Global Priors' Council

Chicago

July 21, 1979

If any of you here today were hoping for a definition of the Way, I can get that done with quickly.Webster says that the way is: "a direction, a route; such as, what way do we go?" It is, "room to advance, pass or progress; hence, freedom of action or opportunity." It is, "manner, style, method, procedure;" and "a regular course, method of life or action is the way." The definition of the early Christians was that of "the people of the Way " -- "way" being from the Greek word hodos, which, literally translated, is "the way out." Now, I don't know what it means to be "the people of the way out."

If any of you were hoping for a lecture about authorities on the Way, I could suggest you turn to some of the early fathers, like Luther (perhaps the book, Here I Stand). The Church was sure his thoughts would "up­end" its thinking and action; and he refused to recant his understanding.

Or, if you prefer a more local and current authority, you might read the lecture given in the GRA on "Fulfillment" where Kay tells about the old village woman and why she does what she does.

Or, there are some 20th Century writers who had a lot to say about the way, like the­one who said:

"Every human being knows or can know about its finiteness, for, consciously or unconsciously it is driven this way and that by this finiteness, as long as it exists. It is no more its own master than it is its own creator. It is never perfect, but is driven this way and that by care, which reminds it of its finitude and of its imperfection…no matter how little life can free itself from this care for the things of everyday or for the morrow, it refuses to see in this care what gives life its significance but goes beyond it."

or this one:

"Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness…After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed...In the light of this grace we perceive the power of grace in our relation to others and to ourselves...We experience the grace of being able to accept the life of another even if it be hostile and harmful to us, for, through grace we know that it belongs to the same Ground to which we belong, and by which we have been accepted. We experience the grace which is able to overcome the tragic separation of the sexes, of the generations, or the nations, or the races, and even the utter strangeness between man and nature. Sometimes grace appears in all these separations to reunite us with those to whom we belong. For life belongs to life."

or this one:

"Responsible action is a free venture; it is not justified by any law; it is performed without any claim to a valid selfjustification, and t herefore also without any claim to an ultimate valid knowledge of good and evil...for it is God who sees the heart, who weighs up the deed, and who directs the course of history."

or, the one who reminded us that:

"The Church is that part of human society, and that element in each particular society (and that includes this one), which moves toward God, which, as the priest acting for all men, worships Him, which believes and trusts in Him on behalf of all, which is the first to obey Him when it becomes aware of a new aspect of His will."

Or, if you prefer a more ancient theologian let me read what this "authority" had to say about the Way:

"Five times I received forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep. In journeyings often in perils of water, in perils of robbers, in perils of the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren. In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often in cold and nakedness. Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches."

Now, let me speak to you as a theologian on the Way: for theology is about depth question, perception and struggles with life­­and in that sense, all the wisdom needed for this lecture resides in my life, and in yours.

When we were working on these lectures it was suggested that we lean more on the "fascination" pole than on the "dread" pole. I told Justin that was impossible, for I sure was not fascinated with this journey! He said, "Oh, yes you are. You're fascinated with the dread." In a way, that's been true all my life; but, in a way, its also been not true; if ever you have seen me light up over a new step in a colleague's journey, a breakthrough in the thinking or strategy of our group, or even with the report given to us on Azpitia.

Now, if there is anything I should feel about Azpitia, it certainly should not be delight, or even fascination. I should be still feeling nothing but humiliation from my experience there. But the strangeness of this "awe" is that both experiences are true; the dread­and­the­fascination is this Way we somehow find ourselves upon.

I was gone a long while on the Panchayat Visitation. When I returned to New York to celebrate 25 years of marriage, I gave Justin a silver altar set. He gave me a trip to Peru­­to an HDP consult of all things! It was the last thing in the world I wanted to do right then and the worst time for the Area to go. But you don't say "no" to gifts, particularly on your 25th wedding anniversary. And, besides there were all those other people who had contributed to make sure I'd go­­so I was trapped.

I put off getting to Azpitia by going first to Venezuela. I watched my colleagues in action in Caracas and Cano Negro­­fantastic' I then went to the city of Lima, where a lot of poverty is mixed with wealth. Still, it was exotic, with a lot of Indians selling things on the street­­fantastic! I went on a three­hour train trip to the Lost City of the Incas. From the train I saw much poverty along the way; felt really sorry about it­­from the train. But that great ancient mysterious city set in the giant mountains­fantastic' Unbelievable scenery­­green, lush, huge hills ringing with voices from the past.

Then I arrived at Azpitia­­a little village on a desert shelf: the constant drizzle of rain collecting in big drops on the roof waiting to drop on your head or your bed, constant dirt, constant lack of privacy, colleagues who give you jobs you can't do. Never been to a consult­­end up being a team leader, failing every day and humiliated by that.

