that, rather than spontaneous, God is an active player in human history and is continuously intervening in every "now," in the midst of which all things are always being made new. He concludes: In each new articulation, Israel must ask again in wonderment if God, in God's freedom, can push beyond ordinary "possibility" to the "impossible..." The tradition of faith continues to be dazzled by specific memories, in narrative form, of instances in which the "impossibility of God" has overridden the "possibility" of human wisdom...that exhibit God's faithful power beyond our expectation or explanation. Thus the role of the prophet is to discern the "possible impossibility" (my words) that is emerging in the midst of the death of the old, "narrate" it in a compelling fashion, and participate in "bring(ing) it to reality as it desires." (Martin Buber's phrase.) So to bring this back to where we started, perhaps the question in all of this, and perhaps a timeless one at that, is "What is the newness that is seeking to emerge in our time and, what story shall we tell about it, and what is required of us to participate in having it emerge?" Randy "Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) From: James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 8:09 PM Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Wow. Thanks, Jim. Someone on this list recommended Prophetic Imagination by Walter Bruggemann, and I found it as an ebook and downloaded and read it. He is very much in line with your perspective, and points to the experience of the prophets and their role and function as what we need. Since reading it, I have been saying to myself, we are moving into a prophetic moment. Jim Wiegel "The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel@yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. --- On Fri, 7/6/12, Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl@new.rr.com> wrote: From: Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl@new.rr.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 4:55 PM Certainly Boulding was aware of some of the ominous crises and saw within them a potential for extinction of our human species. But several other crises are also pending including global warming (environmental change), unending wars, physical and chemical pollution, droughts and starvation, declining water sources, etc. My question was not intended to be supercilious but as a thought regarding how fragile our own current existence is. Measured in a geologic time frame, the total presence of human life is so minuscule as to be in all probability essentially zero. Yet within that time frame, human beings have been able to so threaten their own existence that one can hardly imagine any other life form as suicidal. Despite all of the dire scientific projections I, for one, am unable to stop doing exactly what I, and many like me, have been doing for decades and centuries--consuming the Earth's resources in unsustainable amounts. And now the populations of China and India are also anticipating doing what I am doing! I don't see anything changing so profoundly that we will reverse our present course. There are, of course, many band aid-type remedies such as alternative energy sources but these only prolong this process. Is it possible to change human nature to such an extent that we, in Biblical tradition when Jonah proclaimed disaster to Nineveh: "...Then tidings reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he made proclamation and published through Nineveh, "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them cry mightily to God; yea, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands." (Jonah 3:3-8 RSV), actually change our habits? Without this dramatic turn-around possibly our question will be: "How do we prepare all human life to face the inevitable extinction of our species?" Jim Baumbach On 7/6/2012 3:56 PM, James Wiegel wrote: I was just reminded of an old, old, friend, Kenneth Boulding, and a chapter from his book, The Meaning of the Twentieth Century -- The Great Transition, published in 1964. He described this "great transition" thusly: The Great Transition (1964) The twentieth century might be described as the crucial central period in the third great transition in the state of mankind. The first great transition was from the paleolithic to the neolithic about ten thousand years ago, which was characterized by the invention of agriculture, the domestication of animals, and the development of a settled life in villages. The second great transition, sometimes called the urban revolution, about five thousand years ago, was characterized by the development of political power and the centralization of the food surplus from agriculture in cities. This is the transition from neolithic agriculture to civilizations. What is underway now is a third great transition, in which civilization is passing away and a new order of society altogether, which I have sometimes called post-civilized but which perhaps deserves the name of the Developed Society, is coming into being. The twentieth century is the crucial midstage of this transition which will determine very largely whether it will be made successful or not. HERE ARE SOME PARAGRAPHS FROM THE FINAL CHAPTER. I FOUND THEM ON THE GOLDEN PATHWAYS: The fact of the great transition is not in dispute. Almost anyone in middle life today has simply to look back to his own childhood, or still more to the days of his grandparents, to realize that we are living in a world in which there is an enormous rate of change. If anyone in an advanced society today were to suddenly thrust back into the world of only a hundred years ago, he would feel utterly alien and strange. A considerable part of his vocabulary would be meaningless to the people around him. He would find it hard to adapt to the inconveniences and to the restricted life which would have to lead. He would feel indeed in an alien society. .................................................... I, therefore, have no hesitation in recommending the attitude toward the great transition which I have described as critical acceptance. There may be times when we wish nostalgically that it had never started, for then at least the danger that the evolutionary experiment in this part of the universe would be terminated would be more remote. Now that the transition is under way, however, there is no going back on it. We must learn to use its enormous potential for good rather than for evil, and we must learn to diminish and eventually eliminate the dangers which are inherent in it. If I had to sum up the situation in a sentence I would say that the situation has arisen because of the development of certain methods of reality testing applied to our images of nature. If we are to ride out the transition successfully we must apply these or similar methods for reality testing to our images of man and his society. There is in the world today an "invisible college" of people in many different countries and many different cultures, who have this vision of the nature of the transition through which we are passing and who are determined to devote their lives to contributing toward its successful fulfillment. Membership in this college is consistent with many different philosophical, religious, and political positions. It is a college without a founder and without a president, without buildings and without organization. Its founding members might have included a Jesuit like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a humanist like Aldous Huxley, a writer of science fiction like H. G. Wells, and it might even have given honorary degrees to Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Pope John XXIII, and even Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy. Its living representatives are still a pretty small group of people. I think, however, that it is they who hold the future of the world in their hands or at least in their minds. For this invisible college I am an unashamed propagandist and I confess without a blush that this book is a tract. Our precious little planet, this blue green cradle of life with its rosy mantle, is in one of the most critical stages of its whole existence. It is in a position of immense danger and immense potentiality. There are no doubt many experiments in evolution going on in different parts of this big universe. But this happens to be my planet and I am very much attached to it, and I am desperately anxious that this particular experiment should be a success. If this be ethnocentrism, then let me be ethnocentric! I am pretty sure, however, that it will not be a success unless something is done. There is danger both of the bang of nuclear detonation and of the whimper of exhausted overpopulation, and either would mean an end of the evolutionary process in these parts. If man were merely capable of destroying himself, one could perhaps bear the thought. One could at least console oneself with the thought of elementary justice, that if man does destroy himself it is his own silly fault. He is captain, however, of a frai1 and delicate vessel, and in the course of destroying himself he might easily destroy the vessel that is, the planet which carries him, with its immense wealth and variety of evolutionary freight and evolutionary potential. This makes the dangers of the transition doubly intolerable, and demands a desperate effort to remove them. Jim Wiegel "The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel@yahoo.com http://www.partnersinparticipation.com/ Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. --- On Fri, 7/6/12, R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> wrote: From: R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net>, "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 11:30 AM Jim, By "peace" I meant something more than the absence of war. I suppose I meant something like "with civility," " with mutual respect," "acknowledging the dignity and worth of all." This may be idealistic but without it I am skeptical that we can continue. The by-product of this kind of peace is sustainability, so my statement may have been a bit redundant. I agree with Wayne up to a point. I believe there is really one moral issue at a time, but there must be many ways to describe it and thus to articulate the question. With the way issues are so inter-related, it's difficult to talk about one without eventually getting into most of the others, and probably even more difficult to finally boil it down to "the" underlying root/moral issue of the time. I would have to say that the way we articulated it in the 70's as the disparity between the 85/15, or today maybe the 99/1, isn't that far off base for today as well. One thing I do feel fairly certain about. Whereas in RS-1 days we asked, "Who am I?" "What do I?" and "How be I?"--today I would insist that the question, whatever it is, is not an "I" question, but rather a "we" question. Randy "Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) From: James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>; Order Ecumenical Community <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 12:33 PM Subject: [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Over coffee, this morning, i recopied the emails from this thread and tried to narrow down to just the questions that were posed. I think i missed an email that Lee Early was responding to in his message. A couple of reflections: Randy, in yours, i was struggling with the phrase "in peace", wondering, a bit like the word "church" or "religious" what that might point to that would seem true to life vs. sort of an ideal future. Wayne, your response that there may not be "a" question, but many and we each have to figure out our own for ourselves got me to reflecting on the evident complicatedness of things in a systemic or interconnected world. My auto mechanic was explaining to me how to simply fix the health care system in the US, and your comment came up for me, and i said that is a good idea, but i think we are looking too often for simple silver bullet solutions when thngs are actually much more complicated. And that made sense to both of us and moved the conversation on. Jim Baumbach's question put me back on my heels . "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" then, when in linking it with Bill Parker's notion that none of this is new, and why haven't we all woken up? Got me thinking, at least on the liberal or progressive side, whether the new religion arising is the religion of human rights . . . Progressives, at least, seem to hold these as sacred and as a moral obligation to be enforced. I could go on, but my eggs are getting cold, and the slice of cantelope from Judy's garden is calling. THE GIST AS I SEE IT Mary Hampton: Enough, all ready, its too good to miss and I am not ready to edit. Good stuff, folks! Ken Gilgren: why am I here? What am I doing? How am I being? What quickens the current action of my soul? what was the question again? Wayne Nelson: What are the pivotal moral issues of our moment? I think there are likely to be several. Of course there are many, many but there are probably some major ones. To reduce it to a single one makes it too abstract and denies the obvious complexity. We all have to name 'the moral issue of our time.' There's not likely to be one for everyone. It's a job we all have to do. Bill Parker: What are the warning signs of the destruction and endangerment of the entire human community? Then ask, what is the underlying question to be addressed and how it can be addressed. Why are people not being awakened to the clear, obvious truth of our crisis? Secondly, what methods must we develop or employ to radically reveal this all encompassing truth? John Cock: My take: If it does not have something like "on behalf of a transformed Earth community" in the statement, it is the WRONG right question, moral issue, or vocation. Lee Early: "Who is Tiger Woods?", What is his mission? Can we re-answer the second question? Mission, social pioneer, church, college, league, crimson line and movement? The answer to the question of mission will carry the first of who. (At least here in the West.) Sometimes the question of mission changes. Sometimes by chance and sometimes on purpose. What is our mission TODAY? Randy Williams: In reflecting on the dialogue around what is "the question," I realized we really were assuming two questions. How may "we" (all species) live together on this planet in peace, in a way that secures life for future generations? What is the new face, form and mission of the "movement" (the religious, the invisible college, the church with a little"c," ) and what stories, style and symbols will sustain it? Jan Sanders: What are the key images of the future of evolution? Steve Harrington: You had to say it, eh? What does it look like to be the Sensitive & Responsive. To what concerns? where? Karen Bueno: "How do we motivate the sensitive and reponsive ones who understand that the survival of the people of the earth and the earth itself depends on our working together to make that survival possible?" I like the idea of striving for a T-shirt phrase, like "Be one of those who dare to live the future now.", as someone suggested. David Walters: in the midst of a malaise of helplessness and an established / controlling economic and political elite, what can we do to support and help to form the emerging groups and movements (both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement) to be both effective and inclusive? Jack Gilles: Given the stance that "History rides on the back of the religious" that we embodied and lived..... "Who are the 'religious' today, where would you look to find them, what are the marks that tell you so, and what might we share (and how) with them so that they are empowered and connected?". The "we" in the question should refer to "those of us who are scattered" and who will take seriously the answers. Janice Ulangca: In this 50th year of EI/ICA, some of the questions to live with: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Missed the name: What was Neibhur's line? (and how do you spell his name?) Something about the sensitive and something ones. Nancy Lanphear: What is " MY GREAT WORK (IS) WHERE MY OWN GREAT JOY INTERSECTS WITH EARTH'S GREAT NEED" ....perhaps EARTH could be stretched to all my relations, the universe, life .... Jan and Steve: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? Jan: What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Jim Baumbach: "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" Karen Bueno: "How are we to live together and preserve this planet for the future?" Jim Wiegel Jfwiegel@yahoo.com “One cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.” – Carl Jung Partners in Participation Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________Dialogue mailing listDialogue@lists.wedgeblade.nethttp://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________Dialogue mailing listDialogue@lists.wedgeblade.nethttp://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net
*I found Bill's note thought provoking.* We recognized a need for the institutional church to be renewed. We joined in a movement of people who aspired to renew the institutional church. In about a decade we went out the door of the church into the life of the community. In 20+ years we dispersed. Did it make a difference? I find there are many answers to that question, Its possible to recognize the need for a change in the 'consume-and-throw-away-lifestyle'. It would be done so that the planet on which we live has the capacity to sustain us and future generations of all life--animal and vegetable--on the planet. Consumption is only one of the issues. Another enormous issue is population balance. If we were to recognize the need and find ourselves moved to be engaged is it possible to identify the movement of people who will be most likely to make a difference? Of course its possible to wait and see what happens! I know 20-year olds that are convinced that they will see the end of the world in their lifetime. Who among us is willing to identify the movement, recruit member, and design or specify the direction of the movement? New Booklet, Video Answer Common Questions about Climate Change The National Research Council has released a new booklet and video designed to help the public gain a better understanding of what is known about climate change. The new resources are based on a number of independent reports from the National Research Council that represent the consensus of experts who have reviewed hundreds of studies describing many years of accumulating evidence. A 36-page booklet<http://click.newsletters.nas.edu/?ju=fe2d157575640774741279&ls=fdeb1c787062077e75137673&m=fef81279746700&l=fe89157471600d7a7c&s=fe171c79746d037a7d1675&jb=ffcf14&t=> answers commonly asked questions about the science of climate change in three parts. The booklet lays out the evidence of climate change being observed around the world, summarizes projections of future climate changes and impacts expected in this century and beyond, and examines how science can help inform choices about managing and reducing the risks posed by climate change. The booklet is downloadable from the Climate Change at the Academies website<http://click.newsletters.nas.edu/?ju=fe35157575640774741370&ls=fdeb1c787062077e75137673&m=fef81279746700&l=fe89157471600d7a7c&s=fe171c79746d037a7d1675&jb=ffcf14&t=>. Later this summer, hard copies will be available in sets of two from the National Academies Press (free, except for costs of shipping and handling). An announcement will be made when this becomes available. A new video<http://click.newsletters.nas.edu/?ju=fe34157575640774741371&ls=fdeb1c787062077e75137673&m=fef81279746700&l=fe89157471600d7a7c&s=fe171c79746d037a7d1675&jb=ffcf14&t=> , *Climate Change: Lines of Evidence,* follows Part 1 of the booklet. It explains the lines of evidence that have built the current scientific consensus about climate change and its causes. The video is available on YouTube in full length (26 minutes) and also in shorter pieces, segmented by the questions being addressed. Climate Reality is having a 3-day workshop in SFO in August. I'm planning to go. Will find out if they have designed a direction that seems worth engaging in! David On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 at 9:03 PM, Bill Parker <bparker175@cox.net> wrote:
** Before we get too deep in our entanglements with global disaster and what God is and is not going to do about it, it might be helpful to put some concretion to the dilemna.
