Summer '73

Research Assembly

Tactics

July 24, 1973

1. I want to talk about resurgence and the new style in the context of the most recent shifts which have happened to us. I suspect it began in 1967 or earlier, and it became overtly clear in Summer '71 that something was happening. Then this summer there is an intense awareness of a new posture that involves a new stance toward creation. Sociologically we have talked about the twentieth century as a period in which the whole globe is aware of the collapse that is apparently taking place. The structures and the fabric of society have been breaking up this whole century. With the shifts that are taking place, we are getting clear that this is no longer a helpful motif to talk about the times. A more helpful motif to talk about the times is that of resurgence. The kind of creativity that is breaking loose in the social fabric is absolutely shocking.

2. We can illustrate this with Richard Nixon. I am convinced that he is the first president since Roosevelt to have a master plan for the direction this nation is going, and the direction the whole globe is going. I happen to disagree with his master plan, but systematically and carefully he has attempted to shift the direction of the globe, and he has done an unbelievable job. The Supreme Court is moving in that direction. The OEO is moving in that direction. His dismantling of emergency aid structures are moving in that direction. That kind of creativity is simply a reality in the world in which we live. His foreign policies have been sheer genius.

3. Some of you have visited the plaza at the First National Bank here in Chicago and seen another example. At noon, every day, people from all over the business district go to this plaza for outdoor shows. It is sort of a mini­Cabaret to get said something is happening in the midst of the city of Chicago. Chagall has agreed to put a major work in that plaza. Picasso has already placed that statue in the city of Chicago. When Joseph Mathews returned from visiting Calcutta a year ago he talked about his shock over the fact that a city that had decided

to die, and was falling to pieces, had begun to move, begun to bring to conscious ness a new kind of dream about what a city would look like, and sings of creativity were bursting out all over.

4. The kind of shocking turn around that has happened in people is seen in Senator Sam Irvin. Two years ago we would have died rather than show up on his side. He is a senator from North Carolina, the picture of a Southern Conservative. His voting pattern on civil rights would nauseate most of us. Yet today, we find ourselves on his side. In his attempt to find out what is going on, for whatever reason, that man decided to blow the whistle and the whole fabric of the United States is called into question through the Watergate investigation.

5. You could go on with many signs of creativity. China is an unbelievable breakloose of creativity. With the shift from social collapse to a new creativity there has been an internal shift. Before we experienced being overwhelmed with the collapse. Today there is a new resolve that man will survive, that humankind will come off. There has been a resolve to participate in the creation of a new world. In the period of collapse we experienced ourselves structurally and individually disengaged from the possibility of creation, dislocated, no single life thrust, and no way of impacting the globe. There have been no handholds in which you can grasp a creative decision. The shift has been from succumbing to that posture to the resolve to participate in creating the possibilities of engagement and the reconstruction of values. We talk about this in LENS as the ontology focused toward creating the foundation in which you can begin to construct the new world, relative to life phases, sexuality and rationality. The escapes are even shifting. It used to be our refusal to deal with reality. We blocked out the world either by limiting our participation to our own small perspective, or by disengaging ourselves from being historical people.

6. My father is a truck driver and mechanic. Our last argument was in 1964 over Proposition 13 in California, and he was on the wrong side. We argued for four days, and when the election was over I asked him how he voted. He replied that he didn't vote because he was not registered. When I asked why he had not registered, he replied, "Why bother, my vote does not count toward anything?" This sense of being disrelated from the historical process has shifted to the question of how can I creatively engage in the political process. How can I creatively participate in the overwhelming demands being placed on my from the perspective of the whole globe?

7. In the spirit dimension, we have on our hands unbelievable possibility. Man's capacity to will a new world is very obvious. Also, the capacity to will destruction is obvious. The bottom of your being has an uneasiness, a sense that something is wrong. This is nothing other than the possibility of resurgence for all men. We have the possibility of a globe manifesting the unbelievable resurgence that is here, or going in some other direction. The failure of the '90s led to World War I and the failure of the '20s led to World War II. In our relationship to the Mystery there is the overwhelming dawning on us that God loves us. Now the struggle is with sanctification, or how do I act out my love for God? How do I do this through the creation? The danger in this is that you forget the fact of God's love or set up a dichotomy between that fact and responding in a posture of loving God.