With just one and one­half days to go before the end of the consult, I found myself packing my bag and getting into the next car back to Lima, hoping my colleagues wouldn't figure out what in hell was going on before I could get out of there'

And during all of this, I'm watching myself calmly packing; I'm watching myself getting into the car­­this one who gets back on the bike after a fall, who goes back into the water after nearly drowning; this one from sturdy pioneer stock that had forged the West; who alway bounces back into the fray no matter how often humiliated; this one who is always back into the situation while struggling with it­­here I was, for the first time in my life in the Order, leaving an assignment before it was over.

I got to Lima, but didn't know what I was going to do. I figured if I went to New York, I would have to explain why I was home a few days earlier than expected. So I called Seattle from my hotel room in Lima: "Daddy, did you really mean what you said 25 years ago, that if I ever had trouble not to come running home?" I ended up in Seattle nursing my dysentery, miserable cold and aching body.

Now, mind you, I was clear from the moment I watched myself packing that suitcase that it was not the physical condition of myself; it was not the physical conditions of Azpitia; it was not the horrendous task of being a team leader not knowing what you are doing; it was not even my colleagues. I was very clear that I was facing just one decision: do I want to stay on this journey or not? And, at that point, I was saying: "I am not going to. Even if it is all wrong, there must be another way"" I was also clear that there was not a better way; yet, I was going to choose any other wav than this one.

I planned to stay in Seattle and get a job. I was most certainly not going to end up in Chicago this summer, because I knew if I got here I would get excited, and I couldn't trust that. But, in Seattle, even after my health got better, I couldn't seem to make a move to the phone to start working on a job, let alone l^ok at the want­ads. I got to thinking some more and I got to figuring I really ought to get on back to New York­­there were too many loose ends: bills to pay, things I needed to finish. Besides, all the clothes I had with me were blue. I didn't want to go there; too humiliating ­­ I would have to explain too much. But I thought maybe I could work it out so that I could avoid explanations, especially if I arrived when I was supposed to. I thought maybe I could work in New York-that way I wouldn't have to move all my things so far; but there are so many colleagues you'd keep running into. Still, I could get a pretty good job in New York; after all, when I'd quit working, I was an executive with a secretary and an expense account, and I had good contacts. So I went back to New York; then I wished I'd stayed in Seattle.

I couldn't believe how excited I was with any news about what had been going on in Area New York and with seeing the colleagues there. Now, how is that possible? They were the same donkeys I'd left behind when I went to Azpitia, and much like the ones I had left behind there."

Now, you must picture me sitting in our living space in the New York House. It takes a lot of effort to figure out where to live if you leave, and what you'll take. After all, how do you divide the three pieces of furniture you've been carrying around for 25 years between two people? The crowning touch was looking at three four­drawer file cabinets and facing a decision about what to take that will change the world~

About that time, a colleague visiting New York willingly missed his plane just to face me and say, "You know, Dolores, Area New York has no representative in Chicago helping to prepare for the GRA' Now, he knew that would get me' For deep inside me I knew the only way I was going to affect anything for the fllture was by getting here. So, here I stand, still here after 13 Years.

It is all God's fault­­gets me into this bind all the time. No, it's my fault­­I should have stayed in Seattle. No, it's finally no one's fault, because it is no "fault" at all. I am fascinated with the dread and dreaded by the fascination of this Way of life. and there is no escape from that. Life is dread and fascination. In a way, you could say it is God who did that, for we are as indicatively driven in our spirit journey on the Way as we are indicatively driven into and out of life. We are driven to be in the continual tension of the dread­in­the­fascination and the fascination­in­the­dread. For the Way is not about "waiting around 'til tomorrow for the sun to come up."

When I got to Chicago and I heard some people talk I sometimes wondered if we had been on the same journey for not everyone experienced themselves as having had "a hundred million miracles." I think we have been on the same one, however; even though some of us have been experiencing more fascination than the dread. I was aware that in the preparation for the GRA I would be as excited as I could be. In the mornings I was really creative in the Spirit Life Task Force. By afternoon I would be saying, "the hell with the GRA." For the journey we are on is one of feeling both bound and free at the same time. It is an experience of all states of being at once, heaven and hell in the same situation.

