[Dialogue] [Oe List ...] Questions about the "Turn to the World"
W. J.
synergi at yahoo.com
Sun Aug 7 10:31:18 EDT 2011
Yep, the Oombulgurri International Airport was a dirt strip. Been there! (BTW
Oombulgurri was included in 'The World of Human Development.'
Marshall
________________________________
From: the telfords <thetelfords at gmail.com>
To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net>
Cc: Colleague Dialogue <dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
Sent: Sun, August 7, 2011 3:40:42 AM
Subject: Re: [Dialogue] [Oe List ...] Questions about the "Turn to the World"
Hello Marshall
Thanks for your interesting reflections on why we did what we did - would just
like to pick you up on one inaccuracy I spotted:
You said all the sites for the Band of 24 HDP's were near airports!! Well you
obviously have not been to visit Oombulgurri in the Kimberleys in north-west
Australia - about as remote as you could get from any airport unless you count
the fact that you could charter a small plane to fly you into the dirt landing
strip at Oombulgurri after you made a low sweep to scare all the donkeys away.
Anyway, the discussion about the 'turn to the world' is very interesting - it
certainly was one of the things which maintained my interest in continuing to be
part of the Order as I don't think I would have committed 15 years of my life to
'renewing the church'.
And I am forever thankful for the incredible experiences and opportunities which
opened up as we journeyed with a host of colleagues through the years.
Grace & Peace
John
2011/8/6 W. J. <synergi at yahoo.com>
Randy raises some excellent questions.
>
>
>For me the primary one is, "What do we do with the institutional residue of the
>public 'front' (EI/ICA/5th City) that manifested the thrust of a revolutionary
>movement (OE/extended Order/spirit movement) that no longer exists in the
>movemental form that we knew 'back in the day'?"
>
>
>Writing from Lake Junaluska, I'm mindful that the historical church as we know
>it is the institutional residue of a movement of the spirit two hundred years
>ago starting with Francis Asbury and flowering into the Great Awakening in the
>19th century. (It's interesting that most southern Methodists didn't break away
>from their cultural roots and become abolitionists.)
>
>
>I'm a total dummy when it comes to football metaphors, but I think the 'end run'
>as we used the phrase was about carrying the ball around the opposing team that
>was doing its best to block us head to head. So our end run was about
>sidestepping the intransigence of the institutional church and claiming new
>ground to demonstrate transformed community (NSV) at the micro level in a
>secular context. Interestingly, the intent of the band of 24 HDP's was to give
>us credibility at the local level and with the transnational business sector,
>the government/nonprofit social services sector, and the religious (missionary)
>sector. JWM wanted to be able to walk into any of those exalted places with
>something on the ground to be proud of and show off (which is why they were all
>near airports).
>
>
>I don't make much of a distinction between working as "structural
>revolutionaries" within the historical church and working with secular
>structures, or between EI and ICA, both of which were simply fronts for the
>OE/extended Order. As 'chamelions' we took on either a religious or a secular
>coloration as needed, in order to blast through their religious or secular
>reductionisms with a practical vision of primal community that was deeper and
>more comprehensive than anything they had to offer. (And at their best, ICA
>programs offered just as profound a context for addressing one's life as
>anything we did under the EI banner.)
>
>
>The ICA wasn't 'secular' in the superficial, reductionistic sense of being part
>of the Establishment as just another nonprofit do-gooding institution. It was
>the public, institutional face of a very radical group of "crazy people" who had
>a common memory, a disciplined covenantal life, and an amazingly focused global
>missional thrust. I remember them well.
>
>
>But those folks quit, retired, or intentionally deconstructed the OE, leaving
>behind the shell of the ICA-USA with a large institutional footprint at 4750
>Sheridan Road, but with little institutional memory, almost no capacity for
>innovation, a disaffected constituency, and very few "employees." In other
>words, a huge hunk of institutional residue became the very type of 'empty'
>monument we all fled when we deserted the local church for the Order. Somebody
>said they walked around in the Kemper Building and "There's no life there."
>
>
>The ICA-USA's recent 'perversion' (if I may use that term from our analysis of
>church history) was, I believe, to try to hatch some secularized institutional
>strategic plan that denied its movemental roots, context, history, and surviving
>constituencies (funny that the historical church does that!). Ultimately, the
>'perversion' is the belief that a rigidified, self-perpetuating institutional
>context, culture, and belief system will provide all the answers (again, the
>historical church).
>
>
>So it became necessary for a few of the surviving "crazy people" to do an 'end
>run' around the ICA-USA. Some recent examples of doing an 'end run' around the
>ICA-USA BoD/staff are: 1) development of the PJD; 2) development of the ToP
>trainers' network; 3) the Order's focus on the Archives; 4) relocating the JWM
>Archive to Wesley Theological School; 5) the Springboard conferences; 6) the
>Resurgence Publishing Corp. publications; 7) ICAI's 'World of Human Development'
>DVD; and eventually, 8) the ICA-USA BoD/staff 'regime change'.
>
>
>Now that I'm one of the surviving 'Old Guard' that's still around, I hope that
>we as a group can continue beckoning the ICA-USA to think and strategize outside
>the box of our own historical context, style, and memory. Let's be part of those
>who can imagine doing an 'end run' around that in the OE which has become the
>contradiction: our tendency to do more of the same, whatever that is at the
>moment.
>
>
>I'd like to invite all of us to look elsewhere in the world and among younger
>generations for strange and surprising signs of new life, creativity, and
>innovation. And for strange new forms of a NRM and a NSV that others are
>creating from the mud and debris of a collapsing and exhausted old order. Maybe
>the BoD could take a clue from some of these thoughts. If the old OE was a
>corporate Elijah, maybe we need to find an Elisha before we are all taken up
>into the whirlwind.
>
>
>Grace & Peace,
>
>
>Marshall
>
>
>I've been having great fun in NC 'digging up' old colleagues. Last weekend it
>was Don and Lucy Bushman. Tomorrow: the Fishels!
>
>
>
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>
________________________________
>From: R Williams <rcwmbw at yahoo.com>
>To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net>; Colleague Dialogue
><dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
>Sent: Thu, August 4, 2011 6:23:49 AM
>Subject: [Dialogue] Questions about the "Turn to the World"
>
>
>
>Dear Colleagues,
>
>In 1972 the Kemper Insurance Co. gave the Ecumenical Institute its 8-story
>office building at 4750 N. Sheridan Rd. in Chicago. In and around that year the
>Institute of Cultural Affairs was incorporated and EI/ICA moved its headquarters
>from its "seminary campus" on the west side to its "insurance building" on north
>side. Subsequently we drew a circle around the wedge blade and announced we
>were making a "turn to the world."
>
>Here are some questions regarding "the turn:"
> 1. What was going on in the world and internally with EI/O:E that precipitated
>the "Turn to the World?"
> 2. How did "the turn" affect our story about who we were and what we were
>doing? (For example, what did we understand we were turning to and what were we
>turning from?)
> 3. What were the strategic and practical implications at that time?
> 4. What are the implications today for ICAs around the world?
>The primary reason for asking these questions is, the Board of Directors of
>ICA-USA, when it meets in Chicago each November, dialogues on the issue of
>the long-term strategic direction and approach of the organization. This piece
>of our history could have relevance for that dialogue this November.
>
>Please don't be restricted by the questions. Any remembrances and insights that
>you are willing to share will be useful and most appreciated.
>
>Thank you,
>Randy Williams
>Acting Chair, ICA-USA Board of Directors
>_______________________________________________
>OE mailing list
>OE at wedgeblade.net
>http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/oe_wedgeblade.net
>
>
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