April 2014 - OE - lists.wedgeblade.net

Re: [Oe List ...] Contemporary Relevance
by James Wiegel 30 Apr '14

30 Apr '14

I would love to organize a study group on this. Brings the 20th Century Cultural Revolution and the NSV/NRM/Style into our century. Would that we had similar examples for communities, congregations, and households . . . Reinventing Organizations Reinventing Organizations Reinventing Organizations [Frederic Laloux] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The way we manage organizations seems incr... View on www.amazon.com Preview by Yahoo ________________________________

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April "Journey Reflection" Blog Review
by John Cock 30 Apr '14

30 Apr '14

Friends, colleagues, and relatives, Check out the most viewed blog posts of the month by clicking April 2014 <http://rejourney.blogspot.com/2014/04/journey-reflection-blog-review-april_ 30.html> . As always, glad to be in touch. Journey on, John and Lynda PS. Hurrying to get this e-mail out, for the wild weather about to descend on us. ____________ >Daily Blog: "Journey Reflection" at this link: www.reJourney.blogspot.com <http://www.rejourney.blogspot.com/> >Web Page: www.transcribebooks.com <http://www.transcribebooks.com/> >Books: http://www.amazon.com/John-P.-Cock/e/B001K8Y5KW <http://www.amazon.com/John-P.-Cock/e/B001K8Y5KW>

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May Day
by wangzhimu2031＠aol.com 28 Apr '14

28 Apr '14

Laodong Jie, Workers’Day I subbed for acolleague from Hawaii in his English tutorial classes for children inShenyang. He hightailed it to Hong Kongto renew his Chinese business visa. We bothvolunteer weekends to teach young Chinese students oral English. Last week, in dealingwith one of his 10-13 year old groups, I got them talking about themselves, asubject they do not need to be told about, nor do they need to do any research tobe knowledgeable about it. In exchange, Igave them permission to ask any question of me. Anything. The object was not inthe getting-to-know-you realm as it was to get the dialogue/Q&A going. The students used alot of abstract terms to speak of themselves, like “I am energetic and I am anoptimistic person”, or, “my parents, they love me very much, and I love themvery much, too.” Which was fine becauseit left open questions of grounding, on describing the concrete data of whatmay be seen, heard, smelled, tasted and touched behind the terms they used. Nor did they talk oftheir feelings. Chinese are culturally coachedthat being a peon in the heap of mass humanity, their individual feelings donot count much unless they are aligned to acceptable social sentiments appropriateto their age, gender, and station in life. So I pushed them to recall “sense experiences”. A general context inmy pedagogy is always to leave the “face” (mianzi)outside the classroom; I also encouraged students to express what they felt. Emotive discourse among Chinese is not normal(it is personal and secret) so avoidance was ingrained. “Exhibitionists” (like me, a playful term Iearned from a psychologist acquaintance) are deemed the exception. Of the questions ofme, I responded in a way that coursed through the path of experience andfeelings. I modeled my response to theway I expected them to talk for clarity and substance. One of the animal science students (she lovespets, particularly the “one that chases the mouse”, the “domestic cat”), askthe innocuous question: “What is yourfavorite color?” For more than a decadein the 70s and early half of 80s, I was a member of a family “religious Order”that appropriated “blue” as the color of our “habit”. The words in quotes were internal to us, forin public, we were not distinguished from the ordinary Joe Blows and Susie Wongs,not like the medieval monastic Orders whose members sometimes were seen with habitsof woolen frocks, soutane, or cassock, even in the heat of the tropics. Inversely, Opus Dei guys I knew, the Pope’sstorm troopers that replaced the Jesuits, wore business suits in offices that specializedin economics, the queen science of the times. I was called a “BlueShirt” in the Marshall Islands, Samoa and Tonga. My colleagues and I were not shunned byintellectual liberals and policy wonks because we did not debate ideology, nor lobbyto legislate mandates. We were out toinfluence cultural behavior, so the question of what we thought took a backseat to what we did. “It is theintensification of our Knowing and our Doing that manifest our Being,” was myfavorite conversation and dialogue starter, which got me disserting well pastmidnight, weaving a circular discourse that invariably baffled linear logiciansand disciplined academic thinkers. My questioner was beingchatty. I told her and the class thatmost of my attire was “blue”, and the navy blue in my outfit was in solidarityto the common laborer and worker of the world, often referred to as the “bluecollar” worker. I didn’t tell her that “bluemovies” are for indecent films, and getting the “blues” meant wallowing in thebasement level of depression and despair. “Blues” in American jazz proceeded fromthe soul, and it hankered close to lamentation. I have always beenpartial to the common worker since I smelled copra in the coco grooves ofSanchez Mira in Northern Luzon of my childhood. My mother was once offered to buy a Philippine Sweepstakes ticket thatshe did not bother to take but she remembered the number. When it won one of the top five prizes, shewas curious who bought it. The shop thatoffered it to her closed shop quickly and went the way of the nouveauriche. The family did not survive wellthe intrusion of wealth into their family budget. No sour grapes here. It is just to say that I stayed with the armyof struggling workers, like the coconut gatherers and copra huskers, in mycareer. “International workersof the world, unite”, was once a political cry from the Haymarket incident inChicago that birthed the labor movement on the first of May from which theInternational Labor Day got its start. The US chose September for its Labor Day so as not to identify with thedisgrace of the incident. I am still a “blueshirt” at heart and discipline, albeit, not too fond of the limited directions organizedlabor took in fostering its course. Buttoday is a reminder that those who toil at the behest of other’s investment (aka,imported workers in the CNMI) have a long way to go to see their humanity atpar with privileged and elitist homosapiens, in China and across the globe. j'aime la vie pinoypanda2031(a)aol.com yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!