We need 19 million barrels of oil every morning at 6:00 just to maintain what 300 million people need to live through that day and then we need another 19 million barrels by 6 am the next morning and on and on it goes until it climbs to 20 million. That is just the USA. The whole world has to have 83 million barrels every morning at 6 am.
Take a look around you. Everything you see in your office, bedroom, kitchen, transportation, your entire house is petroleum based or dependent upon some portion of those barrels. Hospitals, schools, all technology equipments, communications, food supply...I could go on, but these things are not going to change significantly, they can't change. Sure, they can be reduced some, maybe eventually a lot, but there will not be a significant change.
Why? Because we have not finished the structural revolution. The climate situation is a product of the breakdown of the social reality we live in. The economic, political, and cultural realities are unsustainable and long before the climate change destroys the earth's population, the economic, political, and cultural dimensions (those parts we can do something about) will destroy it first. We may think big oil keeps anyone from addressing the climate situation, but we are the ones fueling big oil. We may think Walmart killed small towns but small towns abandoned local shops and spent their money in Walmart.
My point is that the world needs a body of people who 1) embraces the possibility of radical change; 2) unites the forces of transformation; 3) works toward local empowerment; 4) prepares the emerging generation of leaders; 5) reveals the deepest aspects of being human within faith traditions, religious or not; 7) focuses on critical points of non-cooperation and non-violent opposition; 8) utilizes a process of constant strategy development, or we might say "evergreening development".
This body of people would have many faces, you know, like the Seven Faces of Dr. Lao. Many faces, one people. This is another way of saying that what needs to be done, needs to be done, regardless of whether humankind will survive or not. On a personal level, isn't it a little like saying I am going to die no matter what I do so it doesn't matter what I do. I believe that given a healthy social process, we could dramatically change course and stop adding to the disaster and simultaneously develop effective adaptation efforts to reduce the impact of what we cannot stop.
So, who are these people going to be? Who is going to make up the human community that is networked to get this done? It may need to have many faces in each of the processes. Like a local face, a University face, an inter-faith face, a leadership face, a church face, and economic alternative face, a public education face, a public health face, or a human reformation face, and finally, a climate response face! I think of Gilles' work a couple of years ago on the guild, but focused, radicalized, strategic, firm in commitment for a viable human future!
Bill
----- Original Message ----- *From:* George Holcombe <geowanda@earthlink.net> *To:* Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> *Sent:* Saturday, July 07, 2012 6:06 PM *Subject:* Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS?
Sometimes being realistic is more than skeptical. Jim's mention of climate change for me certainly is a game changer regarding the right question. Climate scientist are not that rosy about the future, and with the greatest polluters ignoring the data it does not hold much promise. Jean Watts' husband, Bob, could probably give us more data here. The increase in heat, shifting seasons, intensity of storms, rising seas and all the things our media does not cover, e.g. South Sea Islanders seeking to migrate to New Zealand and Australia because they are losing ground month by month, even here in our garden we have insects that were confined to the South of us now showing up. The intensity of Monsoon seasons which is destroying top soil among other things, that our colleague, Rupert Barnes, used to trace around the world in the 80's and 90's, the expanding population and the shortage of water, the list goes on and on. I understand that Climatologists are concerned about the CO2 in sea waters, where it is and what it's doing, and rising acidity.
I remember we had an illustration about the guy being chased by the bear and falling into the well clinging to a rope that a rat is gnawing away. With Theology and Philosophy being outflanked by Science disciplines, I begin to wonder if the "meaning of life" issues we enjoy tossing around is any longer at the heart of the issue. Are we left with preparing for future extinction, whatever that looks like, or attempting to rectify the damages we've done to mother earth in hopes she changes her mind. Do we really have a wider range of options or questions?
George Holcombe 14900 Yellowleaf Tr. Austin, TX 78728 Mobile 512/252-2756 geowanda@earthlink.net
Hope appeareth, but it is not your Hope—you do not have anything to do with it. It just appeareth. It comes as a stranger, as an alien—it just appeareth! You do not even know why you hope. How in the world could you hope when there is absolutely nothing to justify any hope? ~Joseph W. Mathews
On Jul 7, 2012, at 12:17 PM, R Williams wrote:
Jim and Jim,
I find myself wanting to be realistic without being skeptical and thinking that the situation is hopeless. Jim W., you mention Walter Brueggemann's book *The Prophetic Imagination.* Brueggemann suggests, as I understand what he is saying, that the task of the ancient prophets was to imagine a future that was an alternative to the dominant cultural reality of the time, and to narrate that alternative in such a way that the people would participate in its emergence. By "imagination" he meant the ability to discern what YHWH was bringing into being.
In the sequel, called *The Practice of Prophetic Imagination*, Brueggemann says the following:
*Can YHWH create, yet again, a new history for Israel, after the old history has come to a dismal end? Here we are at the deepest theological question of biblical faith--is the God of faith contained within and informed by what the world knows to be possible? Or is it within the capacity of God to create a newness that defies the categories of the "possible" that are commonly and reasonably accepted in the world?* ** He then refers Karl Barth's second volume of *Church Dogmatics.* ** *Karl Barth...faces the issue of what is "real" and what is "possible..." Barth's insistence that the issue of "possibility" must not claim to precede the question of "reality'" is crucial. And because God is free, much is possible with God that would not otherwise be possible. * ** Brueggemann continues:
*It is useful to recognize, in our own context, that when faith is contained within modern rationality, there is a rejection of the God who can "do the impossible." The present casting of that rejection concerns "an interventionist God" who violates our notion of the possible... The question left...is a question about the freedom of God that we seek to ponder without any recourse to crude supernaturalism.* ** By "crude supernaturalism" Brueggemann is pointing to something like uttering magical prayers for a person to be cured of an illness, or a town to be saved from violent weather, etc. with the expectation that God will intervene in a spontaneous, spasmodic instant to the immediate situation and prayers will be answered. He does not, however, dismiss the idea that God is an interventionist. What he does suggest is that, rather than spontaneous, God is an active player in human history and is continuously intervening in every "now," in the midst of which all things are always being made new. He concludes:
*In each new articulation, Israel must ask again in wonderment if God, in God's freedom, can push beyond ordinary "possibility" to the "impossible..." The tradition of faith continues to be dazzled by specific memories, in narrative form, of instances in which the "impossibility of God" has overridden the "possibility" of human wisdom...that exhibit God's faithful power beyond our expectation or explanation.* ** Thus the role of the prophet is to discern the "possible impossibility" (my words) that is emerging in the midst of the death of the old, "narrate" it in a compelling fashion, and participate in "bring(ing) it to reality as it desires." (Martin Buber's phrase.) So to bring this back to where we started, perhaps *the* question in all of this, and perhaps a timeless one at that, is "What is the newness that is seeking to emerge in our time and, what story shall we tell about it, and what is required of us to participate in having it emerge?"
Randy
"Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) *From:* James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> *To:* Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> *Sent:* Friday, July 6, 2012 8:09 PM *Subject:* Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? ** Wow. Thanks, Jim. Someone on this list recommended Prophetic Imagination by Walter Bruggemann, and I found it as an ebook and downloaded and read it. He is very much in line with your perspective, and points to the experience of the prophets and their role and function as what we need. Since reading it, I have been saying to myself, we are moving into a prophetic moment.
Jim Wiegel
"The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln
401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel@yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com
Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details.