I was thrown back into remembering the times this year when I could not understand how someone could speak with elation about the Town Meeting he or she had just done and then "abandon the ship" the next day. When I was forced into full responsibility as an Area prior because of various incidents; when I went on that Panchayat visitation to the Houses; when I saw people in Azpitia moving so fast in their anticipations that we were going to have to run to keep up with them, I got clear that it was possibility that filled me with dread. You panic! Some people even go into temporary insanity over it. You discover yourself as something you never were before, and it scares you. The dread once was in conquering the impossible. The dread now is in fearing the failing of the Way in the midst of the possible.

We, as a body, have experienced a shift in our journey because a deep revelation of the immensity of what we have undertaken and what is demanded. We have moved from the despairing over the self to the despairing over the corporate. We have moved from the purging of our solitary desires to the purging of our own will. We have moved from having a single prophet lifting up the visionary impossible­possible to us as our declaration of intent, to discovering we are the ones who are required to make that radical declaration. We are finding that the self of ourselves and the self of us as a corporate body is changing, and we are afraid of losing that self, for we do not yet know what it will become. The spirit resolve we are up against in the midst of this dread and continual fascination is the courage to be­­­to be who we are. But we are who we invent we are; that is, the "we" that we are will be invented by us' Another way to talk about it is as Tillich does, "the courage to take death upon oneself;" for every new thing requires the death of the old.

How did we get here? First, we should remind ourselves that throughout all time, awakened people have seen their lives as "journey." The journey we have decided to participate in is "the Way" journey. As one colleague put it, "though the Way is open to all, relatively few will choose self­consciously to take it and almost no one will be consistently faithful to it." Yet it remains there continually, to choose to be on and to be part of. It is like courage. Courage has already been given to us, we are always picking it up or putting it down. Never before have we had such a challenge to continue to pick it up as we have now in this century. On the other hand, you would also have to say, as Hammersjold did, "You did not choose the Way, the Way chose you." Anyone who has ever asked the question, "Why me, Oh Lord?" knows what he meant by that statement. The Way is that which both chooses us and that which we choose. It is Being itself, and it is the knowing and action along the way which is the Way.

Let me talk about the journey we have been on, through a myth. Once upon a time, as the great move of the Spirit breathed across this globe, individuals were brought together by a common experience. It was called "new life." It came out of the pain of the journey of the last half of the 20th century. Their participation in that pain brought forth various rebellious and creative responses. These people discovered that the very pain and the responses made were necessary for the transformation of the despair of this century into an image of this century as the greatest transition period of civilization. Thus, it was, that the most creative challenge of all came to the people of these times. For lo, they had discovered that the judgement of God was the very mercy of God. As their illusion­filled worlds were shattered by the truth­filled Word, they were freed to responsibility for the whole of civilization. They became the new social pioneers of our age.

These people banded together, hardly aware of what they were getting into. They began to put form on their creative awareness in order to shift history towards a viable human form capable not merely of survival, but af creative global community. They had been awakened to a new consciousness of possibility; and in that, they had also been awakened to Care. They saw that their task was to carry the transparent Word to every single human being, as guardians of the profound dimension of life and of the social order. The Word they carried was wholly secular, eternally contemporary, radically human and totally universal, cutting across all human, religious and cultural boundaries. It declared that this life is good, and that when you make this declaration, the future is unlimited.

They were a peculiar people who stood in the tension of saying a radical "yes" to the life which they had been given; at the same time saying a radical "no" to the injustices of that same century. They set out with the task of creating a new religious mode and a new social vehicle, not in defiance of God and creation, but in order that "God could be saved" as one writer put it; or as another author said, in God's words, "How I long to be created further." This body of people risked itself as the prophet of civilization, demonstrating hope where there was none. They were claimed by the Way and walked with the Way. Some individuals in venturing into that risk and uncertainty and danger, got burned out along the Way. Some still present may not be there in the future.

This is our story, the journey of the people who have taken a three­fold journey of consciousness and care. The first experience had something to do with decisional self­hood. It is the first awakenment to the journey which eventually plunged us into the Center. In our discovery of spirit, there was a break­loose of the deeps, out of our "acceptance of our acceptance." Our quest for truth had ended in a kind of certainty, and we wanted to "nurse" the experience by sharing it with everyone. As we matured in that descent to the Center, we found our certitude changing to utter ignorance, and we searched to understand what was going on. In the midst of a decision to be the solitary spirit person on the journey, there was a vocational passion that released a new resolve to be in charge of that journey and to respond to the indicative call of the Mystery. Our final plunge to the Center was one of surrendering to God's service­­­having compassion for the entire universe.