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Spiral as a symbol
by Karenbueno 27 Apr '14

27 Apr '14

Dear friends and colleagues, I have been reading "The Age of the Spirit" (Fox) and "The Great Emergence (Phyllis Tickle) and I have been brooding on what we might mean by Spirit. Then yesterday John Cock's Reflection carried the picture above. (If this picture doesn't come through on this email, see John's Journey Reflection for April 26.) Perhaps the spiral is an effective symbol for Spirit. It certainly occurs time and again in nature, as does Spirit. It starts from or goes to the depth, or both. It can become infinitely large, or infinitely tiny. A spiral is a picture of movement, as the wind or the breath, those traditional images of Spirit. These are beginning stories to attach meaning to the spiral as a symbol of Spirit. Do with this meandering as you will, or as Jaime says, you know where the delete key is. Karen (Wright) Bueno

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DREAM the IMPOSSIBLE DREAM
by David Zahrt 23 Apr '14

23 Apr '14

Dream the Impossible Dream--- It needs to be our theme song !! -- Peace, David

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PS: Prayers on this Earth Day (correction...)
by Ellie Stock 22 Apr '14

22 Apr '14

Just realized that in the previous email I sent the first prayer wasn't completely typed...now corrected Prayers on this Earth Day (Philip Newell, Praying with the Earth) PRAYER OF AWARENESS It is in the depths of life that we find you at the heart of this moment at the centre of our soul deep in the earth and its eternal stirrings. You are the Ground of all being the Well-Spring of time Womb of the Earth the Seed-Force of stars. And so at the opening of this day we wait not for blessings from afar but for You the very Soil of our soul the early Freshness of morning the first Breath of day. PRAYER FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD For everything that emerges from the earth thanks be to you, O God, Holy Root of being Sacred Sap that rises Full-bodied Fragrance of earth's unfolding form. May we know that we are of You may we know that we are in You may we know that we are one with You together one. Guide us as nations to what is deepest open us as peoples to what is first lead us as a world to what is dearest that we may know the holiness of wholeness that we may learn the strength of humility that together we may live close to the earth and grow in grounded glory. PRAYER OF BLESSING May the deep blessings of earth be with us. May the fathomless soundings of seas surge in our soul. May boundless stretches of the universe echo in our depths to open us to wonder to strengthen us for love to humble us with gratitude that we may find ourselves in one another that we may lose ourselves in gladness that we give ourselves to peace.

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Prayers on this Earth Day
by Ellie Stock 22 Apr '14

22 Apr '14

Prayers on this Earth Day (Philip Newell, Praying with the Earth) PRAYER OF AWARENESS It is in the depths of life that we find you at the heart of this moment at the centre of our soul deep in the earth and its eternal stirrings. You are the Ground of all being the Well-Spring of time Womb of the Earth the Seed-Force of stars. so at the opening of this day PRAYER FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD For everything that emerges from the earth thanks be to you, O God, Holy Root of being Sacred Sap that rises Full-bodied Fragrance of earth's unfolding form. May we know that we are of You may we know that we are in You may we know that we are one with You together one. Guide us as nations to what is deepest open us as peoples to what is first lead us as a world to what is dearest that we may know the holiness of wholeness that we may learn the strength of humility that together we may live close to the earth and grow in grounded glory. PRAYER OF BLESSING May the deep blessings of earth be with us. May the fathomless soundings of seas surge in our soul. May boundless stretches of the universe echo in our depths to open us to wonder to strengthen us for love to humble us with gratitude that we may find ourselves in one another that we may lose ourselves in gladness that we give ourselves to peace.