--- On *Fri, 7/6/12, Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl@new.rr.com>* wrote:
From: Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl@new.rr.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 4:55 PM
Certainly Boulding was aware of some of the ominous crises and saw within them a potential for extinction of our human species. But several other crises are also pending including global warming (environmental change), unending wars, physical and chemical pollution, droughts and starvation, declining water sources, etc. My question was not intended to be supercilious but as a thought regarding how fragile our own current existence is. Measured in a geologic time frame, the total presence of human life is so minuscule as to be in all probability essentially zero. Yet within that time frame, human beings have been able to so threaten their own existence that one can hardly imagine any other life form as suicidal. Despite all of the dire scientific projections I, for one, am unable to stop doing exactly what I, and many like me, have been doing for decades and centuries--consuming the Earth's resources in unsustainable amounts. And now the populations of China and India are also anticipating doing what I am doing!** **I don't see anything changing so profoundly that we will reverse our present course. There are, of course, many band aid-type remedies such as alternative energy sources but these only prolong this process. Is it possible to change human nature to such an extent that we, in Biblical tradition when Jonah proclaimed disaster to Nineveh:** **"...Then tidings reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he made proclamation and published through Nineveh, "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them cry mightily to God; yea, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands." (Jonah 3:3-8 RSV),** **actually change our habits? Without this dramatic turn-around possibly our question will be: "How do we prepare all human life to face the inevitable extinction of our species?"** **Jim Baumbach** ** ** On 7/6/2012 3:56 PM, James Wiegel wrote:**
I was just reminded of an old, old, friend, Kenneth Boulding, and a chapter from his book, The Meaning of the Twentieth Century -- The Great Transition, published in 1964. He described this "great transition" thusly: *The Great Transition (1964)* The twentieth century might be described as the crucial central period in the third great transition in the state of mankind. The first great transition was from the paleolithic to the neolithic about ten thousand years ago, which was characterized by the invention of agriculture, the domestication of animals, and the development of a settled life in villages. The second great transition, sometimes called the urban revolution, about five thousand years ago, was characterized by the development of political power and the centralization of the food surplus from agriculture in cities. This is the transition from neolithic agriculture to civilizations. What is underway now is a third great transition, in which civilization is passing away and a new order of society altogether, which I have sometimes called post-civilized but which perhaps deserves the name of the Developed Society, is coming into being. The twentieth century is the crucial midstage of this transition which will determine very largely whether it will be made successful or not.
HERE ARE SOME PARAGRAPHS FROM THE FINAL CHAPTER. I FOUND THEM ON THE GOLDEN PATHWAYS:
The fact of the great transition is not in dispute. Almost anyone in middle life today has simply to look back to his own childhood, or still more to the days of his grandparents, to realize that we are living in a world in which there is an enormous rate of change. If anyone in an advanced society today were to suddenly thrust back into the world of only a hundred years ago, he would feel utterly alien and strange. A considerable part of his vocabulary would be meaningless to the people around him. He would find it hard to adapt to the inconveniences and to the restricted life which would have to lead. He would feel indeed in an alien society.
.................................................... I, therefore, have no hesitation in recommending the attitude toward the great transition which I have described as critical acceptance. There may be times when we wish nostalgically that it had never started, for then at least the danger that the evolutionary experiment in this part of the universe would be terminated would be more remote. Now that the transition is under way, however, there is no going back on it. We must learn to use its enormous potential for good rather than for evil, and we must learn to diminish and eventually eliminate the dangers which are inherent in it. If I had to sum up the situation in a sentence I would say that the situation has arisen because of the development of certain methods of reality testing applied to our images of nature. If we are to ride out the transition successfully we must apply these or similar methods for reality testing to our images of man and his society. There is in the world today an "invisible college" of people in many different countries and many different cultures, who have this vision of the nature of the transition through which we are passing and who are determined to devote their lives to contributing toward its successful fulfillment. Membership in this college is consistent with many different philosophical, religious, and political positions. It is a college without a founder and without a president, without buildings and without organization. Its founding members might have included a Jesuit like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a humanist like Aldous Huxley, a writer of science fiction like H. G. Wells, and it might even have given honorary degrees to Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Pope John XXIII, and even Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy. Its living representatives are still a pretty small group of people. I think, however, that it is they who hold the future of the world in their hands or at least in their minds. For this invisible college I am an unashamed propagandist and I confess without a blush that this book is a tract. Our precious little planet, this blue green cradle of life with its rosy mantle, is in one of the most critical stages of its whole existence. It is in a position of immense danger and immense potentiality. There are no doubt many experiments in evolution going on in different parts of this big universe. But this happens to be my planet and I am very much attached to it, and I am desperately anxious that this particular experiment should be a success. If this be ethnocentrism, then let me be ethnocentric! I am pretty sure, however, that it will not be a success unless something is done. There is danger both of the bang of nuclear detonation and of the whimper of exhausted overpopulation, and either would mean an end of the evolutionary process in these parts. If man were merely capable of destroying himself, one could perhaps bear the thought. One could at least console oneself with the thought of elementary justice, that if man does destroy himself it is his own silly fault. He is captain, however, of a frai1 and delicate vessel, and in the course of destroying himself he might easily destroy the vessel that is, the planet which carries him, with its immense wealth and variety of evolutionary freight and evolutionary potential. This makes the dangers of the transition doubly intolerable, and demands a desperate effort to remove them.
Jim Wiegel
"The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln
401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel@yahoo.com http://www.partnersinparticipation.com/
Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details.
--- On *Fri, 7/6/12, R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com>* wrote:
From: R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net>, "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 11:30 AM
Jim,
By "peace" I meant something more than the absence of war. I suppose I meant something like "with civility," " with mutual respect," "acknowledging the dignity and worth of all." This may be idealistic but without it I am skeptical that we can continue. The by-product of this kind of peace is sustainability, so my statement may have been a bit redundant.
I agree with Wayne up to a point. I believe there is really one moral issue at a time, but there must be many ways to describe it and thus to articulate the question. With the way issues are so inter-related, it's difficult to talk about one without eventually getting into most of the others, and probably even more difficult to finally boil it down to "the" underlying root/moral issue of the time. I would have to say that the way we articulated it in the 70's as the disparity between the 85/15, or today maybe the 99/1, isn't that far off base for today as well.
One thing I do feel fairly certain about. Whereas in RS-1 days we asked, "Who am I?" "What do I?" and "How be I?"--today I would insist that the question, whatever it is, is not an "I" question, but rather a "we" question.
Randy
"Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." ** -Martin Buber (adapted)** *From:* James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> *To:* Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>; Order Ecumenical Community <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> *Sent:* Friday, July 6, 2012 12:33 PM *Subject:* [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? **WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS?** **Over coffee, this morning, i recopied the emails from this thread and tried to narrow down to just the questions that were posed.** **I think i missed an email that Lee Early was responding to in his message.** **A couple of reflections: ****Randy, in yours, i was struggling with the phrase "in peace", wondering, a bit like the word "church" or "religious" what that might point to that would seem true to life vs. sort of an ideal future.** **Wayne, your response that there may not be "a" question, but many and we each have to figure out our own for ourselves got me to reflecting on the evident complicatedness of things in a systemic or interconnected world. My auto mechanic was explaining to me how to simply fix the health care system in the US, and your comment came up for me, and i said that is a good idea, but i think we are looking too often for simple silver bullet solutions when thngs are actually much more complicated. And that made sense to both of us and moved the conversation on.** **Jim Baumbach's question put me back on my heels . "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" then, when in linking it with Bill Parker's notion that none of this is new, and why haven't we all woken up? Got me thinking, at least on the liberal or progressive side, whether the new religion arising is the religion of human rights . . . Progressives, at least, seem to hold these as sacred and as a moral obligation to be enforced.** **I could go on, but my eggs are getting cold, and the slice of cantelope from Judy's garden is calling.** **THE GIST AS I SEE IT** Mary Hampton: Enough, all ready, its too good to miss and I am not ready to edit. Good stuff, folks!** **Ken Gilgren: why am I here? What am I doing? How am I being? What quickens the current action of my soul?** what was the question again?** **Wayne Nelson: What are the pivotal moral issues of our moment? I think there are likely to be several. Of course there are many, many but there are probably some major ones. To reduce it to a single one makes it too abstract and denies the obvious complexity. We all have to name 'the moral issue of our time.' There's not likely to be one for everyone. It's a job we all have to do.** **Bill Parker: What are the warning signs of the destruction and endangerment of the entire human community? Then ask, what is the underlying question to be addressed and how it can be addressed. Why are people not being awakened to the clear, obvious truth of our crisis? Secondly, what methods must we develop or employ to radically reveal this all encompassing truth?** **John Cock: My take: If it does not have something like "on behalf of a transformed Earth community" in the statement, it is the WRONG right question, moral issue, or vocation.** **Lee Early: "Who is Tiger Woods?", What is his mission? Can we re-answer the second question? Mission, social pioneer, church, college, league, crimson line and movement? The answer to the question of mission will carry the first of who. (At least here in the West.) Sometimes the question of mission changes. Sometimes by chance and sometimes on purpose. What is our mission TODAY?** **Randy Williams: In reflecting on the dialogue around what is "the question," I realized we really were assuming two questions. How may "we" (all species) live together on this planet in peace, in a way that secures life for future generations? What is the new face, form and mission of the "movement" (the religious, the invisible college, the church with a little"c," ) and what stories, style and symbols will sustain it?** **Jan Sanders: What are the key images of the future of evolution?** **Steve Harrington: You had to say it, eh? What does it look like to be the Sensitive & Responsive. To what concerns? where?** **Karen Bueno: "How do we motivate the sensitive and reponsive ones who understand that the survival of the people of the earth and the earth itself depends on our working together to make that survival possible?" I like the idea of striving for a T-shirt phrase, like "Be one of those who dare to live the future now.", as someone suggested.** **David Walters: in the midst of a malaise of helplessness and an established / controlling economic and political elite, what can we do to support and help to form the emerging groups and movements (both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement) to be both effective and inclusive?** **Jack Gilles: Given the stance that "History rides on the back of the religious" that we embodied and lived..... "Who are the 'religious' today, where would you look to find them, what are the marks that tell you so, and what might we share (and how) with them so that they are empowered and connected?". The "we" in the question should refer to "those of us who are scattered" and who will take seriously the answers. ****Janice Ulangca: In this 50th year of EI/ICA, some of the questions to live with: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? What are some of the important partnerships the future needs?** **Missed the name: What was Neibhur's line? (and how do you spell his name?) Something about the sensitive and something ones.** **Nancy Lanphear: What is " MY GREAT WORK (IS) WHERE MY OWN GREAT JOY INTERSECTS WITH EARTH'S GREAT NEED" ....perhaps EARTH could be stretched to all my relations, the universe, life ....** **Jan and Steve: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? **Jan: What are some of the important partnerships the future needs?** **Jim Baumbach: "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?"** **Karen Bueno: "How are we to live together and preserve this planet for the future?"** ******Jim Wiegel** Jfwiegel@yahoo.com** **“One cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.” – Carl Jung ** **Partners in Participation Upcoming public course opportunities:**ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ** ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012** The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012** Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 **See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details.** _______________________________________________** OE mailing list** OE@lists.wedgeblade.net** http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net** ****
