[Dialogue] Getting arrested

[W. J.]

Wayne, I believe our late colleague Brian in his book "More Than. . ." traced JWM's phenomenological ORID method back to the development of the art form conversation which he says Mathews was inspired to create by interacting with an art history professor (unnamed in the book) who taught him about dialogical/existential encounters with art forms. Hence, Guernica.

I recall that nearly half a century ago Kaze, Marilyn, LiDonna and others taught a 4-weekend imaginal education methods course in Room B in which Kaze laid out a SIX level chart of 'Mary Had a Little Lamb.' I never quite got my mind around those last two levels.

Marshall



________________________________
From: Wayne Nelson <wnelson at ica-associates.ca>
To: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Fri, May 21, 2010 8:45:58 AM
Subject: Re: [Dialogue] Can I get arrested for doing an artform conversation?



David Kolb published Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development in 1984 through Prentice-Hall. 

I spoke with David McClesky about the origins of our method several years ago.  He said the the O-R-I-D methodology was pretty firmly in place when he entered the Order in 1959.  

When I asked David about the sources, he said, as near as he could tell, JWM put it together working with material from Soren Kierkegaard (primarily Sickness unto Death), Edmund Husserl (Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomonology and to a Phenomonological Philosophy), Martin Heidegger (Being and Time) and Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness.)  These people we among the key figures in the branches of philosophy we call phenomonology and existentialism. Some say that SK was the first to break through into this area and I tend to agree. Husserl is often called the ‘Father of Phenomonology.”  There are clearly elements from all of them in this methodology. David also mentioned that Being and Time was one of Joe’s key sources for the NRM “Being” lecture.

He also used a lot from Rudolph Bultman, particularly in the area of demythologizing biblical literature and relating gospel to existential questions.  Interestingly enough, one of Bultman’s key sources for the actual methodology in demythologizing came from Heidegger. He obviously got a great deal from HR Neibur, largely in the area of ethics. Along with Tillich, Bohhoffer and R Neibur, they were the leading Christian existentialists.

Another one of what I believe to be a key source was “How to Read a Book” by Mortimer Adler. He and his brother encountered it in graduate school. You’ll find a nice write up of that experience in Bishop Jim’s book, “Brother Joe.”  That book led to what we know today as “charting.”  The charting methodology dovetails really well with the demythologizing process and the approach we used in RS1 seminars. Duh! !  There were several other sources related to our overall methodology and certainly to our application of it and the myriad of forms it has taken.

I believe the crucible for this work was the classes Joe taught at Perkins and the teaching - spirit formation work he did in the Faith and Life Community.  It was not simply drawn together by inuition either. It’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that Joe was as major scholar. Try even reading some of that stuff, much less make sense of it. It’s damn hard slogging. To have taken these very abstract ideas from philosophy and theology and refined them into the simple, elegant methodology we have today evokes real awe in me. Genius entirely.

In reading their original work, I am firmly persuaded that Joe and whoever else, likely Jack Lewis, created a unique form of phenomonological inquiry.  It has morphed and changed very little over the years. We’ve used a few different terms for some of the “levels” because we’ve focused its use on both spiritual formation and practical planning.  i.e. Demythologizing a biblical passage requires a different set of questions than planning strategies. 

I’m working on an essay about all this, but it is not really in shape for wide distribution yet. It has led me to some really interesting discoveries, but the one relevant to this conversation is that the core and basic application of this methodology was not taken directly from any specific source. It was created.

We know that there have been many parallel developments of this nature.  It is really important to distinguish between correspondences and the thing itself. There are a lot of similarities. Edgar Schein and Kolb are the two most well known. There are several others formats that go through a similar set of developmental movements. They are similar and they inform us in our explanation and use, but they are distinct and different in several subtle ways.  “This” may seem like “that”, but it would be a mistake to say “this is that” without a deeper look.

We can cast our eyes down, twist on our toe and sweetly say, “Aw shucks, it wasn’t really us.” all we like, but it was “us” - well, mostly Joe. Not only was it us, it continues to be us who work with this living material and continue to deepen our understanding of it, use it and refine it.

That is not to say, in any way, that there is any justification whatsoever for treating our collegues disrespectfully. That whole episode, as I see it, was completely unrelated to anything related to methodology or copyright or anything of the sort. It was more, I believe, the fallout from unresolved economic and polity related problems.  Remember in the old days – when people started complaining about the food; you knew there were deeper problems afoot that needed addressing.

Just sayin’

\\/


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Wayne Nelson - ICA Associates Inc
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