[Dialogue] [Oe List ...] Ecology and the Social Process: This press release, from September of 1996, recognized a remarkable effort, spearheaded by Jean Watts.

Tue Nov 24 17:02:49 CST 2009

Yes, and in the spirit of a "living God", what has lasted, what has continued. . .
 Jim

There's a big difference between marching to a different drummer and having no sense of rhythm whatsoever.   -- the morning paper.

Jim Wiegel
401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401
+1  623-936-8671   +1  623-363-3277
jfwiegel at yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com

________________________________
From: Herman Greene <hfgreene at mindspring.com>
To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net>
Cc: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Tue, November 24, 2009 3:24:30 PM
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Ecology and the Social Process: This press release, from September of 1996, recognized a remarkable effort, spearheaded by Jean Watts.

Sorry for this extra post. I realize I’m
having a conversation with myself. If I had read the whole message from Jim
below, I would have responded in a much more apt way. Jim thanks for sending
this message with the interesting proposal for the “natural factor, human
factor and management factor” triangles with the linking factor in the
middle. This is a creative approach.

To clarify my earlier message about if
this was an “ ICA ” project I needed
to learn about how ICA 
had extended things”—my concern in the “project” (for
lack of a better name) is remembering what was “lost” (but still
lives within us). It is reflecting back on what the Order meant to us (which is
the same as saying what it means to us now as we think back on it) and also
what those parts meant that have not been carried forward so far in ICA (so far
as I know), which I hold under the name EI. It is a project of remembering and
reflecting on the early life of EI and the Order before 1975 or so . . . though
I have no problem with reflections on things that happened in the community
life after that. 

To go back into Richard Sims statement
which Jann MacGuire circulated, he lamented: “It wasn't fair that classical religions were called out of being
in the midst of my career as an order-grounded, movemental church renewer,
leaving me spiritually and vocationally stranded.”

And the genesis of this whole reflection
for me was Jm’s questions: “Looking at
facilitation as we developed it and compared to address your life pedagogy like
in RS-1 and then compared to the impact which Joe could generate on individuals
and groups -- are these all the same thing, or quite different things? If more
or less the same, how would you describe this at its best?  Has this style
of evangelism evolved and become refined or has it gotten watered down? If
different, how, and which are needed these days?”

And the point of the “project”
is to recover, renew and carry forward that which inspired us and carried us
forward in those formative years.

Thanks for all those who have commented in
support of this not well articulated project. I’m assuming that, though
stated poorly, this resonates for some.

I rest.

Herman

________________________________

From:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of  James Wiegel
Sent: Tuesday, November 24, 2009
12:17 PM
To: Order Ecumenical Community
Cc: Colleague Dialogue
Subject: [Oe List ...] Ecology and
the Social Process: This press release,from September of 1996, recognized a
remarkable effort,spearheaded by Jean Watts.

BARATARIA-TERREBONNE NATIONAL ESTUARY
PROGRAM (BTNEP): Governor Mike Foster was notified this week that the BTNEP’s
Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan is the recipient of the American
Planning Association’s  award for Outstanding Planning in the
Comprehensive Planning--Large Jurisdiction category.  This national level
award follows a regional award from the same organization in September,
1996.  The 1997 National Planning Award recipients will be recognized on
April 8, 1996 during the annual conference to be held in San Diego .   
Contact: Barbara Keeler (5-6698)

Jean responded to, and received, a grant to facilitate
this CCMP effort as a part of the US Environmental Protection Agency's project
to protected the largest estuaries in the United States .  She involved a
number of us as colleagues -- both in Louisiana 
(Carol Fleishman, Carlos Zervigon, Julianna Padgett, among others) and also
brought in colleagues from around the country (Sue Laxdall, Sherwood Shankland,
among others)

After a series of Management Conferences involving
important stakeholders in the Estuary (think:  the end of the Mississippi
river south and west of New Orleans )
a "conceptual framework" was created to show the complicated
inter-relatedness of what was going on in the Estuary.  Jean wrote this up
as a chapter in Government Works, edited by Jim Troxel.  This conceptual
framework was represented as a set of triangles:  The Natural Factor
(lower left) (consisting of the Land Mass, the Water Flows and the Diverse
Biologic Communities (plants, animals, micro-organisms, etc.), The Human Factor
(lower right) (consisting of Economic Development, Education and social life,
and National Recognition (think "social process"), and The Management
Factor (top) (consisting of Research and Data, Regulation, and Planning).
 A fourth set of triangles also emerged, called the Linking Factor which
was placed in the middle of the other 3 (consisting of Balanced Use Indicators,
Infrastructure Compatible with Nature, and Common Ground Solutions).
 These triangles went down a level or 2 and were very useful in describing
the complex interactions taking place.