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Might I suggest we consider Paul Hawken's wisdom from his book "Blessed Unrest." There are movements aplenty around the world, all doing some or all of what needs to be done in their own best way in their own locales. To take a Biblical language approach (can you tell I've been working closely with a local church this past year?) It could be worth praying for their ultimate success according to God's will. (Now of course, demythologizing may well be needed!). If you need a sense of the size of this movement, see Paul's Ted Talk, just under 6 minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1fiubmOqH4 Sunny Sunny Walker SunWalker Enterprises 303-587-3017 (cell) 303-671-0704 (home/office) sunwalker@comcast.net Aurora, CO No mattter how far you've gone down the wrong road, turn back. ~ Turkish Proverb _____ From: dialogue-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net [mailto:dialogue-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of David Zahrt Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2012 3:52 PM To: Colleague Dialogue Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? I found Bill's note thought provoking. We recognized a need for the institutional church to be renewed. We joined in a movement of people who aspired to renew the institutional church. In about a decade we went out the door of the church into the life of the community. In 20+ years we dispersed. Did it make a difference? I find there are many answers to that question, Its possible to recognize the need for a change in the 'consume-and-throw-away-lifestyle'. It would be done so that the planet on which we live has the capacity to sustain us and future generations of all life--animal and vegetable--on the planet. Consumption is only one of the issues. Another enormous issue is population balance. If we were to recognize the need and find ourselves moved to be engaged is it possible to identify the movement of people who will be most likely to make a difference? Of course its possible to wait and see what happens! I know 20-year olds that are convinced that they will see the end of the world in their lifetime. Who among us is willing to identify the movement, recruit member, and design or specify the direction of the movement? New Booklet, Video Answer Common Questions about Climate Change The National Research Council has released a new booklet and video designed to help the public gain a better understanding of what is known about climate change. The new resources are based on a number of independent reports from the National Research Council that represent the consensus of experts who have reviewed hundreds of studies describing many years of accumulating evidence. A <http://click.newsletters.nas.edu/?ju=fe2d157575640774741279&ls=fdeb1c787062 077e75137673&m=fef81279746700&l=fe89157471600d7a7c&s=fe171c79746d037a7d1675& jb=ffcf14&t=> 36-page booklet answers commonly asked questions about the science of climate change in three parts. The booklet lays out the evidence of climate change being observed around the world, summarizes projections of future climate changes and impacts expected in this century and beyond, and examines how science can help inform choices about managing and reducing the risks posed by climate change. The booklet is downloadable from the <http://click.newsletters.nas.edu/?ju=fe35157575640774741370&ls=fdeb1c787062 077e75137673&m=fef81279746700&l=fe89157471600d7a7c&s=fe171c79746d037a7d1675& jb=ffcf14&t=> Climate Change at the Academies website. Later this summer, hard copies will be available in sets of two from the National Academies Press (free, except for costs of shipping and handling). An announcement will be made when this becomes available. A new <http://click.newsletters.nas.edu/?ju=fe34157575640774741371&ls=fdeb1c787062 077e75137673&m=fef81279746700&l=fe89157471600d7a7c&s=fe171c79746d037a7d1675& jb=ffcf14&t=> video , Climate Change: Lines of Evidence, follows Part 1 of the booklet. It explains the lines of evidence that have built the current scientific consensus about climate change and its causes. The video is available on YouTube in full length (26 minutes) and also in shorter pieces, segmented by the questions being addressed. Climate Reality is having a 3-day workshop in SFO in August. I'm planning to go. Will find out if they have designed a direction that seems worth engaging in! David On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 at 9:03 PM, Bill Parker <bparker175@cox.net> wrote: Before we get too deep in our entanglements with global disaster and what God is and is not going to do about it, it might be helpful to put some concretion to the dilemna. We need 19 million barrels of oil every morning at 6:00 just to maintain what 300 million people need to live through that day and then we need another 19 million barrels by 6 am the next morning and on and on it goes until it climbs to 20 million. That is just the USA. The whole world has to have 83 million barrels every morning at 6 am. Take a look around you. Everything you see in your office, bedroom, kitchen, transportation, your entire house is petroleum based or dependent upon some portion of those barrels. Hospitals, schools, all technology equipments, communications, food supply...I could go on, but these things are not going to change significantly, they can't change. Sure, they can be reduced some, maybe eventually a lot, but there will not be a significant change. Why? Because we have not finished the structural revolution. The climate situation is a product of the breakdown of the social reality we live in. The economic, political, and cultural realities are unsustainable and long before the climate change destroys the earth's population, the economic, political, and cultural dimensions (those parts we can do something about) will destroy it first. We may think big oil keeps anyone from addressing the climate situation, but we are the ones fueling big oil. We may think Walmart killed small towns but small towns abandoned local shops and spent their money in Walmart. My point is that the world needs a body of people who 1) embraces the possibility of radical change; 2) unites the forces of transformation; 3) works toward local empowerment; 4) prepares the emerging generation of leaders; 5) reveals the deepest aspects of being human within faith traditions, religious or not; 7) focuses on critical points of non-cooperation and non-violent opposition; 8) utilizes a process of constant strategy development, or we might say "evergreening development". This body of people would have many faces, you know, like the Seven Faces of Dr. Lao. Many faces, one people. This is another way of saying that what needs to be done, needs to be done, regardless of whether humankind will survive or not. On a personal level, isn't it a little like saying I am going to die no matter what I do so it doesn't matter what I do. I believe that given a healthy social process, we could dramatically change course and stop adding to the disaster and simultaneously develop effective adaptation efforts to reduce the impact of what we cannot stop. So, who are these people going to be? Who is going to make up the human community that is networked to get this done? It may need to have many faces in each of the processes. Like a local face, a University face, an inter-faith face, a leadership face, a church face, and economic alternative face, a public education face, a public health face, or a human reformation face, and finally, a climate response face! I think of Gilles' work a couple of years ago on the guild, but focused, radicalized, strategic, firm in commitment for a viable human future! Bill ----- Original Message ----- From: George Holcombe <mailto:geowanda@earthlink.net> To: Colleague Dialogue <mailto:dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2012 6:06 PM Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Sometimes being realistic is more than skeptical. Jim's mention of climate change for me certainly is a game changer regarding the right question. Climate scientist are not that rosy about the future, and with the greatest polluters ignoring the data it does not hold much promise. Jean Watts' husband, Bob, could probably give us more data here. The increase in heat, shifting seasons, intensity of storms, rising seas and all the things our media does not cover, e.g. South Sea Islanders seeking to migrate to New Zealand and Australia because they are losing ground month by month, even here in our garden we have insects that were confined to the South of us now showing up. The intensity of Monsoon seasons which is destroying top soil among other things, that our colleague, Rupert Barnes, used to trace around the world in the 80's and 90's, the expanding population and the shortage of water, the list goes on and on. I understand that Climatologists are concerned about the CO2 in sea waters, where it is and what it's doing, and rising acidity. I remember we had an illustration about the guy being chased by the bear and falling into the well clinging to a rope that a rat is gnawing away. With Theology and Philosophy being outflanked by Science disciplines, I begin to wonder if the "meaning of life" issues we enjoy tossing around is any longer at the heart of the issue. Are we left with preparing for future extinction, whatever that looks like, or attempting to rectify the damages we've done to mother earth in hopes she changes her mind. Do we really have a wider range of options or questions? George Holcombe 14900 Yellowleaf Tr. Austin, TX 78728 Mobile 512/252-2756 <tel:512%2F252-2756> geowanda@earthlink.net Hope appeareth, but it is not your Hope-you do not have anything to do with it. It just appeareth. It comes as a stranger, as an alien-it just appeareth! You do not even know why you hope. How in the world could you hope when there is absolutely nothing to justify any hope? ~Joseph W. Mathews On Jul 7, 2012, at 12:17 PM, R Williams wrote: Jim and Jim, I find myself wanting to be realistic without being skeptical and thinking that the situation is hopeless. Jim W., you mention Walter Brueggemann's book The Prophetic Imagination. Brueggemann suggests, as I understand what he is saying, that the task of the ancient prophets was to imagine a future that was an alternative to the dominant cultural reality of the time, and to narrate that alternative in such a way that the people would participate in its emergence. By "imagination" he meant the ability to discern what YHWH was bringing into being. In the sequel, called The Practice of Prophetic Imagination, Brueggemann says the following: Can YHWH create, yet again, a new history for Israel, after the old history has come to a dismal end? Here we are at the deepest theological question of biblical faith--is the God of faith contained within and informed by what the world knows to be possible? Or is it within the capacity of God to create a newness that defies the categories of the "possible" that are commonly and reasonably accepted in the world? He then refers Karl Barth's second volume of Church Dogmatics. Karl Barth...faces the issue of what is "real" and what is "possible..." Barth's insistence that the issue of "possibility" must not claim to precede the question of "reality'" is crucial. And because God is free, much is possible with God that would not otherwise be possible. Brueggemann continues: It is useful to recognize, in our own context, that when faith is contained within modern rationality, there is a rejection of the God who can "do the impossible." The present casting of that rejection concerns "an interventionist God" who violates our notion of the possible... The question left...is a question about the freedom of God that we seek to ponder without any recourse to crude supernaturalism. By "crude supernaturalism" Brueggemann is pointing to something like uttering magical prayers for a person to be cured of an illness, or a town to be saved from violent weather, etc. with the expectation that God will intervene in a spontaneous, spasmodic instant to the immediate situation and prayers will be answered. He does not, however, dismiss the idea that God is an interventionist. What he does suggest is that, rather than spontaneous, God is an active player in human history and is continuously intervening in every "now," in the midst of which all things are always being made new. He concludes: In each new articulation, Israel must ask again in wonderment if God, in God's freedom, can push beyond ordinary "possibility" to the "impossible..." The tradition of faith continues to be dazzled by specific memories, in narrative form, of instances in which the "impossibility of God" has overridden the "possibility" of human wisdom...that exhibit God's faithful power beyond our expectation or explanation. Thus the role of the prophet is to discern the "possible impossibility" (my words) that is emerging in the midst of the death of the old, "narrate" it in a compelling fashion, and participate in "bring(ing) it to reality as it desires." (Martin Buber's phrase.) So to bring this back to where we started, perhaps the question in all of this, and perhaps a timeless one at that, is "What is the newness that is seeking to emerge in our time and, what story shall we tell about it, and what is required of us to participate in having it emerge?" Randy "Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) From: James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 8:09 PM Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Wow. Thanks, Jim. Someone on this list recommended Prophetic Imagination by Walter Bruggemann, and I found it as an ebook and downloaded and read it. He is very much in line with your perspective, and points to the experience of the prophets and their role and function as what we need. Since reading it, I have been saying to myself, we are moving into a prophetic moment. Jim Wiegel "The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 <tel:%2B1%20623-363-3277> 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel@yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. --- On Fri, 7/6/12, Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl@new.rr.com> wrote: From: Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl@new.rr.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 4:55 PM Certainly Boulding was aware of some of the ominous crises and saw within them a potential for extinction of our human species. But several other crises are also pending including global warming (environmental change), unending wars, physical and chemical pollution, droughts and starvation, declining water sources, etc. My question was not intended to be supercilious but as a thought regarding how fragile our own current existence is. Measured in a geologic time frame, the total presence of human life is so minuscule as to be in all probability essentially zero. Yet within that time frame, human beings have been able to so threaten their own existence that one can hardly imagine any other life form as suicidal. Despite all of the dire scientific projections I, for one, am unable to stop doing exactly what I, and many like me, have been doing for decades and centuries--consuming the Earth's resources in unsustainable amounts. And now the populations of China and India are also anticipating doing what I am doing! I don't see anything changing so profoundly that we will reverse our present course. There are, of course, many band aid-type remedies such as alternative energy sources but these only prolong this process. Is it possible to change human nature to such an extent that we, in Biblical tradition when Jonah proclaimed disaster to Nineveh: "...Then tidings reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he made proclamation and published through Nineveh, "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them cry mightily to God; yea, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands." (Jonah 3:3-8 RSV), actually change our habits? Without this dramatic turn-around possibly our question will be: "How do we prepare all human life to face the inevitable extinction of our species?" Jim Baumbach On 7/6/2012 3:56 PM, James Wiegel wrote: I was just reminded of an old, old, friend, Kenneth Boulding, and a chapter from his book, The Meaning of the Twentieth Century -- The Great Transition, published in 1964. He described this "great transition" thusly: The Great Transition (1964) The twentieth century might be described as the crucial central period in the third great transition in the state of mankind. The first great transition was from the paleolithic to the neolithic about ten thousand years ago, which was characterized by the invention of agriculture, the domestication of animals, and the development of a settled life in villages. The second great transition, sometimes called the urban revolution, about five thousand years ago, was characterized by the development of political power and