[Dialogue] {Spam?} Re: {Spam?} Prolegomena to the rule of the order
Wilson Priscilla
pwilson at teamtechinc.com
Thu Jul 26 08:09:41 EDT 2007
Len,
Marshall Jones put this in an email earlier...in case you missed it:
here it is...
THE
PROLEGOMENA
TO THE
RULE OF THE ORDER
A MORAL COVENANT AND CORPORATE DISCIPLINE
A Prologue to Corporate Discipline
I
We, the __________ Community, by our free resolve, before the creator
of our personal and collective destinies and the name of Jesus Christ
our Lord, take upon ourselves the moral covenant and rule of life,
for the sake of a particular corporate mission within the total
calling of the church, to which we have been commonly elected.
II
We confess, in the first place, that we can do so only because we
have been seized by the word of the love of God in Christ Jesus
solely for the sake of the mission of being His People in the world.
We acknowledge, secondly, that we can do so only because we find
ourselves so historically situated that we are commonly called to
exercise this self-understanding and mission in a particular time and
place and endeavour.
III
We further acknowledge and confess that we have been immediately
prompted to this course by the church’s new vision of the Gospel as
the freedom to involve oneself utterly in this world; and we believe
that free involvement in the world demands a disciplined life;
By the church’s new image of herself as mission: the bearer of the
Word of Life in and to history without which men do not live as
historical beings; and we are persuaded that historical mission calls
for a disciplined people;
By the church’s new concern for her own radical renewal in our time
which necessitates creative experiments of many kinds and various
forms; we deem this corporate discipline to be one such experiment
for the renewal of the church;
By the church’s new confrontation by the Fathers with the fact that
wherever authentic faith in Jesus Christ has been recovered in the
past, there has followed a new sense of mission to the world and
intentional discipline for the sake of that mission;
By the church’s new awareness, born of the times, that all men live
consciously or unconsciously by some structure and that the self-
aware man does and must exist in a self-consciously ordered life.
Discipline is a concern of our age both inside and outside the church.
IV
We must always remember and ever remind one another that in our
corporate discipline we begin with Christ; we do no strive toward
Him. Our covenant is a sign and symbol of our immutable standing
before the Lord; it must never be perverted into a means to that end.
God’s acceptance of us is accomplished forever and it is utterly
impossible and utterly unnecessary to gain our salvation through this
rule or any other pious work, so called.
This means, and let us ever be clear about it, that our covenant is
solely for the sake of the common mission to which we have been
called. By-productive consequences there may be, but the rule is not
directed toward the nourishment of our religious life, the
development of a sense of togetherness, the creation of harmonious
relationships, or the establishment of human community as such, in
any form. Our common rule thrusts us upon our task and exists only
for the sake of that task.
We must always remember and ever remind one another that while our
corporate discipline does and must make explicit certain structures
in which we labor, our common existence is in no sense and at no time
synonymous or reducible to structures of any kind, hidden or
disclosed, written or unwritten. Human relationships remain
mysteriously beyond the power of human reason to articulate and any
order to contain.
Again, let us also be aware that tough our covenant necessarily has a
definite fixedness and a certain rigidity, it must always be kept
pliable, ready for adjustment or the varying needs, situations and
obligations of the different individuals participating in it. Finally
and most important, the total rule must constantly be maintained as
open for alteration, for continuing development and indeed for
complete discontinuation.
We must always remember and ever remind one another that in our
corporate discipline, we no longer live and work alone as isolated
individuals. Henceforth our historical calling and mission, our
corporate being and doing, our personal thinking and acting, are
embodied in a definite community itself incorporated into the total
life and mission of the historical church. All men hiddenly or overly
live our of some community; in our moral covenant we make our social
being explicitly intentional.
On the other hand, we dare not forget that moral covenants are never
for the purpose of escaping the burden of selfhood. Authentic, self-
consciously disciplined community does not swallow the individual; it
rather creates the very possibility of personhood pushing the
individual against the necessity to decide for himself and then
holding him accountable for the consequences of his own actions.
Genuine participation in the structures of community and authentic
individuality are two poles of the same reality.
We must always remember and ever remind one another that in our
corporate discipline we are both responsible to and for one another.
Not only must each one of us carry the burden of his own relation to
the rule, but we must each bear the loyalty and disloyalty of our
brothers under the rule. We must assume responsibility for intruding
into the other’s existence up to the point of his freedom, and in
turn, freely open ourselves to the other’s responsibility to
intrude into our life up to the point of our conscience before God.
Furthermore, let us never forget that tough we are utterly bound by
our covenant, we remain free at any time and in any circumstance to
break the covenant; never, to be sure, by default in decision but by
a self-conscious free resolve made in the light of other claims which
other covenants in life lay upon us. In one sense, a rule was made to
be broken and the disloyalty taken freely upon ourselves. Our
covenant thrusts upon us our freedom and responsibility.
