[Dialogue] Beloved Communities
Janice Ulangca
aulangca at stny.rr.com
Mon Sep 3 15:19:52 EDT 2007
Re: Beloved CommunitiesOh, David, thank you for sharing this. Two observations as I prepare to leave for a week's vacation:
1) Your litany of all the issues you lived parallel with, with no real consciousness of them, resonated with me. I was hardly aware of the civil rights movement - was in the Philippines when it first emerged in most of white America's awareness, then was in one quite safe civil rights march in Evanston after I returned. Not much engagement, no danger. Also shameful, I was in college during the McCarthy era, with zero awareness of his dangerous fear-mongering. I pretty much went on my merry way, oblivious to poverty, the environment, oppression in any form.
2) Of all the pain I have experienced in my sheltered life, the greatest has been that of yearning for a significant place to plug in my life's expenditure when I felt isolated. Perhaps that is where you and Lyn are now. Thirty years ago and more, the O:E was doing so much, so many places, they could use everyone, whatever their experience or abilities. That's not true now - and one of the things about changes since 1988 that some of us grieve. By way of encouragement, though, I would say that the pain that I describe I have found to be a kind of divine discontent that moved me to find something new that turned out to be, even if difficult, finally a blessing.
I wish you all the best as you both work through this. Silly as I know it is, I'm going to suggest a couple of places to look that might give you some ideas: Is Heifer International hiring any staff, or using any volunteers? Or is Wendel Berry (in Greensboro, NC, in same community as Nelson and Elaine Stover) gathering any folks to do some environmental work?
Take care, fellow Iowans. The small town where I grew up, and started teaching (Gowrie, near Fort Dodge) was no hotbed of global awareness. So it took a long time to awaken my consciousness - beginning in a political science class my senior year at Cornell College (Mt. Vernon, IA), continuing with encountering poverty in the Philippines, and then in 1971 in RS-1. So I must be involved, as I can, with the Institute that has given me so much. It is also my Beloved Community.
Janice Ulangca
----- Original Message -----
From: David & Lin Zahrt
To: Colleague Dialogue
Sent: Monday, September 03, 2007 8:19 AM
Subject: Re: [Dialogue] Beloved Communities
We watched Moyers on Fri night. The woman he interviewed, Grace, was an inspiration. That along with Karen's posting caused me to do a journal entry. I don't know if the things that tumble out are witness or simply journal entry. Anyway, they tumble out and you are the Community with whom I am able to share.
Journal Reflection 09/07
I was born on the eve of W W II. I have no sense of the enormity of the social upheaval it caused. I was subject to all of that upheaval. My Dad, having just finished his internship in obstetrics, was subscripted into the military. He was transferred to Texas for training. The family, Luella, and kids David & Christy went along. We ended up in Houston. I learned to sing The Eyes of Texas Are Upon You in Kindergarten!
When Dad was transferred to Biloxi, MS for training we returned to Iowa City. Within 2 years Dad was reported missing in action. Within 5 years Mother remarried. For a number of reasons I grew up with the nagging feeling that my father had abandoned me.
I heard about the atomic bomb but registered nothing on my social conscience. I ignored the throes of Post War recuperation. I attended University and signed up for ROTC so that I could be assured of getting through 4 years without being drafted into the military. I avoided the war in Korea and ignored it.
I was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Air Force when I graduated. Lin and I got married. She had one more year of nursing to complete. I applied for an extension of my ROTC commission and taught general science in the University High School.
At that point I made a shift. I decided that I wanted to follow Carl Michaelson and applied for admission at Drew University Theological School. I was accepted. I continued the extension and completed Theological School. At the end of Theological School I had a conversation with the Air Force about the ambiguity of using God-talk to go to war and kill people. The Chaplains recommended that I resign my commission. I did so. When did Viet Nam erupt? I ignored it too. Jay was born while we were on campus. We began House Church with Stan & Glenda Long, Bain and Marge Davis, and others.
I served two UMC parishes the last two years of Theological School. Heidi was born while we were in the first parish. The Civil Rights Movement was beginning to pick up steam. I saw it and let it be. As I reflect back it seems that my job was to tell the congregation what it wanted to hear. I was given Golden Handcuffs. If I wanted to stay I was to do what I was told.
When I graduated from Theological School I had already served 2 years as Deacon and my ordination as Elder was due to happen. The District Superintendent told me that they were holding on my ordination as Elder and they didn't have an assignment for me so I would need to come to Annual Conference to see if there was anything 'left over'.
By that time we had been exposed to the Ecumenical Institute and I decided that we should move all of our earthly belongings and go to EI's Summer '66. We attended. I felt the urge to do something in the Civil Rights Movement but wasn't ready to leave the family or take it with me while engaging in the movement. We decided to become staff at the Ecumenical Institute. I told myself it was a way of participating in the Civil Rights movement, and might better prepare me to return to the parish ministry!
So, for the first time, I became personally engaged in an attempt to create Beloved Community and minister to social ills.
We stayed with the Community for 20 years. During that time we committed ourselves to being and creating Beloved Community. Upon reflection, I now know we fell far short of the goal. During that time I ignored all of the other social, economic, cultural, and political ills that transpired. That I am not able to name the ones we ignored is evidence that we ignored them. Of late they are beginning to surface. Were they always there-Rwanda, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Brazil, Peru? The deforestation taking place in South America. The Climate Change spawned, and ignored, by unbridled consumerism. The rape, by agribusiness for the sake of financial profit, of the US's natural resources. The growing disparity between the rich and the poor around the Globe. How many issues have I ignored or omitted?
What does this mean? Has the world always been this way? Are we simply getting old and filled with cynicism and despair to the point of depression? Are we human beings actually creating and precipitating our own Worldwide Rapture?
In the meantime, where do we plug in? How do we make the difference we're capable of making? Where is the key--the whistle point?
We returned to the family farm to care for Mother & Dad. When we returned I took a look at the standard agricultural practices and said (to myself) "We're mining the soil, poisoning the environment, and mortgaging the future." Needless to say there were very few neighbors with whom I could share that insight. Neither have we been able to find a 'church home'. We facilitated LIVING THE QUESTIONS. It stimulated no continued dialogue. So we are hungry for Blessed Community and at a loss to find it in the neighborhood.
Now Mother and Dad are gone. No one else in the family is returning to the farm. It is time for us to write another Chapter in our book of life. We sincerely desire a way to become a part of a Blessed Community. At a minimum its internal life will need to be inclusive, interdependent, strive for self-sufficiency in food and energy. It will also have an external mission.
David
--
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| David and Lin Zahrt
| Country Homestead Bed and Breakfast
| 22133 Larpenteur Rd
| Turin, IA 51040 <mailto:chbnb at netins.net>
| (712) 353-6772 Phone
http://www.country-homestead.com
-- Doorway to the Loess Hills --
Where a change-of-pace is as good as a vacation,
And a sense-of-place is soothing to the soul.
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