the centralization of the food surplus from agriculture in cities. This is the transition from neolithic agriculture to civilizations. What is underway now is a third great transition, in which civilization is passing away and a new order of society altogether, which I have sometimes called post-civilized but which perhaps deserves the name of the Developed Society, is coming into being. The twentieth century is the crucial midstage of this transition which will determine very largely whether it will be made successful or not. HERE ARE SOME PARAGRAPHS FROM THE FINAL CHAPTER. I FOUND THEM ON THE GOLDEN PATHWAYS: The fact of the great transition is not in dispute. Almost anyone in middle life today has simply to look back to his own childhood, or still more to the days of his grandparents, to realize that we are living in a world in which there is an enormous rate of change. If anyone in an advanced society today were to suddenly thrust back into the world of only a hundred years ago, he would feel utterly alien and strange. A considerable part of his vocabulary would be meaningless to the people around him. He would find it hard to adapt to the inconveniences and to the restricted life which would have to lead. He would feel indeed in an alien society. .................................................... I, therefore, have no hesitation in recommending the attitude toward the great transition which I have described as critical acceptance. There may be times when we wish nostalgically that it had never started, for then at least the danger that the evolutionary experiment in this part of the universe would be terminated would be more remote. Now that the transition is under way, however, there is no going back on it. We must learn to use its enormous potential for good rather than for evil, and we must learn to diminish and eventually eliminate the dangers which are inherent in it. If I had to sum up the situation in a sentence I would say that the situation has arisen because of the development of certain methods of reality testing applied to our images of nature. If we are to ride out the transition successfully we must apply these or similar methods for reality testing to our images of man and his society. There is in the world today an "invisible college" of people in many different countries and many different cultures, who have this vision of the nature of the transition through which we are passing and who are determined to devote their lives to contributing toward its successful fulfillment. Membership in this college is consistent with many different philosophical, religious, and political positions. It is a college without a founder and without a president, without buildings and without organization. Its founding members might have included a Jesuit like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a humanist like Aldous Huxley, a writer of science fiction like H. G. Wells, and it might even have given honorary degrees to Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Pope John XXIII, and even Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy. Its living representatives are still a pretty small group of people. I think, however, that it is they who hold the future of the world in their hands or at least in their minds. For this invisible college I am an unashamed propagandist and I confess without a blush that this book is a tract. Our precious little planet, this blue green cradle of life with its rosy mantle, is in one of the most critical stages of its whole existence. It is in a position of immense danger and immense potentiality. There are no doubt many experiments in evolution going on in different parts of this big universe. But this happens to be my planet and I am very much attached to it, and I am desperately anxious that this particular experiment should be a success. If this be ethnocentrism, then let me be ethnocentric! I am pretty sure, however, that it will not be a success unless something is done. There is danger both of the bang of nuclear detonation and of the whimper of exhausted overpopulation, and either would mean an end of the evolutionary process in these parts. If man were merely capable of destroying himself, one could perhaps bear the thought. One could at least console oneself with the thought of elementary justice, that if man does destroy himself it is his own silly fault. He is captain, however, of a frai1 and delicate vessel, and in the course of destroying himself he might easily destroy the vessel-- that is, the planet which carries him, with its immense wealth and variety of evolutionary freight and evolutionary potential. This makes the dangers of the transition doubly intolerable, and demands a desperate effort to remove them. Jim Wiegel "The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401 +1 <tel:%2B1%20623-363-3277> 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel@yahoo.com http://www.partnersinparticipation.com/ Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. --- On Fri, 7/6/12, R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> wrote: From: R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: "Order Ecumenical Community" <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net>, "Colleague Dialogue" <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 11:30 AM Jim, By "peace" I meant something more than the absence of war. I suppose I meant something like "with civility," " with mutual respect," "acknowledging the dignity and worth of all." This may be idealistic but without it I am skeptical that we can continue. The by-product of this kind of peace is sustainability, so my statement may have been a bit redundant. I agree with Wayne up to a point. I believe there is really one moral issue at a time, but there must be many ways to describe it and thus to articulate the question. With the way issues are so inter-related, it's difficult to talk about one without eventually getting into most of the others, and probably even more difficult to finally boil it down to "the" underlying root/moral issue of the time. I would have to say that the way we articulated it in the 70's as the disparity between the 85/15, or today maybe the 99/1, isn't that far off base for today as well. One thing I do feel fairly certain about. Whereas in RS-1 days we asked, "Who am I?" "What do I?" and "How be I?"--today I would insist that the question, whatever it is, is not an "I" question, but rather a "we" question. Randy "Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) From: James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>; Order Ecumenical Community <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 12:33 PM Subject: [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Over coffee, this morning, i recopied the emails from this thread and tried to narrow down to just the questions that were posed. I think i missed an email that Lee Early was responding to in his message. A couple of reflections: Randy, in yours, i was struggling with the phrase "in peace", wondering, a bit like the word "church" or "religious" what that might point to that would seem true to life vs. sort of an ideal future. Wayne, your response that there may not be "a" question, but many and we each have to figure out our own for ourselves got me to reflecting on the evident complicatedness of things in a systemic or interconnected world. My auto mechanic was explaining to me how to simply fix the health care system in the US, and your comment came up for me, and i said that is a good idea, but i think we are looking too often for simple silver bullet solutions when thngs are actually much more complicated. And that made sense to both of us and moved the conversation on. Jim Baumbach's question put me back on my heels . "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" then, when in linking it with Bill Parker's notion that none of this is new, and why haven't we all woken up? Got me thinking, at least on the liberal or progressive side, whether the new religion arising is the religion of human rights . . . Progressives, at least, seem to hold these as sacred and as a moral obligation to be enforced. I could go on, but my eggs are getting cold, and the slice of cantelope from Judy's garden is calling. THE GIST AS I SEE IT Mary Hampton: Enough, all ready, its too good to miss and I am not ready to edit. Good stuff, folks! Ken Gilgren: why am I here? What am I doing? How am I being? What quickens the current action of my soul? what was the question again? Wayne Nelson: What are the pivotal moral issues of our moment? I think there are likely to be several. Of course there are many, many but there are probably some major ones. To reduce it to a single one makes it too abstract and denies the obvious complexity. We all have to name 'the moral issue of our time.' There's not likely to be one for everyone. It's a job we all have to do. Bill Parker: What are the warning signs of the destruction and endangerment of the entire human community? Then ask, what is the underlying question to be addressed and how it can be addressed. Why are people not being awakened to the clear, obvious truth of our crisis? Secondly, what methods must we develop or employ to radically reveal this all encompassing truth? John Cock: My take: If it does not have something like "on behalf of a transformed Earth community" in the statement, it is the WRONG right question, moral issue, or vocation. Lee Early: "Who is Tiger Woods?", What is his mission? Can we re-answer the second question? Mission, social pioneer, church, college, league, crimson line and movement? The answer to the question of mission will carry the first of who. (At least here in the West.) Sometimes the question of mission changes. Sometimes by chance and sometimes on purpose. What is our mission TODAY? Randy Williams: In reflecting on the dialogue around what is "the question," I realized we really were assuming two questions. How may "we" (all species) live together on this planet in peace, in a way that secures life for future generations? What is the new face, form and mission of the "movement" (the religious, the invisible college, the church with a little"c," ) and what stories, style and symbols will sustain it? Jan Sanders: What are the key images of the future of evolution? Steve Harrington: You had to say it, eh? What does it look like to be the Sensitive & Responsive. To what concerns? where? Karen Bueno: "How do we motivate the sensitive and reponsive ones who understand that the survival of the people of the earth and the earth itself depends on our working together to make that survival possible?" I like the idea of striving for a T-shirt phrase, like "Be one of those who dare to live the future now.", as someone suggested. David Walters: in the midst of a malaise of helplessness and an established / controlling economic and political elite, what can we do to support and help to form the emerging groups and movements (both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement) to be both effective and inclusive? Jack Gilles: Given the stance that "History rides on the back of the religious" that we embodied and lived..... "Who are the 'religious' today, where would you look to find them, what are the marks that tell you so, and what might we share (and how) with them so that they are empowered and connected?". The "we" in the question should refer to "those of us who are scattered" and who will take seriously the answers. Janice Ulangca: In this 50th year of EI/ICA, some of the questions to live with: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Missed the name: What was Neibhur's line? (and how do you spell his name?) Something about the sensitive and something ones. Nancy Lanphear: What is " MY GREAT WORK (IS) WHERE MY OWN GREAT JOY INTERSECTS WITH EARTH'S GREAT NEED" ....perhaps EARTH could be stretched to all my relations, the universe, life .... Jan and Steve: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? Jan: What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Jim Baumbach: "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" Karen Bueno: "How are we to live together and preserve this planet for the future?" Jim Wiegel Jfwiegel@yahoo.com "One cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life's morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie." - Carl Jung Partners in Participation Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net -----Inline Attachment Follows----- _______________________________________________Dialogue mailing listDialogue@lists.wedgeblade.nethttp://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/di alogue-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________Dialogue mailing listDialogue@lists.wedgeblade.nethttp://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/di alogue-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net _____ _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net
From:George Holcombe To:Colleague Dialogue Sent:Saturday, July 07, 2012 6:06 PM Subject:Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Sometimes being realistic is more than skeptical. Jim's mention of climate change for me certainly is a game changer regarding the right question. Climate scientist are not that rosy about the future, and with
I remember we had an illustration about the guy being chased by the bear and falling into the well clinging to a rope that a rat is gnawing away. With Theology and Philosophy being outflanked by Science disciplines, I begin to wonder if the "meaning of life" issues we enjoy tossing around is any longer at the heart of the issue. Are we left with
George Holcombe 14900 Yellowleaf Tr. Austin , TX 78728 Mobile 512/252-2756 geowanda@earthlink.net Hope appeareth, but it is not your Hope—you do not have anything to do with it. It just appeareth. It comes as a stranger, as an alien—it just appeareth! You do not even know why you hope. How in the world could you hope when there is absolutely nothing to justify any hope? ~Joseph W. Mathews On Jul 7, 2012, at 12:17 PM, R Williams wrote:
Jim and Jim, I find myself wanting to be realistic without being skeptical and thinking that the situation is hopeless. Jim W., you mention Walter Brueggemann's book The Prophetic Imagination. Brueggemann suggests, as I understand what he is saying, that the task of
In the sequel, called The Practice of Prophetic Imagination, Brueggemann says the following: Can YHWH create, yet again, a new history for Israel , after
He then refers Karl Barth's second volume of Church Dogmatics. Karl Barth...faces the issue of what is "real" and what is "possible..." Barth's insistence that the issue of "possibility" must not claim to precede the question of "reality'" is crucial. And because God is free, much is
Brueggemann continues: It is useful to recognize, in our own context, that when faith is contained within modern rationality, there is a rejection of the God who can "do the impossible." The present casting of that rejection concerns "an interventionist God" who violates our notion of the possible... The question left...is a question about the freedom of God that we seek to ponder without any recourse to crude supernaturalism. By "crude supernaturalism" Brueggemann is
In each new articulation, Israel must ask again in wonderment if God, in God's freedom, can push beyond ordinary "possibility" to
Thus the role of the prophet is to discern the "possible impossibility" (my words) that is emerging in the midst of the death of the old, "narrate" it in a compelling fashion, and participate in "bring(ing) it to reality as it desires." (Martin Buber's phrase.) So to bring this back to where we started, perhaps the question in all of this, and perhaps a timeless one at that, is "What is the newness that is seeking to emerge in our time and, what story shall we tell about it, and what is required of us to participate in having it emerge?" Randy "Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) From:James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 8:09 PM Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Wow. Thanks, Jim. Someone on this list recommended Prophetic Imagination by Walter Bruggemann, and I found it as an ebook and downloaded and read it. He is very much in line with your perspective, and points to the experience of the prophets and their role and function as what we need. Since reading it, I have been saying to myself, we are moving into a prophetic moment.