We must always remember and ever remind each other that though our
corporate discipline necessarily must include within it explicit ways
and means of accounting before one another and exposing ourselves to
our fellows, it is never to the end of maintaining the rule intact,
never for the sake of judgment in and for itself, but rather to
provide the opportunity for taking upon ourselves afresh our freedom
to be responsible persons in our mission.
Moreover, we must bear in mind that such explicit opening of
ourselves through our covenant to our promises before the gaze of
another, though not determining our objective guilt, does bring many
hidden guilts to the surface of our lives. Such intensifying of our
sensitivities to guilt in a community grounded in the word of
acceptance becomes a great gift. The releasing of hidden guilt and
the possibility of embracing the same, is that without which we
cannot and do not have life.
We must always remember and ever remind each other that a corporate
discipline involves a kind of total commitment; he who enters into it
therefore must do through his own free resolve in such a fashion that
the rule becomes his own life discipline and not some demand thrust
upon him by another. And if the covenant is to remain an imperative
from within ourselves rather than an alien pressure from without, it
must ever and again be renewed with an abandonment which mixes our
total being with it.
Nevertheless it is utterly necessary that any covenant be understood
and held as relative: relative before our relation to God in Christ;
relative to our effective engagement in the world. For this reason it
must continually be grasped as open-ended; responsible
discontinuation will then be an ever-present possibility for everyone
involved; our concrete concern for one another will insure that such
a course be taken only in the same sobriety and fear of God that our
entrance into the covenant demands.
On Jul 26, 2007, at 12:12 AM, Len Hockley wrote:
> Thanks Priscilla,
> Please send it to 220 N Adams, Eugene, OR 97402
>
> Len
>
> At 07:24 AM 7/18/2007 -0500, you wrote:
>> Len,
>> I can send you a zerox copy if you wish...putting it in digital
>> form I'm not going to do...too much on my plate.
>> Let me know where to send it.
>> Priscilla
>>
>> On Jul 17, 2007, at 3:51 PM, Len Hockley wrote:
>>
>>> Priscilla and Wayne,
>>>
>>> Now that you have them in hand, please consider the benefits of
>>> having them in the Repository. If you can get it/them into
>>> digital form, I will enable putting them up.
>>>
>>> Len
>>>
>>>
>>> At 02:24 PM 7/17/2007 -0500, Wilson Priscilla wrote:
>>>> I thought I had The Prolegomena in "my archives"...but a quick
>>>> look only turned up
>>>> The Customary Practices of The Symbolic Life of the Order - 1969
>>>> and
>>>> The Declaration of the Spirit Movement - October 31, 1967.
>>>> I also found Te Construct of the Movement...August 6, 1967 and
>>>> evidentily a rewrite on August 26, 1968.
>>>> My...we were wordy in those days!
>>>> Couldn't find the Prolegomena...though I know I had it once.
>>>> Priscilla Wilson
>>>>
>>>> On Jul 17, 2007, at 1:50 PM, Wayne Nelson wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I'm sure we have one in our archives. I'll look. I'll probably
>>>>> have to scan
>>>>> it. You could drop by and pick it up, though.
>>>>>
>>>>> \\/
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> "James Wiegel" wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Jim Wiegel at Abbey North. I am haunted with a memory
>>>>>> of seeing a document entitled "The Prolegomena to the
>>>>>> rule of the Order" in 1967 or 1968, I think someone
>>>>>> showed it to me or gave me a copy in the basement of
>>>>>> the program center in 5th city.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Does anyone else recall this?? have a copy??
>>>>>>
>>>>>> We are having a good time here, George Walters is
>>>>>> talking with Carol over computer and the others are
>>>>>> having lunch -- lettuce fresh from the garden, etc.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 401 North Beverly Way
>>>>>> Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401
>>>>>> +1 623-936-8671
>>>>>> +1 623-363-3277
>>>>>> jfwiegel at yahoo.com
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Now and then it's good to pause in the pursuit of happiness
>>>>>> and just be happy.
>>>>>> Guillaume Apollinaire
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _________________________________________________________________
>>>>>> _____________
>>>>>> ______
>>>>>> Need a vacation? Get great deals
>>>>>> to amazing places on Yahoo! Travel.
>>>>>> http://travel.yahoo.com/
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Dialogue mailing list
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>>>>>
>>>>> < > < > < > < > < >
>>>>> Wayne Nelson - ICA Associates Inc
>>>>> 416-691-2316 - http://ica-associates.ca
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Dialogue mailing list
>>>>> Dialogue at wedgeblade.net
>>>>> http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/dialogue_wedgeblade.net
>>>>
>>>> Priscilla Wilson
>>>> TeamTech Press
>>>> Mission Hills, KS 66208
>>>> pwilson at teamtechinc.com
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>> Priscilla Wilson
>> TeamTech Press
>> Mission Hills, KS 66208
>> pwilson at teamtechinc.com
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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> _______________________________________________
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Priscilla Wilson
TeamTech Press
Mission Hills, KS 66208
pwilson at teamtechinc.com
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