This is the best work I am aware of at expanding the
"social process" work to the next larger set of dynamics and
functions.  In this framework, the Natural Factor is the foundational, the
Human Factor, in some sense, is living off /living with the Natural Factor, and
the Management Factor represents the attempt to coordinate the other 2.

INTERESTING SIDE NOTES:  My daughter was in high
school at the time and as I described this project, she said, "Finally,
Dad, you are working on something important."  She was taking a
course in ecology or environmental science at the time, and I paged through her
text book.  In the last chapter I spied a triangle!!  It was
describing the cosmology of tribal peoples -- the three poles were Nature,
Human Beings, and Spirit.  I thought, Wow -- we replaced Spirit with
Management!

HOW THIS FRAMEWORK EMERGED FROM THE PLANNING PROCESS:
 The beginning point of the project was the identification of 9 priority
problems in the estuary -- based on extensive scientific studies and data
collection -- things like erosion of barrier islands, incursion of salt water
destroying fresh water marshes, over fishing, etc.  These priority
problems were predominantly located in the NATURAL FACTOR triangle.  As the
stakeholders assembled to review these data and articulated their VISION, it
predominantly focussed on the HUMAN FACTOR triangle -- them and their children
continuing to live in and prosper in this place, being able to learn and grow
and develop their communities, and being recognized as a national treasure
(significance).  When we turned to contradictions, it turned out that most
were in the MANAGEMENT FACTOR triangle -- the ways of doing research and
regulating and planning were as much a block as a benefit in caring for the
Estuary.  As the planning moved into Strategic Directions, many of the
actions and recommendations fell into this 4th area -- the LINKING FACTOR --
developing new, more helpful indicators to measure, working towards common ground
solutions vs. reliance on legal action and regulation, etc.

and Water Jim
There's a big difference between marching to a different
drummer and having no sense of rhythm whatsoever. -- the morning paper.

Jim Wiegel
401 North Beverly Way , Tolleson , Arizona  85353-2401
+1 623-936-8671 +1 623-363-3277
jfwiegel at yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com

________________________________

From:Richard &
Maria Maguire <unfolding at smartchat.net.au>
To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Tue, November 24, 2009
6:27:48 AM
Subject: [Oe List ...] Nature and
the Social Process Triangles

At 06:26 AM 22/11/2009, you wrote:
Yes we have, and many other colleagues we know as well.  But its not easy
to do.

We notice that social process triangles speak directly about the natural world
only is as a resource in the economic triangle.

Since the triangles are about the *social* process I find it difficult to put
nature in directly.  If I were to include the natural world it would be in
a symbol that surrounds and interacts with the social process all over the
place, or a large triangle of some sort with the social process as a sub
triangle.  The natural world is finally more powerful and durable than our
human social world.  We arise from it and  utterly depend on
it.  Our Western technologists have only recently begun to realize what
Indigenous peoples have known for a long time--our fate will very much depend
on how we treat it.  It almost seems that our attaining a healthy
relationship with nature very much depends on our creating the balance in the
social process that has been so important to us as the ICA .  It is clearer than ever that
economic overemphasis of the current society, even more blatant than in the
60s, is not only the source of great social injustice, but also damage to our
natural world for which many people, and other species are paying dearly.

Another thought I have had is that nature plays an unspoken role within of the
social process, particularly as a locus of meaning and significance, so
especially in common religion, but also in wisdom etc.  An awful lot of
our political activity now has to do with the natural world as well. Maybe we
should include this in our contexts.

On another note:

Since the Nobel commission gave the Peace prize to Obama for *promising* to
eliminate nuclear weapons, maybe they should *promise* that a Nobel peace prize
will be given to the "world leaders" who put a strong carbon plan
into action, some years after it is successfully implemented.  After all,
they don't give prizes in physics or medicine until the results have been
validated, (I understand that that's the reason why Einstein never got one for
relativity) and the same could be true for the peace prize.

Best wishes

Richard

> hat's a good statement and worth archiving!
> 
> Occasionally I muse on how to place the social process into the Earth
> process. I haven't had a brilliant idea about this yet. One approach is to
> have an Earth process set of triangles (like the carbon cycle, the
> hydrological cycle, etc.) parallel to the social process. Another approach
> is to have the Earth process in the middle triangle of the social process
> triangles. Another is to redo the social process triangles to include
> interactions with nature.
> 
> I haven't really done much except muse about this. (One approach I saw
that
> I question is to apply the social process to nature--it's not entirely
> unfruitful but it seems like an artificial imposition on the natural
> processes rather than beginning with the natural process itself.)
> 
> I wonder if anyone else has thought about this.
> 
> -

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