Jim Wiegel
"The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify
Sunny, You are precisely on target with your reference to Paul Hawken's book (and as must be evident from my earlier comments, I'm not opposed to "God talk" as long as it is transparent.) Hawken's "largest movement in the world" embodied in millions of "mini-movements," plus the Arab Spring, the Occupy Movement, and who knows how many more, all point to the hope that abounds in the midst of despair. In his very last paragraph Hawken gives a slightly different take on the approach: "Our house is literally burning, and it is only logical that environmentalists expect the social justice movement to get on the environmental bus. But it is the other way around; the only way we are going to put out the fire is to get on the social justice bus and heal our wounds, because in the end, there is only one bus." I know this is counter to what several on this listserv have been saying, but it is a point worth considering. A bit of consolation here is, no one has to start a new movement. It's already underway. So one question is, how would we who care serve and participate in the change that's already happening? The 32 national ICAs around the globe are working on this, as are many others of us outside those particular institutional structures. To ask the question of whether it's enough or on time is paralyzing. We just have to do what we know to do without much focus on the outcome, which we've always known we can't control anyway. Randy "Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) ________________________________ From: Sunny Walker <sunwalker@comcast.net> To: 'Colleague Dialogue' <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Sunday, July 8, 2012 9:11 PM Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Might I suggest we consider Paul Hawken’s wisdom from his book “Blessed Unrest.” There are movements aplenty around the world, all doing some or all of what needs to be done in their own best way in their own locales. To take a Biblical language approach (can you tell I’ve been working closely with a local church this past year?) It could be worth praying for their ultimate success according to God’s will. (Now of course, demythologizing may well be needed!). If you need a sense of the size of this movement, see Paul’s Ted Talk, just under 6 minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1fiubmOqH4 Sunny Sunny Walker SunWalker Enterprises 303-587-3017 (cell) 303-671-0704 (home/office) sunwalker@comcast.net Aurora, CO No mattter how far you've gone down the wrong road, turn back. ~ Turkish Proverb ________________________________ From:dialogue-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net [mailto:dialogue-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of David Zahrt Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2012 3:52 PM To: Colleague Dialogue Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? I found Bill's note thought provoking. We recognized a need for the institutional church to be renewed. We joined in a movement of people who aspired to renew the institutional church. In about a decade we went out the door of the church into the life of the community. In 20+ years we dispersed. Did it make a difference? I find there are many answers to that question, Its possible to recognize the need for a change in the 'consume-and-throw-away-lifestyle'. It would be done so that the planet on which we live has the capacity to sustain us and future generations of all life--animal and vegetable--on the planet. Consumption is only one of the issues. Another enormous issue is population balance. If we were to recognize the need and find ourselves moved to be engaged is it possible to identify the movement of people who will be most likely to make a difference? Of course its possible to wait and see what happens! I know 20-year olds that are convinced that they will see the end of the world in their lifetime. Who among us is willing to identify the movement, recruit member, and design or specify the direction of the movement? New Booklet, Video Answer Common Questions about Climate Change The National Research Council has released a new booklet and video designed to help the public gain a better understanding of what is known about climate change. The new resources are based on a number of independent reports from the National Research Council that represent the consensus of experts who have reviewed hundreds of studies describing many years of accumulating evidence. A 36-page booklet answers commonly asked questions about the science of climate change in three parts. The booklet lays out the evidence of climate change being observed around the world, summarizes projections of future climate changes and impacts expected in this century and beyond, and examines how science can help inform choices about managing and reducing the risks posed by climate change. The booklet is downloadable from the Climate Change at the Academies website. Later this summer, hard copies will be available in sets of two from the National Academies Press (free, except for costs of shipping and handling). An announcement will be made when this becomes available. A new video , Climate Change: Lines of Evidence, follows Part 1 of the booklet. It explains the lines of evidence that have built the current scientific consensus about climate change and its causes. The video is available on YouTube in full length (26 minutes) and also in shorter pieces, segmented by the questions being addressed. Climate Reality is having a 3-day workshop in SFO in August. I'm planning to go. Will find out if they have designed a direction that seems worth engaging in! David On Sat, Jul 7, 2012 at 9:03 PM, Bill Parker <bparker175@cox.net> wrote: Before we get too deep in our entanglements with global disaster and what God is and is not going to do about it, it might be helpful to put some concretion to the dilemna. We need 19 million barrels of oil every morning at 6:00 just to maintain what 300 million people need to live through that day and then we need another 19 million barrels by 6 am the next morning and on and on it goes until it climbs to 20 million. That is just the USA . The whole world has to have 83 million barrels every morning at 6 am. Take a look around you. Everything you see in your office, bedroom, kitchen, transportation, your entire house is petroleum based or dependent upon some portion of those barrels. Hospitals, schools, all technology equipments, communications, food supply...I could go on, but these things are not going to change significantly, they can't change. Sure, they can be reduced some, maybe eventually a lot, but there will not be a significant change. Why? Because we have not finished the structural revolution. The climate situation is a product of the breakdown of the social reality we live in. The economic, political, and cultural realities are unsustainable and long before the climate change destroys the earth's population, the economic, political, and cultural dimensions (those parts we can do something about) will destroy it first. We may think big oil keeps anyone from addressing the climate situation, but we are the ones fueling big oil. We may think Walmart killed small towns but small towns abandoned local shops and spent their money in Walmart. My point is that the world needs a body of people who 1) embraces the possibility of radical change; 2) unites the forces of transformation; 3) works toward local empowerment; 4) prepares the emerging generation of leaders; 5) reveals the deepest aspects of being human within faith traditions, religious or not; 7) focuses on critical points of non-cooperation and non-violent opposition; 8) utilizes a process of constant strategy development, or we might say "evergreening development". This body of people would have many faces, you know, like the Seven Faces of Dr. Lao. Many faces, one people. This is another way of saying that what needs to be done, needs to be done, regardless of whether humankind will survive or not. On a personal level, isn't it a little like saying I am going to die no matter what I do so it doesn't matter what I do. I believe that given a healthy social process, we could dramatically change course and stop adding to the disaster and simultaneously develop effective adaptation efforts to reduce the impact of what we cannot stop. So, who are these people going to be? Who is going to make up the human community that is networked to get this done? It may need to have many faces in each of the processes. Like a local face, a University face, an inter-faith face, a leadership face, a church face, and economic alternative face, a public education face, a public health face, or a human reformation face, and finally, a climate response face! I think of Gilles' work a couple of years ago on the guild, but focused, radicalized, strategic, firm in commitment for a viable human future! Bill ----- Original Message ----- the greatest polluters ignoring the data it does not hold much promise. Jean Watts' husband, Bob, could probably give us more data here. The increase in heat, shifting seasons, intensity of storms, rising seas and all the things our media does not cover, e.g. South Sea Islanders seeking to migrate to New Zealand and Australia because they are losing ground month by month, even here in our garden we have insects that were confined to the South of us now showing up. The intensity of Monsoon seasons which is destroying top soil among other things, that our colleague, Rupert Barnes, used to trace around the world in the 80's and 90's, the expanding population and the shortage of water, the list goes on and on. I understand that Climatologists are concerned about the CO2 in sea waters, where it is and what it's doing, and rising acidity. preparing for future extinction, whatever that looks like, or attempting to rectify the damages we've done to mother earth in hopes she changes her mind. Do we really have a wider range of options or questions? the ancient prophets was to imagine a future that was an alternative to the dominant cultural reality of the time, and to narrate that alternative in such a way that the people would participate in its emergence. By "imagination" he meant the ability to discern what YHWH was bringing into being. the old history has come to a dismal end? Here we are at the deepest theological question of biblical faith--is the God of faith contained within and informed by what the world knows to be possible? Or is it within the capacity of God to create a newness that defies the categories of the "possible" that are commonly and reasonably accepted in the world? possible with God that would not otherwise be possible. pointing to something like uttering magical prayers for a person to be cured of an illness, or a town to be saved from violent weather, etc. with the expectation that God will intervene in a spontaneous, spasmodic instant to the immediate situation and prayers will be answered. He does not, however, dismiss the idea that God is an interventionist. What he does suggest is that, rather than spontaneous, God is an active player in human history and is continuously intervening in every "now," in the midst of which all things are always being made new. He concludes: the "impossible..." The tradition of faith continues to be dazzled by specific memories, in narrative form, of instances in which the "impossibility of God" has overridden the "possibility" of human wisdom...that exhibit God's faithful power beyond our expectation or explanation. their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln
401 North Beverly Way ,
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Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details.
--- On Fri, 7/6/12, Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl@new.rr.com> wrote:
From: Jim Baumbach <wtw0bl@new.rr.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: " Colleague Dialogue " <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 4:55 PM Certainly Boulding was aware of some of the ominous crises and saw within them a potential for extinction of our human species. But several other crises are also pending including global warming (environmental change), unending wars, physical and chemical pollution, droughts and starvation, declining water sources, etc. My question was not intended to be supercilious but as a thought regarding how fragile our own current existence is. Measured in a geologic time frame, the total presence of human life is so minuscule as to be in all probability essentially zero. Yet within that time frame, human beings have been able to so threaten their own existence that one can hardly imagine any other life form as suicidal. Despite all of the dire scientific projections I, for one, am unable to stop doing exactly what I, and many like me, have been doing for decades and centuries--consuming the Earth's resources in unsustainable amounts. And now the
On 7/6/2012 3:56 PM, James Wiegel wrote: I was just reminded of an old, old, friend, Kenneth Boulding, and a chapter from his book, The Meaning of the Twentieth Century -- The Great Transition, published in 1964. He described this "great transition" thusly:
The Great Transition (1964) The twentieth century might be described as the crucial central period in the third great transition in the state of mankind. The first great transition was from the paleolithic to the neolithic about ten thousand years ago, which was characterized by the invention of agriculture, the domestication of animals, and the development of a settled life in villages. The second great transition, sometimes called the urban revolution, about five thousand years ago, was characterized by the development of political power and the centralization of the food surplus from agriculture in cities. This is the transition from neolithic agriculture to civilizations. What is underway now is a third great transition, in which civilization is passing away and a new order of society altogether, which I have sometimes called post-civilized but which perhaps deserves the name of the Developed Society, is coming into being. The twentieth century is the crucial midstage of this
HERE ARE SOME PARAGRAPHS FROM THE FINAL CHAPTER. I FOUND THEM ON THE GOLDEN PATHWAYS: The fact of the great transition is not in dispute. Almost anyone in middle life today has simply to look back to his own childhood, or still more to the days of his grandparents, to realize that we are living in a world in which there is an enormous rate of change. If anyone in an advanced society today were to suddenly thrust back into the world of only a hundred years ago, he would feel utterly alien and strange. A considerable part of his vocabulary would be meaningless to the people around him. He would find it hard to adapt to the inconveniences and to the restricted life which would have to lead. He would feel indeed in an alien society. .................................................... I, therefore, have no hesitation in recommending the attitude toward the great transition which I have described as critical acceptance. There may be times when we wish nostalgically that it had never started, for then at least the danger that the evolutionary experiment in this part of the universe would be terminated would be more remote. Now that the transition is under way, however, there is no going back on it. We must learn to use its enormous potential for good rather than for evil, and we must learn to diminish and eventually eliminate the dangers which are inherent in it. If I had to sum up the situation in a sentence I would say that the situation has arisen because of the development of certain methods of reality testing applied to our images of nature. If we are to ride out the transition successfully we must apply these or similar methods for reality testing to our images of man and his society. There is in the world today an "invisible college" of people in many different countries and many different cultures, who have this vision of the nature of the transition through which we are passing and who are determined to devote their lives to contributing toward its successful fulfillment. Membership in this college is consistent with many different philosophical, religious, and political positions. It is a college without a founder and without a president, without buildings and without organization. Its founding members might have included a Jesuit like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a humanist like Aldous Huxley, a writer of science fiction like H. G. Wells, and it might even have given honorary degrees to Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Pope John XXIII, and even Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy. Its living representatives are still a pretty small group of people. I think, however, that it is they who hold the future of the world in their hands or at least in
For this invisible college I am an unashamed propagandist and I confess without a blush that this book is a tract. Our precious little planet, this blue green cradle of life with its rosy mantle, is in one of the most critical stages of its whole existence. It is in a position of immense danger and immense potentiality. There are no doubt many experiments in evolution going on in different parts of this big universe. But this happens to be my planet and I am very much attached to it, and I am desperately anxious that this particular experiment should be a success. If this be ethnocentrism, then let me be ethnocentric! I am pretty sure, however, that it will not be a success unless something is done. There is danger both of the bang of nuclear detonation and of the whimper of exhausted overpopulation, and either would mean an end of the evolutionary process in these parts. If man were merely capable of destroying himself, one could perhaps bear the
Jim Wiegel
"The problem with quotes on the internet is that it is hard to verify
their authenticity." Abraham Lincoln
401 North Beverly Way ,
Tolleson , Arizona 85353-2401
+1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel jfwiegel@yahoo.com http://www.partnersinparticipation.com/
Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details.