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Fwd: April 28 Monday for ST
by wangzhimu2031＠aol.com 21 Apr '14

21 Apr '14

The usual caveat - hell, just trash it if not curious. Jaime -----Original Message----- From: Jaime R Vergara <pinoypanda2031(a)aol.com> To: editor <editor(a)saipantribune.com> Sent: Tue, Apr 22, 2014 11:48 am Subject: April 28 Monday for ST JayVee, this rounds up my April. Sacred space On my last trip to Saipan, I embarked from Dalian and returned thesame way. Dalian is a metropolis ofManchuria by virtue of history and design, location and history. On the southern tip of the Liaoningpeninsula, it was priced by the Russian navy for its year-round warm water,compared to Vladivostok’s that freezes in winter. As a cosmopolitan center, it is referred toas the Hong Kong of the northeast. Afterviewing at the turn of the year what HK had done with Victoria Island, the appellationis not an upgrade. The Tsar encountered Japan’s modernized navy built in the MeijiRestoration that was a product of Nippon's industrialization mid-1800. The event was remarkable in that it was thefirst time a non-western navy defeated a prominent western one, resulting inthe humiliation of Russia for which Stalin kept a grudge in WWII; it alsostoked Nippon’s pride in the rise of Japanese nationalism that occupiedManchuria, led to Nanjing in the infamous rape of the city and extended into Indochina. When I left Shenyang for Saipan in March, the ponds, streams and evenrivers all the way south to Dalian were still frozen. It was no longer the case when Ireturned. Bereft of not too muchfoliage, the commercial farms were mostly colored tan with a lot of plastic canopiedfarm structures to trap humidity and heat to sustain cultivated plants. The train I took was the electric CHR bound for Harbin ofHeilongjiang that flew off the ground at a speed of 250kms/hr. and higher. To Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping’s credit, the expenditurefor rapid transit accelerated in their watch while superhighway construction eggedby car dealers had gone the way of the tortoise. Change has come to Manchuria in the three years I’ve lived here. Cement, iron, concrete blocks and steel,sprouted all over as domestic consumption rather than export became the engineof its economy. SMEs in free market ambiencebroadened the economic base. State ownedindustries are rapidly built, good for labor with an eye against corruptionbut they are hard on the terrain ashills and mountains are bulldozed for gravel and sand. The west celebrates chronology. Preferred times are civilization’s Golden Age. The Parthenon stands for the glory thatwas Greece and the Coliseum echoes the grandeur that was Rome, exploited for theircommercial value in tourism. We treatthe museum grounds, the Japanese jail and the Sugar King Park at Gualo Rai, theAMP and the Suicide and Banzai cliffs similarly. Old Man by the Sea and the Grotto are turnedinto the specter of where the unwary, the reckless, the careless, and theinebriated tourists drown. We add gruesomevalue to fate. Not the khronos but the locus is China’s forte. Communal spaces get varnished so its glitterattracts notice. Tomb sites as reveredand the ordinary is made holy. Places of adorations are protected andsanctified. In many homes andestablishments around the world, corner altars are built so individuals andfamilies remember either ancestors, traditions, or home beyond the currentfront doors. Others in their homes tendgardens indoors and out as powerful reminders of life’s infinitesimal aestheticvalue even as existentially, daily living is experienced in its chaos andturmoil. The closest thing to a “sacred” space in my home is the sunroom wherefast growing spider plants are tended, then I put them in my tenements’staircase windows and landings as décor to discourage indiscriminate throwingof trash on the floor and warns wall stickers of ads and notices to stick withthe bulletin board. The plants alsoindirectly encourage my neighbors to attend to common space with the samefastidiousness that they give their dwellings’ interior. China is aware of the carbon it emits into its northern skies asabundant mei (coal) is used to heathomes and to power factories. A Canadacolleague watched a TV program on the polluted skies of China, familiar to usin Manchuria where coal is dynastic monarch. In the open grasslands of Inner Mongolia were structures generatingelectricity for use elsewhere. Thehovering tan clouds in the distant foothills at dawn and dusk indicated thatmore than hot air was emitted from the plant towers. China, like other developing economies, often finds itself defensiveon carbon emissions, treating it as a logistical issue rather than themoral-bashing it gets from the western press, as if the United States never hadits Cleveland and Pittsburg, and England, its Manchester and London. I lived in North Carolina and Washington DC,Chicago and Kentucky, and have traveled through all the contiguous States saveVermont. Smog in the 60s to the 90s wasnot uncommon in all of them. Theexperience was like what I had driving behind a smoke-belching bus on Isa Drivein Saipan early part of this millennium. Passing on that road was not an option. Sacred space in our time is now one, coughing and belching itself as itsclimate gets adjusted to a change in temperature, and the air/ocean currentsgets realigned for mother Gaia to fix her bearings. Earth. That’s my sacred space. What’syours? j'aime la vie pinoypanda2031(a)aol.com yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!

