Global Priors Council

Chicago

July 1977

That's the "knowing" of it, but doing is part of that too. Knowing is interesting to discuss but it is quite another matter to do the task of wandering down the highways and byways of the world announcing the good news of the possibility of the fullness of life in the midst of this life.

The need for effective maneuvering is what has become clearest to us this year. Maneuvering is not the same as battle planning and tactical and contradictional thinking. It is something more than that. I do not have my mind around maneuvering but if we are going into the world, we must figure out how we do it, not just talk about it.

Maneuvering has to do with readiness. It involves discerning the trends of the times so you can see where readiness is present, where the word of possibility will be heard and where the beckoning will bring a response ­­ not simply for the place that responds; but for the total breakthrough.

Maneuvering has to do with our readiness to undertake a task. I am impressed with the number of people and organizations that want us to do something in the cities right now. We are not ready for the cities, not just because of the trends but because we do not have a way to offer the Word so that it will, in fact, be heard. Maneuvering has to do with the readiness of the social structures in which we work and, in a related way, with the readiness of the globe as a whole.

Maneuvers have to do with timing, which is related to readiness. Timing involves the force or impact you use when you move to announce the Word and to beckon forth the profundity. It has to do with where to set an explosion, creating fallout which allows others to hear and to be beckoned forth. Timing, therefore, includes the question of "where." These are confusion" questions but ones that we need to answer.

A third part of maneuvering is the concrete openings available to us. We used to talk about these as the soft underbelly. This has to do with finding the nods that allow moving so that, while we do not run away from crucifixion, we are also wary of suicide. This has to do with broad openings. It is inadequate to talk about one small opening here or there. Are these openings related to openings elsewhere across the globe or is it a superficial opening of simply one moment in one place that will kill us in the long run if we are not careful? I am talking about the hole in the line that is history­long and world­wide seen from the perspective of maneuvering, from acting. At the end of the year ahead, we might be able to collect our wisdom on how to maneuver as we have done for the past few years in the arenas of tactical thinking and battleplanning.

Fourth, maneuvering has to do with troop formation and troop use. It has to do with equipping your troops, and particularly equipping them with the story of why in the world they are doing mass awakenment. For two years now the excitement of Town Meeting and our new way of moving into the world has sustained us. This year, we will not be sustained by another series of victories in doing states or counties unless we grasp the profundity of why we are doing what we are doing.

Maneuvering also has to do with organizing your troops in such a way that victory is assured before the battle. We are in a war to win. The instruments of mass awakenment are crucial to history. If we think that RS1 was important and Town Meeting is interesting, then we are sorely misled by what is at stake in the social process.

What about this particular moment? I would call it "the fullness of time." At this moment, mass awakenment is possible. Mass awakenment is not always a possibility in other times because of unfavorable trends or unreadiness. In those periods, you do a different kind of awakenment.

''The revolutions of our time and the yearning for profundity have made mass awakenment a possibility now. We keep hearing about those revolutions. Several have mentioned the women's revolution which all of us are part of. We are ready and society is ready for that radical move. We are taking part in the awakenment of the minorities revolution, and interestingly, the historical churches have made this a priority this year in their work. There is the third world revolution - the revolution of the youth. I was amazed that 14­year­old students in the Maliwada Replication School are becoming part of auxiliaries to invest their being in social change. There is a revolution in new forms and style of education that equip people for life today. It is hard to believe, yet all these revolutions are happening and the yearning is there. Underneath all these, of course, is the rise of local man.

These trends are happening and we have the tools to respond to them. I will not deal with the tools except to say that you never freight awakenment as just a good idea. You freight it with tools that respond to the openings, the readiness and the trends. Our tools include the Global Women's Forum, Town Meeting, the ITI, Venture 21 for youth, and the educational intern models. Can you imagine students going from the university to a social demonstration, then returning to finish their education. They will never be the same. That is awakenment; never being the same again. If we did not have consults, we would have invented them. The consults rocked the very bottom out of the guardians and it was that which finally created the profundity of the guardian network.

In the fullness of this time, our task is to move massively with the awakenment. The urgency is this: we never know how long the opening will last. You see, readiness is an amoral category. It has to do with readiness for anything. At the point of readiness, people will grasp for whatever is available. The critical issue, therefore, is whether the forms to provide full humanness will be heard or whether some ideology or reduced vision will prevail. We have the awesome responsibility to see that those things which allow depth profound humanness and a possibility for social change be offered.

Although it was glorious this year, awakenment is hard work. It will become even harder as we struggle with why we are doing it. The urgency of doing it effectively and rapidly will become even more impressed upon us. We will run into the enemy in doing awakenment, for there are those who have a vested interest in the encrustment of society; call them demonic if you will. They are not passive; they actively fight life. Some of you have run into them this year.

I will conclude with the statement that ends most of our talks, but it is still true. The religious always die bringing awakenment; they are always crucified for the sake of wresting the Other World into the life of this world once again. We are called in the fullness of this time to bring that life out of death and at the same time, not to be surprised that it probably does mean our death.

Maneuvers always have about them the element of uniqueness, and, therefore, surprise. No maneuver is ever repeated. A repeated maneuver is simply a strategy or tactic of the ordinary ilk.

Maneuvers are unique ventures. They have beginnings, and they have ends. Maneuvers use tools that seem totally inappropriate to the situation on first glance.

For the enemy, a maneuver has the quality of a catastrophe: unwanted, at the least, and unexpected, totally destructive, totally disruptive of all other plans, requiring that all attentions be given to the immediate response.

To one's colleagues and allies, a maneuver is equally disruptive. It requires that other, routine, plans be dropped. The activity demanded in the maneuver will appear ridiculous and absurd at first glance, and certainly sure to fail. The only reason an ally would ever participate in a maneuver is out of some sort of blind faith in the maneuverer, or the feeling that his own strategies will be overcome by sheer force of will.