--- On Fri, 7/6/12, R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: R Williams <rcwmbw@yahoo.com> Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? To: " Order Ecumenical Community " <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net>, " Colleague Dialogue " <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net> Date: Friday, July 6, 2012, 11:30 AM Jim, By "peace" I meant something more than the absence of war. I suppose I meant something like "with civility," " with mutual respect," "acknowledging the dignity and worth of all." This may be idealistic but without it I am skeptical that we can continue. The by-product of this kind of peace is sustainability, so my statement may have been a bit redundant. I agree with Wayne up to a point. I believe there is really one moral issue at a time, but there must be many ways to describe it and thus to articulate the question. With the way issues are so inter-related, it's difficult to talk about one without eventually getting into most of the others, and probably even more difficult to finally boil it down to "the" underlying root/moral issue of the time. I would have to say that the way we articulated it in the 70's as the disparity between the 85/15, or today maybe the 99/1, isn't that far off base for today as well. One thing I do feel fairly certain about. Whereas in RS-1 days we asked, "Who am I?" "What do I?" and "How be I?"--today I would insist that the question, whatever it is, is not an "I" question, but rather a "we" question. Randy "Listen to what is emerging from yourself to the course of being in the world; not to be supported by it, but to bring it to reality as it desires." -Martin Buber (adapted) From:James Wiegel <jfwiegel@yahoo.com> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>; Order Ecumenical Community <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> Sent: Friday, July 6, 2012 12:33 PM Subject: [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Over coffee, this morning, i recopied the emails from this thread and tried to narrow down to just the questions that were posed. I think i missed an email that Lee Early was responding to in his message. A couple of reflections: Randy, in yours, i was struggling with the phrase "in peace", wondering, a bit like the word "church" or "religious" what that might point to that would seem true to life vs. sort of an ideal future. Wayne, your response that there may not be "a" question, but many and we each have to figure out our own for ourselves got me to reflecting on the evident complicatedness of things in a systemic or interconnected world. My auto mechanic was explaining to me how to simply fix the health care system in the US, and your comment came up for me, and i said that is a good idea, but i think we are looking too often for simple silver bullet solutions when thngs are actually much more complicated. And that made sense to both of us and moved the conversation on. Jim Baumbach's question put me back on my heels . "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" then, when in linking it with Bill Parker's notion that none of this is new, and why haven't we all woken up? Got me thinking, at least on the liberal or progressive side, whether the new religion arising is the religion of human rights . . . Progressives, at least, seem to hold these as sacred and as a moral obligation to be enforced. I could go on, but my eggs are getting cold, and the slice of cantelope from Judy's garden is calling. THE GIST AS I SEE IT Mary Hampton: Enough, all ready, its too good to miss and I am not ready to edit. Good stuff, folks! Ken Gilgren: why am I here? What am I doing? How am I being? What quickens the current action of my soul? what was the question again? Wayne Nelson : What are the pivotal moral issues of our moment? I think there are likely to be several. Of course there are many, many but there are probably some major ones. To reduce it to a single one makes it too abstract and denies the obvious complexity. We all have to name 'the moral issue of our time.' There's not likely to be one for everyone. It's a job we all have to do. Bill Parker: What are the warning signs of the destruction and endangerment of the entire human community? Then ask, what is the underlying question to be addressed and how it can be addressed. Why are people not being awakened to the clear, obvious truth of our crisis? Secondly, what methods must we develop or employ to radically reveal this all encompassing truth? John Cock: My take: If it does not have something like "on behalf of a transformed Earth community" in the statement, it is the WRONG right question, moral issue, or vocation. Lee Early: "Who is Tiger Woods?", What is his mission? Can we re-answer
Tolleson , Arizona 85353-2401 populations of China and India are also anticipating doing what I am doing! I don't see anything changing so profoundly that we will reverse our present course. There are, of course, many band aid-type remedies such as alternative energy sources but these only prolong this process. Is it possible to change human nature to such an extent that we, in Biblical tradition when Jonah proclaimed disaster to Nineveh : "...Then tidings reached the king of Nineveh , and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, and covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he made proclamation and published through Nineveh, "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them cry mightily to God; yea, let every one turn from his evil way and from the violence which is in his hands." (Jonah 3:3-8 RSV), actually change our habits? Without this dramatic turn-around possibly our question will be: "How do we prepare all human life to face the inevitable extinction of our species?" Jim Baumbach transition which will determine very largely whether it will be made successful or not. their minds. thought. One could at least console oneself with the thought of elementary justice, that if man does destroy himself it is his own silly fault. He is captain, however, of a frai1 and delicate vessel, and in the course of destroying himself he might easily destroy the vessel that is, the planet which carries him, with its immense wealth and variety of evolutionary freight and evolutionary potential. This makes the dangers of the transition doubly intolerable, and demands a desperate effort to remove them. the second question? Mission, social pioneer, church, college, league, crimson line and movement? The answer to the question of mission will carry the first of who. (At least here in the West.) Sometimes the question of mission changes. Sometimes by chance and sometimes on purpose. What is our mission TODAY? Randy Williams: In reflecting on the dialogue around what is "the question," I realized we really were assuming two questions. How may "we" (all species) live together on this planet in peace, in a way that secures life for future generations? What is the new face, form and mission of the "movement" (the religious, the invisible college, the church with a little"c," ) and what stories, style and symbols will sustain it? Jan Sanders: What are the key images of the future of evolution? Steve Harrington: You had to say it, eh? What does it look like to be the Sensitive & Responsive. To what concerns? where? Karen Bueno: "How do we motivate the sensitive and reponsive ones who understand that the survival of the people of the earth and the earth itself depends on our working together to make that survival possible?" I like the idea of striving for a T-shirt phrase, like "Be one of those who dare to live the future now.", as someone suggested. David Walters: in the midst of a malaise of helplessness and an established / controlling economic and political elite, what can we do to support and help to form the emerging groups and movements (both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement) to be both effective and inclusive? Jack Gilles: Given the stance that "History rides on the back of the religious" that we embodied and lived..... "Who are the 'religious' today, where would you look to find them, what are the marks that tell you so, and what might we share (and how) with them so that they are empowered and connected?". The "we" in the question should refer to "those of us who are scattered" and who will take seriously the answers. Janice Ulangca: In this 50th year of EI/ICA, some of the questions to live with: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Missed the name: What was Neibhur's line? (and how do you spell his name?) Something about the sensitive and something ones. Nancy Lanphear: What is " MY GREAT WORK (IS) WHERE MY OWN GREAT JOY INTERSECTS WITH EARTH'S GREAT NEED" ....perhaps EARTH could be stretched to all my relations, the universe, life .... Jan and Steve: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? Jan: What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Jim Baumbach: "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" Karen Bueno: "How are we to live together and preserve this planet for the future?" Jim Wiegel Jfwiegel@yahoo.com “One cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie.” – Carl Jung Partners in Participation Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. _______________________________________________ OE mailing list OE@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net
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Hey Epps, when I used that illustration about the guy in the well, it was a honeycomb with a crocodile at the bottom. LOL Anyway, I like Wiegel's quote: "One cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie." Also Parker's reminder of our reliance on Fossil Fuel and Karen's illustration of what's getting done in Chicago as well as everyone else's contribution to this conversation. I think it's on target. I keep intending to respond, but things keep happening. Austin is getting ready to drill down to salt water beneath the area and install desalination plants to supply water to the city because our lakes and other supplies are at about 47% and the city is growing by leaps and bounds. The city voted back several years ago not to add any more Fossil Fuel generation plants for electricity. The plan to install solar on roofs has stalled because of finances. All these costs to consumers are going to jump. What we used to call "Truck Farms" and Farmer's markets are flourishing, you see a lot grassless landscapes in homes. ABC TV Evening news yesterday put up an item on Global Warming caused by Fossil Fuel. A First, as far as I know, for the major media. Diane handed it off to the morning weatherman to do the piece. The Question may be - How do people learn to live in and off of a planet that has gone hot, which implies both the practics of health, sociality, economics and political life. James Hansen, the climatologist testified in 2008 to the congress that the tipping point was at hand, and other climatologist seem to believe that point is passed. The extreme weather of the past two years and the recent weather seem to suggest that. Other experts are wondering how we'll feed a growing population off of less fertile land with more insecticide resistant insects, etc., especially with the growing suspicion that modified seeds and other "scientific" agricultural methods are not panning out all that well. Now that the corn crop, and I suspect the soy crop in the U.S. has failed and the projection for big increases in the costs of manufactured foods are before us, this may make for more difficulties in the food supply than we've ever known before. This is going to be especially devastating to the poor and "food insecure" who have depended on cheap food that rely on corn products. In Austin nearly 50% of our children are considered "Food Insecure." Organics cost will probably jump too because of the demand. The U.S.'s dependence on fresh fruits and vegetables from other countries may also be experiencing some difficulties as they suffer from climate change. I say all this to add to our consideration that the situation is not the problem. I think that's true as long as we know the situation. My experience tells me that in general we are in denial and are becoming less and less prepared for the future. The climatologist that I've read, Herman Greene would probably be better to comment here, suggest that the changes will be sudden and dramatic, without much chance to repair or correct. So when we facilitate, how do we enable a genuine outcome? How do we prepare to live in such a world? What would that look like? I also believe Early's correct about Blessed Unrest, etc. When we first went to the 3rd World in the 60's there were few if any groups in the villages, when we moved back to the U.S. in 2000 we couldn't find one that didn't have a number of NGO's sometimes competing against each other. The Corporations and the political structures connected to them maintain their power as well as our dependence upon this system. If Climate Change damages this as it is projected to do, how does that impact our facilitation? How do we prepare for that? George Holcombe 14900 Yellowleaf Tr. Austin, TX 78728 Mobile 512/252-2756 geowanda@earthlink.net Hope appeareth, but it is not your Hope—you do not have anything to do with it. It just appeareth. It comes as a stranger, as an alien—it just appeareth! You do not even know why you hope. How in the world could you hope when there is absolutely nothing to justify any hope? ~Joseph W. Mathews