8. Relative to the Jesus story there has been a shift from emphasis on the crucifixion to the resurrection, from being a man of faith by laying down your life on behalf of your neighbor to living your life for your neighbor. These are not separate things, but a shift in our spirit perception. Resurrection is perpetual crucifixion. Resurrection is perpetual dark night. The question now is one of willing my life and death for the creation of humanness. The Father has been experienced as an explosion of awe in the midst of your being and all creation is reconstructed by that explosion. The song, "The Mystery is Everywhere" celebrates the presence of awe in every situation. The Father's creation is the manifestation of life bubbling everywhere. The awe is present in whatever you are doing. We were walking up Sheridan Avenue the other evening and we must have passed fifteen groups of people having a mini­Cabaret. Each group of about a dozen people were singing, and laughing. At first I thought it was a dumb thing to do, and then I wanted to stop and join them. The awe was there. Everywhere you look the Mystery is present as awe manifested in God's creation. Even when you are not participating, and it dawns on you that you have not been aware of the creative manifestation of resurgence, you are filled with wonder, filled with the fear and fascination of your own life and your relationship to the Mystery.

9. Relative to our task we have shifted our focus from the church in the world to the church's responsibility for the world. We have two basic thrusts. One is to impact the church in such a way that it sees itself as responsible for the world. The second is to impact the church indirectly by creating signs of possibility for the church to see, and thereby know that it is actually possible to assume that kind of responsibility. While our focus is shifting to the second of these thrusts, our one task is to enable the church to assume the awe­filling responsibility for this world, accountable to the Father alone. In the witnessing dimension our task is now beyond awakenment. We have shifted from driving into men's consciousness that we have a new world on our hands, to beckoning men to come and participate in the wonder of life. This requires more passion, more discipline, more intentionality, more comprehensiveness, more spirituality than ever before.

10. Relative to justice, the shift has been from saying a "no" to the suffering going on in the world, to bringing to fruition the vision and the possibility that is manifest, to bring to fruition the fact that the world does belong to all. This means creating signs of resurgence in the midst of the world with our presence. It is to get it said that this world is going to come off, and everyman can participate in that. The revolutionary posture is intensified, not weakened. We are out to literally reconstruct this globe, and not less but more discipline, creativity and spirit depth are required. Perhaps God has been preparing us for this through the kind of experiences we have been having. Up to this time we have been beating our heads against a wall, trying to break through. Now we are on the other side of the wall. The danger is in simply enjoying our fascination with the new. But the question we face is what are the foundations of the new world?

11. Relative to a sign, the shift is something like moving from overt discipline to incognito. You now have in your spine an iron rod relative to discipline, to what we say and to what we are out to do we have an iron framework. Yet, no one has to see this. They only know that something has happened in their lives, that something is happening and this is a wonder. Relative to our teaching, there is a shift from the pedagogical posture to a kind of guru posture, or an enticing posture. We no longer have to teach anyone anything, in one sense, but only need to reveal what people already know and allow them to discover it. This requires more hard­headed model building than we have ever dreamed of, and more disciplined rationality, to live out of this kind of posture.

12. Relative to our posture, the shift is from primarily focusing on the disestablishment to focusing on the establishment. This is a shift in the major focus of our transestablishment relationship. Our focus needs to be primarily as priors to the establishment, to be priors of the bishops, the company executives, and others. This does not mean to lead them but to see that they come off, even if you come off like an idiot. We are to be the spirit counselors of the forces of this world. We do not acquire power or status. We are out to see that civilization adopts our posture in the social fabric, yet no one sees it happen. They just know that something has happened, and civilization is coming off. The establishment is given permission to be the establishment. Sophistication is nothing other than this. It is walking into a hotel and enabling people to come off, allowing their creativity to bubble. It is walking into a store in the inner city and enabling people to come off, allowing their creativity to bubble, releasing the possibility of creatively participating in any situation.

13. Xavierism is the way we have talked about the posture of being global. It does not mean you have to travel around the world, but rather enabling the whole world to come off with everything you do, wherever you are. You always stand at the center of the stage, knowing that you are alone, as is every other man alone at the center of the stage. Your task is to allow all the others to come off while standing at the center of the universe. If Bombay fails it is my responsibility and mine alone.

14. I like the way the transestablishment posture was portrayed in the movie, The Scarlet Pimpernel. That man was a failure, a nobody, but in disguise he allowed humanness to happen. You allow people's creativity to come to the fore. The danger is getting into a disguise and getting comfortable, or in losing yourself in your disguise. I would like to be back in school now and watch the students begin to wonder about life, or back on the job and watch the boss begin to bubble, as people begin to engage themselves in life, with passion, in their work, their community, as new creativity breaks loose. And they never know it was the Blue Phantom. All they know is somehow, something happened, something creative happened. Maybe being the Guild will allow us to act out thousands upon thousands of roles, knowing all the time that you are God's creation on this earth, and a stranger too. You have the task of making the whole globe alive to the wonders of life. You have the responsibility of seeing to it that civilization is given the opportunity to manifest its will that humanity will survive.