I remember the tight, small room in our RS1 course in '69 at 3444 on the West Side of Chicago with accommodations being made for smokers. And Joe Pierce making wonderful grounding illustrations in his lectures and on the chalkboard. My mind was being blown by the depth penetration of each section compared to the rap sessions around the edges experienced in my previous community college days. Nothing memorable remained from those head trips that added up to one fleeting moment of surface intellectualism.

So my cover was blown as a pseudo-intellectual as we progressed through the weekend. Everything was so new and expansive and deep as I tried to hang onto my two-story consciousness. Well, I experienced not just a wrenching of its vestiges but a blinding headache (and I was not prone to migraines) as that two-story universe literally crashed within my brain. Yet the seed was planted and I wanted MORE of this brand new way of walking and talking with purpose and meaning that appealed to the student/teacher nature in me.

And so I succumbed to reaching for the high notes in my life song and responded to the Call to join those who had evoked a like-minded spirit in me to traverse the journey--then of becoming a part of EI/ICA and now the collegial band of the ICA where I have had a lesser experience in dispensing its tools and methods yet I keep up with the news and publications of progressives and colleagues (including JWM's contributions to the movement embracing This World/Other World, the NSV/NRM, and community development/social and ecological justice).

I wrote a pamphlet five years ago, On Becoming a Practical Theologian (OBAPT) along with an Addendum with 5 Questions which adapted the RS1 construct as a springboard for a weekend of interior examination and sharing the care of the self. Should you desire to enhance the development of an individual's faith stance in a group setting, I offer this booklet digitized in the Global Archives in Chicago for your perusal.

Yours in kindfulness,

dawn



We love the Creator/Source/Spirit because the Spirit/Source/Creator first loved us.
 - 1 John 4:19



On Saturday, September 7, 2019, 04:16:07 AM MDT, Randy Williams via OE <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:


Jack,

Your story of Bob and David in the bar, and their garb, reminds me that in imaginable education everything is pedagogical, and that a lot of the image shift takes place outside the formal structures.

My first RS-1 was in Houston in 1960 something. Joe Pierce was the first teacher, and his very presence was an assault on many of my old images. The course was life changing as billed. But one of the things I remember was a conversation with Joe around the edges. He kept talking about these new things EI was starting called religious houses, so I asked, what is a religious house. He said it was a “sort of hang-out for revolutionaries.” For all time that changed my image of what it meant to be “religious,” and then “the religious.” I know there are thousands of stories like this we could all tell. Maybe we should, and maybe they should have a place in the Archives.

Randy

On Sep 6, 2019, at 10:38 PM, Jack Gilles <jackcgilles@gmail.com> wrote:

Randy,

So many of our courses did the image shift, at least for me. I remember taking CS-I on the near west side (NW Side) of Cleveland. R. Fishel and D. Scott came and did it. I remember greeting them at a bar in their motorcycle boots and black berets with wedgeblade pins! I never expected clergy to be dressed like that! But in was in the section on the Urban Revolution that they had us just walk the neighborhood. I saw things, heard things and felt things I had never noticed before. It was a magical experience, and we had two pastors who became part of the first galaxy in churches there, Jack & Jane Sherlough (sp?) and  Jerry & Marty Lapka. Later the very large body of folks who made up the Cleveland Metro Cadres wrote a song to This Land is Your Land about the Cleveland Metro. A fire was lit that has never dimmed in so many of us. 

I’ll let Jim give his responses to RS-I, but wanted to share my image shifting experience.

Jack

On Sep 6, 2019, at 10:39, Randy Williams via OE <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:

Jim,
I think you’re probably correct. What would you say were some of the more important image shifts that occurred in RS-1?
Randy

On Sep 6, 2019, at 10:38 AM, James Wiegel via OE <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:

I don’t remember the part about arguing with the participants during the Friday dinner conversation.  I got thinking about this because the Archive group was recently reviewing the Imaginal Education collection in the archive website and it occurred to me that I think the RS-1 course was the best and most refined example of imaginal education that we ever came up with . . .

Here is a link to some additional remembrances of RS-1.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUk2c_1SJ0s82ALQvVkg5VLcDiUxrEmrs


With Respect,
Jim Wiegel

On Sep 6, 2019, at 6:52 AM, Margaret Aiseayew via OE <oe@lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:

I remember telling the group at my first RS-1 that what grounded me in history was that I was an Iowa farm girl.  Whoever was leading tried to argue with me and I argued that they knew nothing about electricity.  (My farmer father had spent evenings wiring houses and as kids my brother and I often went with him.)  My grounding in history has never changed, even as much as most of my other thinking did in response to that event.
 
From: OE [mailto:oe-bounces@lists.wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Jann McGuire via OE
Sent: Thursday, September 5, 2019 6:11 PM
To: Order Ecumenical Community
Cc: Jann McGuire
Subject: [Oe List ...] RS-1 Friday night conversation
 
Jim, I'm neurotic enough to still have my RS-1 file folders. The Friday evening conversation was 1) full name and one thing that grounds in history (I remember not understanding exactly what that meant.)
 
2) First name and book.
 
3) First name and movie.
 
4 ) First name and one pressing concern.
 
 
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