Thanks George for your comments--good questions... How do we prepare?--at the risk of this being a circular conversation, I think what the ICA in Chicago is doing is one way to prepare. The Transitions Towns movement is trying to prepare local communities across the globe to move from non-renewable to renewable energy sources, to help communities re-localize and become more resilent in the the midst of these immense changes, not immune to them. Check out Rob Hopkins' book The Transition Companion: Making Your Community More Resilient in Uncertain Times (Update of two previous editions: The Transitions Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilence, and The Transition Timeline, for A Local, Resilient Future). Re corporations: Check out David Korten's (author of The Great Turning and founder of "Yes!" Magazine) When Corporations Rule the World. Yes, it looks like it's going to be a long march...but lots of things are percolating. Locally, after facilitating a series of community dvd/discussion events, followed by the Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream Symposium (ICA 50th Anniversary Event), we are working with a core of people who want to work on ecological issues in this area--also related to an organic farm/education center in our area. Next week Carleton is touring an all-green building in St Louis--the Sheet Metal Workers Union Hall--which received a Platinum (highest) Award from LEED. We are connecting with other St Louis area groups also focused on addressing ecological. Talking with a pastor at Chautauqua a couple weeks ago, we learned his church, Huguenot Memorial Presbyterian Church in Pelham Park, NY (Westchester Cnty), just installed a geo-thermal heating/cooling system which will start seeing savings in 3-5 years. These are all small steps, but they represent things that are moving. The extreme heat, dormant grass, crop failures/food insecurity, increased food prices, water shortages, storms, flooding and fires this summer, as well as increased global temperature and shrinking ice caps hopefully will be another wake-up call. The awakening needs to continue but also working with people in local communities who want to do something but feel overwhelmed by the immensity of the problem. Saturday we will participate in a community festival that highlights efforts of community relience and sustainability--again a small step, but it's moving, and we're moving with it, continuing to connect with others, facilitating, and sometimes guiding, as needed. Globally, I am also working with a network of people nationally and internationally related to heatlh/water and food security/economic issues due to contamination of soil, air, water, animals, humans caused by extractive industries. This has now taken us to advocacy for examining new/revising old Free Trade Agreements which undermine local communities, judicial processes, economies and give corporations greater rights than citizens and local, regional or national governments. We are also advocating for the implementation of Publish What You Pay--passed by Congress but not implemented and being lobbied against by corporations (transparency re government's publishing where money received from corporations is going and how it is being spent. Again, this is often related extractive industries or other transnational corporations who often promise local communities much, but end up relocating populations or destroying their food, water, land. Profits from these industries bypass the affected local communities and undermine food and economic security as well as cultural identity. Have any of our efforts had an impact? Only time will tell. As the Awakening the Dreamer symposium states: If we wait for the government to act, it will be too little, too late. If we try to do something alone, it will be too little. If we connect with others and work together, it will be enough, and in time. I hope that's true... Ellie -----Original Message----- From: George Holcombe <geowanda@earthlink.net> To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net>; ICA LIST SERVE <dialogue@wedgeblade.net> Sent: Wed, Jul 11, 2012 10:55 am Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Hey Epps, when I used that illustration about the guy in the well, it was a honeycomb with a crocodile at the bottom. LOL Anyway, I like Wiegel's quote: "One cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie." Also Parker's reminder of our reliance on Fossil Fuel and Karen's illustration of what's getting done in Chicago as well as everyone else's contribution to this conversation. I think it's on target. I keep intending to respond, but things keep happening. Austin is getting ready to drill down to salt water beneath the area and install desalination plants to supply water to the city because our lakes and other supplies are at about 47% and the city is growing by leaps and bounds. The city voted back several years ago not to add any more Fossil Fuel generation plants for electricity. The plan to install solar on roofs has stalled because of finances. All these costs to consumers are going to jump. What we used to call "Truck Farms" and Farmer's markets are flourishing, you see a lot grassless landscapes in homes. ABC TV Evening news yesterday put up an item on Global Warming caused by Fossil Fuel. A First, as far as I know, for the major media. Diane handed it off to the morning weatherman to do the piece. The Question may be - How do people learn to live in and off of a planet that has gone hot, which implies both the practics of health, sociality, economics and political life. James Hansen, the climatologist testified in 2008 to the congress that the tipping point was at hand, and other climatologist seem to believe that point is passed. The extreme weather of the past two years and the recent weather seem to suggest that. Other experts are wondering how we'll feed a growing population off of less fertile land with more insecticide resistant insects, etc., especially with the growing suspicion that modified seeds and other "scientific" agricultural methods are not panning out all that well. Now that the corn crop, and I suspect the soy crop in the U.S. has failed and the projection for big increases in the costs of manufactured foods are before us, this may make for more difficulties in the food supply than we've ever known before. This is going to be especially devastating to the poor and "food insecure" who have depended on cheap food that rely on corn products. In Austin nearly 50% of our children are considered "Food Insecure." Organics cost will probably jump too because of the demand. The U.S.'s dependence on fresh fruits and vegetables from other countries may also be experiencing some difficulties as they suffer from climate change. I say all this to add to our consideration that the situation is not the problem. I think that's true as long as we know the situation. My experience tells me that in general we are in denial and are becoming less and less prepared for the future. The climatologist that I've read, Herman Greene would probably be better to comment here, suggest that the changes will be sudden and dramatic, without much chance to repair or correct. So when we facilitate, how do we enable a genuine outcome? How do we prepare to live in such a world? What would that look like? I also believe Early's correct about Blessed Unrest, etc. When we first went to the 3rd World in the 60's there were few if any groups in the villages, when we moved back to the U.S. in 2000 we couldn't find one that didn't have a number of NGO's sometimes competing against each other. The Corporations and the political structures connected to them maintain their power as well as our dependence upon this system. If Climate Change damages this as it is projected to do, how does that impact our facilitation? How do we prepare for that? George Holcombe 14900 Yellowleaf Tr. Austin, TX 78728 Mobile 512/252-2756 geowanda@earthlink.net Hope appeareth, but it is not your Hope—you do not have anything to do with it. It just appeareth. It comes as a stranger, as an alien—it just appeareth! You do not even know why you hope. How in the world could you hope when there is absolutely nothing to justify any hope? ~Joseph W. Mathews _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net
Jim, you operate out of good ground rules: "I start a thread, I pull it together and send it back to all." You're the right man for the "right question" job, John -----Original Message----- From: dialogue-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net [mailto:dialogue-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of James Wiegel Sent: Friday, July 06, 2012 1:33 PM To: Colleague Dialogue; Order Ecumenical Community Subject: [Dialogue] WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? WHAT IS THE RIGHT QUESTION THESE DAYS? Over coffee, this morning, i recopied the emails from this thread and tried to narrow down to just the questions that were posed. I think i missed an email that Lee Early was responding to in his message. A couple of reflections: Randy, in yours, i was struggling with the phrase "in peace", wondering, a bit like the word "church" or "religious" what that might point to that would seem true to life vs. sort of an ideal future. Wayne, your response that there may not be "a" question, but many and we each have to figure out our own for ourselves got me to reflecting on the evident complicatedness of things in a systemic or interconnected world. My auto mechanic was explaining to me how to simply fix the health care system in the US, and your comment came up for me, and i said that is a good idea, but i think we are looking too often for simple silver bullet solutions when thngs are actually much more complicated. And that made sense to both of us and moved the conversation on. Jim Baumbach's question put me back on my heels . "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" then, when in linking it with Bill Parker's notion that none of this is new, and why haven't we all woken up? Got me thinking, at least on the liberal or progressive side, whether the new religion arising is the religion of human rights . . . Progressives, at least, seem to hold these as sacred and as a moral obligation to be enforced. I could go on, but my eggs are getting cold, and the slice of cantelope from Judy's garden is calling. THE GIST AS I SEE IT Mary Hampton: Enough, all ready, its too good to miss and I am not ready to edit. Good stuff, folks! Ken Gilgren: why am I here? What am I doing? How am I being? What quickens the current action of my soul? what was the question again? Wayne Nelson: What are the pivotal moral issues of our moment? I think there are likely to be several. Of course there are many, many but there are probably some major ones. To reduce it to a single one makes it too abstract and denies the obvious complexity. We all have to name 'the moral issue of our time.' There's not likely to be one for everyone. It's a job we all have to do. Bill Parker: What are the warning signs of the destruction and endangerment of the entire human community? Then ask, what is the underlying question to be addressed and how it can be addressed. Why are people not being awakened to the clear, obvious truth of our crisis? Secondly, what methods must we develop or employ to radically reveal this all encompassing truth? John Cock: My take: If it does not have something like "on behalf of a transformed Earth community" in the statement, it is the WRONG right question, moral issue, or vocation. Lee Early: "Who is Tiger Woods?", What is his mission? Can we re-answer the second question? Mission, social pioneer, church, college, league, crimson line and movement? The answer to the question of mission will carry the first of who. (At least here in the West.) Sometimes the question of mission changes. Sometimes by chance and sometimes on purpose. What is our mission TODAY? Randy Williams: In reflecting on the dialogue around what is "the question," I realized we really were assuming two questions. How may "we" (all species) live together on this planet in peace, in a way that secures life for future generations? What is the new face, form and mission of the "movement" (the religious, the invisible college, the church with a little"c," ) and what stories, style and symbols will sustain it? Jan Sanders: What are the key images of the future of evolution? Steve Harrington: You had to say it, eh? What does it look like to be the Sensitive & Responsive. To what concerns? where? Karen Bueno: "How do we motivate the sensitive and reponsive ones who understand that the survival of the people of the earth and the earth itself depends on our working together to make that survival possible?" I like the idea of striving for a T-shirt phrase, like "Be one of those who dare to live the future now.", as someone suggested. David Walters: in the midst of a malaise of helplessness and an established / controlling economic and political elite, what can we do to support and help to form the emerging groups and movements (both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement) to be both effective and inclusive? Jack Gilles: Given the stance that "History rides on the back of the religious" that we embodied and lived..... "Who are the 'religious' today, where would you look to find them, what are the marks that tell you so, and what might we share (and how) with them so that they are empowered and connected?". The "we" in the question should refer to "those of us who are scattered" and who will take seriously the answers. Janice Ulangca: In this 50th year of EI/ICA, some of the questions to live with: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Missed the name: What was Neibhur's line? (and how do you spell his name?) Something about the sensitive and something ones. Nancy Lanphear: What is " MY GREAT WORK (IS) WHERE MY OWN GREAT JOY INTERSECTS WITH EARTH'S GREAT NEED" ....perhaps EARTH could be stretched to all my relations, the universe, life .... Jan and Steve: Considering what we were/are/might be, what is our calling? What are we called to know/do/be? Jan: What are some of the important partnerships the future needs? Jim Baumbach: "How do I get you to change your mind and do what I think is right?" Karen Bueno: "How are we to live together and preserve this planet for the future?" Jim Wiegel Jfwiegel@yahoo.com "One cannot live in the afternoon of life according to the program of life's morning; for what was great in the morning will be of little importance in the evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie." - Carl Jung Partners in Participation Upcoming public course opportunities: ToP Facilitation Methods, Sept 11-12, 2012 ToP Strategic Planning, Oct 9-10, 2012 The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Sept 7, 2012 Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation program is available in Phoenix in 2012-3. Program begins on Nov 14-16, 2012 See short video http://partnersinparticipation.com/?page_id=55 and website for further details. _______________________________________________ Dialogue mailing list Dialogue@lists.wedgeblade.net http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/dialogue-wedgeblade.net
participants (12)
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Bill Parker -
David Zahrt -
Ellie Stock -
George Holcombe -
James Wiegel -
Janice Ulangca -
Jim Baumbach -
jlepps＠pc.jaring.my -
John Cock -
R Williams -
Sunny Walker -
Wayne Nelson