That plunge to the Center left us wandering over the topography of the Other World which lay in that Center, in which we discovered concretely what such surrender would demand. Like one of our colleagues said years ago, "Once you have been to the Center, you have been to the Center. You never can live your life the same again in terms of the raw bottom of it all. Ever since you were in your mother's arms you were taught to be responsible to your family, nation, community, church, and even to all of history. But once you have gone to the Center, you can never be responsible again, except to God. The spirit person lives life out of only one orientation­before God­­that is, accountable alone to the Final Mystery. Therefore, any posture you want to take inside this world makes you an outcast, the odd one. And that's your doom. Never again can you be "at home in this world "

We were plunged into the deeps of the pain of realizing we had been forever scarred by the 20th century, by the moral issue of our times, and with the profound meaning of the full weight of care. It was as if our awakening had moved from the first elation of the "new life" to the awareness of the dramatic implications that awakening had in terms of our journey as pioneers (much like the dawning of the Israelites in the midst of the desert after leaving the security of Egypt, or the United States westward pioneers who envisioned great dreams and discovered the pain and death entailed in crossing the plains and mountains toward those dreams.)

The Dark Night has been a releasing image of absolution to us corporately. It is a way for us to speak of the dread­­­the burning of the expanded consciousness. We have found a name to put on our experiences of humiliation, weakness, resentment and the suffering of "no escape." Naming it did not take it away­­we still had those experiences in the midst of the Long March of Care (we still do). That March started our return to this world. Our colleague also reminded us: "The one who lives toward the center and is responsible only to God is the one who returns. Only that one is in a position where it is necessary or possible to return. You go outside. You do not return to be accountable to this world, to be responsible to this world; but you return to be responsible for it....not for any part of it, not for any dimension of it, but for all of it." The March of Care filled us with the dread of having no home, of ineffectivity because we knew that our few programs and projects were not going to solve this world's ills. We experienced depletion, being too weak to do what is necessary; and unfulfillment because the end results were often not what we expected.

In the midst of that pain resurgence came­­­and comes and comes again and again­­­in the re­discovery that God is friend rather than enemy. We are loved by the Mystery itself and therefore, capable of the courage to do the impossible which has been laid upon us by history, and therefore. by God.

It was in the midst of our re­awakening to the profoundness of this Faith beyond any particular faiths, this Hope beyond any particular hopes, and this Love beyond any particular loves, that we could hear anew the "cry of those doomed to die." We could not stay in the topography of the Other World and delight in our re­discoveries­­­or in our pain. We were called to return to the Way of Service­­­even though we had thought we were already doing it.

Our ascent in that journey from the center is that of historical covenant. We are passing through the horrendous experiences of total identification with this world, its joys and its abject misery. The return to service is the Way of awakening others to the journey of humanness. It is the opportunity given to all people to experience what it means to be fulfilled human beings. We have returned to demonstrate to society the possibility of life. We have returned to create a new order in this world. We have the task of catalyzing Faith, Hope, and Love. We have returned to embody the new transparent unity which cuts across all faiths and cultures.

We have experienced, in this ascent to service, a certain dislocation, which has come from being ever aware of the doom of the world and the waste of human life and creativity. (Once God has plucked off your eyelashes, how can you ever close your eyes again.) In the overwhelming empathy with the disenfranchised peoples of this world, one is spiritually suffocated and physically depleted. There is a great desire to avoid encounter with the "other," to escape from any further awakening­­­­"I don't want any more consciousness than I've got!" Or, there is the desire to just be absorbed by the "other" as a way to escape the tension­­whether it be other cultures, or man and woman, or our polity. At the same time, this experience intensifies the fascination and decision to continue on this march, with the whole world as the arena of my care.

There is the experience of disorientation when measured by worldly accomplishments. You see your expenditure as totally absurd in the light of the world's tragedy. There is the desire to escape from that awe­filled mundanity into the good life­­perhaps someone else will come along who can do it better, or maybe it will just all work out if we leave everybody alone. At the same time, there is the intensified fascination and decision that one can live as a total social failure. the public symbol of the suffering servant for the sake of the disinherited.

We are experiencing in the ascent the compulsion for human authenticity. You are by care possessed, you become aware that you are no longer the same self. There is a gap because you fear you have lost the self altogether. Everything you had understood yourself and those with whom you serve to be has been totally shattered. The desire is to escape into some efficiency by taking on some other type of expenditure, or into some colleagueship where there is less tension. At the same time, there is the intensified decision of relentless commitment and the continual fascination to stay with the task of history. You find yourself endlessly caught up in re­occurring decisional passion. .. and you can't figure out why '

This dislocation of the ascent is also experienced in the rejection by this world. You have surrendered "private" concerns in order to move history through corporate power. You have given up your individual integrity for the integrity the mission requires. You are pulled in the tension of the world's demand for public accountability which demands you be seen as "un­alien", while feeling forever a stranger in this land. This haunting paranoia presses one to escape into some kind of spiritual respectability or routine obedience, or into the establishing of the organization of the Order." Yet, in the midst of this is the intensified fascination and decision to remain as ally to the Mystery alone in unshakeable commitment, beyond the persuasion of the world­walking one's own death and spiritual suffering and physical ruin with the Eternal League, on a life project which will send us on to our historical demise.

