[Springboard] RS1.

[James Wiegel]

RS 1. What was that?

My sister said, oh, you have to take this course, so, finally, i showed up.
There I was, standing behind my chair with about 25 other people in a room, bowls of spaghetti and salad on the tables.  One of the people in the front said, "I have a friend named Socrates, 
Who says there are just two kinds of people in the world:  pigs and persons . . .
Then, later being asked, "what imperatives do you see for your life?", and a little envelope I could use to make a pledge or donation to the Ecumenical Institute.  Also, I think I counted off as a "six" so had to help clear the meal.

In between, There were gongs, songs, chalk drawings, one of the leaders read a poem by D. H. Lawrence holding the red and yellow covered book by the tips of his fingers, like a dirty diaper, "How beastly . . .". Someone gave a lecture and it raised a question I wanted to ask, but before I could get it out, the person had left the room and someone else was passing out a paper for us to study, and we had to number the paragraphs and turn a blank paper sideways and draw a line 1/3 of the way down the page.  

Prayer is a problem in our day
Put a penny in the offering
What are your three world problems, 
Dr. Tillich, am I accepted?
So our fathers had to create a story about that word
What do I?
A guy pushed all the buttons in the lobby and when people answered, he said, "all is known" and the next week there were three divorces and two suicides
Standing between the no longer and . . .
What do YOU call that reality?
I would cut it in half along that line coming down from the light, and hang it in my closet behind my clothes
The meal is also a primary symbol . . .
There was a small table in the center of the room and, every session, there was something different on it AND NO ONE EVER SAID ANYTHING ABOUT IT
The only nice person on the teaching team was the person who helped us with setting and clearing the tables.
Mountain, you're not a winner anymore . . .
You're a peach of a guy, Maisch. . .

Shall I go on?  It was a remarkable 44 hours,  I was frightened and captivated by the lectures, thrown into confusion with brilliant flashes of insight as we went through the papers, and on and on . . .

Only later did I take pedagogy and realize the layers and layers involved.  If we do this, this new pedagog, there will be lots of labor and building on one anothers thoughts, and lots of absorbing sensitive and articulate voices from all over. 

Jim Wiegel

On Sep 19, 2010, at 22:59, "Bill Parker" <bparker175 at cox.net> wrote:

Colleagues,

Speaking of the New Pedagogy, which implies a new pedagogue, perhaps the obvious needs to be pointed out. Here are some thoughts about the emerging shape of the New Pedagogy as seen through the presence of the new pedagogue.

The New Pedagogy is remarkably different from anything we have ever done in our past because the pedagogue is completely different from the pedagogue of the past, even if the pedagogues are the same person. The pedagogue of the 60’s was not global, in spite of one’s self story, nor had the pedagogue of the 60’s spent 30 years living the Dark Night of the Soul. The 60’s pedagogue had no understanding of the terrain and topography of the other world in the midst of this world, the Kingdom of God, I believe Jesus called it. The old pedagogue had no first hand knowledge of what the pedagogy of the oppressed was nor how it worked in every land of the planet until they went there and did it. The old pedagogue had no clue as to how to be sustained in a solitary and self-sufficient life. The pedagogue of the 60’s was naïve about the world and about the consequences of not being rewsponsible globally, theologically, or economically, as the human
 condition and the condition of the planet reveal so clearly today. The Pedagogue of the 60’s saw ecumenism insofar as the Christian community was concerned and not as a vehicle for global peace and diversity through interaction of an inter- faith community.

The pedagogy of the past was but a prelude to the pedagogy we are now putting together. The pedagogue of the past was but a spiritual shadow of the pedagogues you have become today. But we must shake off our stylistic compromises and our preferred prejudices we acquired in order to be imminently presentable to our chosen markets, if we are to build the earth. We cannot keep doing what we have been doing, we cannot simply wrap our arms around everything everyone is doing and say that is it, we must courageously embrace a new role, take a new risk, embrace an open future, address the global contradiction and see to it that what needs to be done is getting done.

None of us as individuals woke up until someone awakened us personally. Only then did we grasp that we could be a skilled pedagogue awakening and training thousands in a new pedagogy for the sake of awakening the world to a new way of being human.  We live in urgent times now and our time is short.  If we are going to move on this moment, now is the time to move.  There is no doubt we have been prepared by the fire of life for this. The only question is who will.

There is no new pedagogy nor new pedagogue without embodying that which is being disclosed in the style of the pedagogy. RSI changed our lives because the pedagogues were living their pedagogy! That reality was the methodology. We, too, are called to be that embodiment regardless of whether we say yes or no to what history is asking us to do.

With profound respect, take care for there is little time and so much to do.

Grace and Peace be unto you.

Bill

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