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Fwd: Jaime for Wednesday ST
by wangzhimu2031＠aol.com 21 Apr '14

21 Apr '14

Jeju When my sisterfinished nursing school, I recruited her to my Journey to the Center with theEcumenical Institute (EI) and the Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) in ahuman development project on Jeju island before it became a touristdestination. This was prior to UncleSam’s anti-ballistic missile shield Naval Base at Gangjeong village inJeju. She then went on to the US to jointhe international staff and later, served with her dentist husband in Kenyauntil the Journey dissipated. They nowpractice their craft in Hawaii. We’ve playfullydesignated SoKor as the 51st Stateof the Union since citizens do not need visas to enter the United States. Thirty-five percent of SoKor appropriated thetraditions of Calvin, Luther, Wesley, and the Vatican II, so their selfhood nolonger approximate that of their cousins in the Mangyongdae hoopla in the northas they are to the “Praise the Lord” crowd of Southern California! The EI/ICA project inJeju was quickly absorbed in President Park Chung-Hee’s Saemeul Undong (New Community Movement) that swept the nationbeginning 1970. Chastened by the localenergy already on the ground, our international staff made a strategic retreatand left the tinkering on the socio-human psyche to the local’s nationalist fervor. I never made Jeju butI spent two months in 1972 in Suwon at an International Training Institute,before the farming town became a suburban bedroom for Seoul. I visited thecapital city again in 1978, but the international airport moved from Kimpo toInchon, so rejuvenated Seoul that allegedly looks like an extension of LosAngeles is only a picture in my readings. Jeju is back in thenews with the tragic sinking of a ferry with 325 students on a field trip tocelebrate spring from Seoul. The sinkingwas rapid. It took an hour for the boatthat sailed from Inchon to submerged after it reached the channel between thepeninsula and the island. The chaperoneschool vice-principal who survived felt too guilty that he committed suicide;the boat sinking will be like the Titanicwhen less than forty percent of the passengers survived. Two items in the newstouched my insides. One was the pictureof a teacher, one of the first three casualties identified, and the descriptionof her well-received and pleasant relationship to her students. Being a pedagogue who insists on treatingstudents as unique individuals rather than as impersonal digits in a numberedroll call practiced in many classrooms, her reputation resonates. The other is the boattrip itself. As a project director of anOrientation for Peace Corps Volunteers for Muslim Mindanao I led in ZamboangaCity in 1984, I took our whole training participants and staff to a weekendtrip to Jolo, Sulu. This was whenMuslims began to harass Gringos whose presence in the southwest region ofMindanao became more pronounced after USAID funds was shifted to the area. Menzi, the paper company, was in neighboringBasilan Island whose natives were earlier Christianized by missionaries sosecurity was not a major concern. ManilaPCV central office thought otherwise, and after the orientation, I was notasked to return to do another one, not withstanding the volunteers’ evaluationthat the field trip was a highlight of their training. The Jeju tragedyreminded me of what I was accused of being too indifferent about, thepossibility of tragedy that might have occurred during the overnight ferry tripgoing and returning. We did not have atragedy so I was dismissive then, and knowing how US Federal agencies focusmore on the “checks” than the “balances”, I took the word of reprimand as parfor the course. The current Jejuincident’s tragedy creeps into our existential consciousness with electronicspeed. One girl texted her father “notto worry for she was wearing her life vest.” When her father asked her to get to a window, she answered back that she“could not move as the hallway was full of people.” She is still missing. The Jeju tragedy has since deteriorated intofinger pointing; the captain and his crew are now the subject of criminal investigations. To check the state of the stables after thehorses had fled into the field is the usual practice. I did not expect this one to be different. The transcript of theexchange between the ship and the island’s security office is now used to portrayconfusion and indecisiveness during a 30-minute of chaos. “If only …” is again the armchairquarterbacking’s phrase. In a planetincreasingly getting democratized, with local folks raising their voices to beheard, clamoring for honesty and truth, central authority is harried toinvestigate aberrations and rhetoric of blame is the favored copout, from Kiev toKabul, Brussels to Bangkok, Cairo to Rio, Nairobi to Tokyo and, yes, KL toSeoul. The Jeju incidentneeds investigating but we can get to the truth without being stuck on tryingto determine who is to blame. Let thetears flow but tragedies in life come with the territory. We are better off turning them into lessonsfor the morrow! j'aime la vie pinoypanda2031(a)aol.com yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!

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"Journey Reflection" daily blog e-mail delay
by Lynda Cock 21 Apr '14

21 Apr '14

Cannot send out blog e-mails from John's computer. Migrating from Microsoft to Apple ... two steps forward, one step back. Hopefully be e-mailing in day or two. Till then, see blog posts on FB, FB (Transcribe Books), G, G+, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, MySpace. Great Easter it was, Lynda and John

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