Potential defections and demons on such a fearful and fascinating journey have always been with us. The masks are merely different in each phase. Some which seem to­me to be the most dramatic these days include getting lost in our accomplishments, becoming program­set, an agency, or even retreating to the good old courses that "work~l".

Or, there is wanting to be "somebody". I thought the longer I was in this outfit the more I would have conquered this ­­but instead, it is more of a temptation to us all than ever before­­especially since Joe's death.

There is the longing for a perfect community, which we will never, never get. I would like this outfit to be the ideal "world society, lifting up the sign to the world. I'm frustrated when we show up being a mere microcosm of this world. I struggle with God's continual crushing of our ideal community.

Then, there is that "apostasy" which is what I would like to call deliberately choosing the insignificant; that is, knowing full well that anything else I choose will not respond to the moral issue of our time...and not even bothering to try to convince myself otherwise (although some still do, I guess because they think they can get rid of the pain of The Way by reducing their arena of responsibility to something they can handle). I think, though, that most defections these days are more like, "I would rather choose anything else than continue on this particular journey." A colleague told me a story the other day of Aboriginal rites of passage, in which boys are put up in a tree and a fire set underneath. They are asked if they are willing to continue to the journey. The fire is built higher and higher as the question is asked again and again. And....some choose to burn up in the tree rather than continue the journey. There is the desire to choose some reduced place in life where I don't have to die my total self and I certainly wouldn't have to die with the colleagues I've discovered I'm dying with!

If some of you in this room have not yet experienced this­­you will, when you stop your doing long­enough to reflect. We have been set upon the journey of the return, and, in the midst of it, are experiencing both the great elation of victories and of great pain over both defeat and possibility. The various ways we've had of talking about the journey; be it the Dark Night, the Long March, Faith, Hope and Love­­all are the same journey. The Dark Night does­not go away. The Long March is what we are on. Faith, Hope and Love is what we are about.

Now, I more thing before I stop. I believe that this journey we've been on is somehow not just ours­­but is society's journey. It is the journey of this century. It is the journey of communities­­although some are not conscious of that fact. Rollo May claims that "insane ones" are portenders of the spirit state of the society; that is, they experience ahead of their society the disorientation their society will be experiencing. Now, I don't know whether he is right, or whether our journey is really a reflection of the community's present journey or future journey­­but I am sure about one thing. If our spirit journey has come from our relationship to the historical process and our participation in it, then it must also be true for the community. And if that is true, then it says something about our caring for what way that community chooses.

Now, some of my colleagues said I should be humorous (and; we do need to have a little sense of humor about this journey), so perhaps I can describe what I mean this way. One day I went to a dentist in Uptown. I had an abscessed tooth. I felt rotten. I had on my old green raincoat with torn pockets and hanging and missing buttons. I hadn't washed my hair in days. My head was hanging pretty low. I saw the dentist and he said I was not only going to have to have this abscessed tooth dealt with but that I also has pyorrhea and would need it operated on. Well, I'd gone through that pain before, and when I walked back home, my nose was scraping the pavement. And old bum leaning against the wall called out, "Hey lady." I thought, "Oh, God, I don't want to have to think through a comprehensive context on whether I should give this guy a dime or not." So I kept on walking; and he called out again, "Hey Lady! You have fantastic kneecaps!" Now, in all my years of marriage my husband has not even noticed my kneecaps. And in my 46 years, I haven't really even noticed my kneecaps­­in fact, I never considered them as one of my redeeming features. But, I tell you, I walked home that day in a different way! My head was up and my back straight and proud.

Now, you take a grubby, unwashed community, torn here and there by much wear, discouraged with the aches, frustrated by the seeming impossibilities. And some bum­­perhaps even wearing Blue­­a nobody from society, never even made it, notices that community and lifts up to that community an awareness of its fantasticness and, oh boy, that community starts walking a new way!

The spirit that got birthed across this globe is not ours, but it was breathed across all humankind...and we are servants of it.

"The courage of the Reformers is not the courage to be oneself...for the courage of confidence is not rooted in confidence about oneself...one can become confident about one's existence only after ceasing to base one's confidence on oneself...It is the courage to be­­­threatened neither by the loss of oneself nor by the loss of one's world."