Global Priors' Council

Chicago

July 25, 1979

After the Way spin the other day, I thought, "Wouldn't it be great to be forced to think through "the Way" like that, but I know I would never do it on my own." Well, I got surprised. Part of being on the Way has to do with getting surprised.

The spin this morning is on the action of the Way. I want to read the poetry of one of our songs.

We are in a New World now,

No longer is it hidden

We struggle to create the edge

Our local passion given;

We were born to build the earth

Our lives consumed with praise

Gazing straight with open eyes

The phoenix does arise.

Our family had the opportunity to attend church a week ago when we were visiting my sister in a little town in western Pennsylvania. We were not going to go, but the man preaching had left New Wilmington 30 years earlier for a church in Miami. He opened his sermon by saying, "I don't know what I said when I was last here because I haven't been invited back for 30 years." He was a rugged guy who had retired and gone back to cattle raising on a farm nearby. I am telling you all this because it seemed to me his sermon was on the Way. He started out by saying to the congregation, "You are not serving God when you come here"' I thought he has probably been to RS­1 in Miami. He said, "This is worshipping God. Serving is when you go out from here." You choose the road, and there are a lot of people today not choosing it. He talked about the Damascus Road -- ­the happening somewhere in your life that wakes you up and gives you a whole new orientation; which can send you to the desert or to the mountain. He talked about the Jericho Road of the Good Samaritan, where you encounter the suffering of your neighbor and are compelled to act out your care. He then talked about the Emmaus Road, where Jesus appeared to the disciples and reminded them that the Journey is always there; it is the way of all men, past, present, and future who go down the road believing they can make a difference. That sermon seemed very true to me. You can choose another road that is not the Way. The image John Dunne uses of going to the mountain and the return to the world really stuck with us this year. The Journey of the Way is the return -- ­and that return is the Action that is the Way.

I want to talk about the action that is the Way in four ways: as urgent historical engagement, as profound local care, as sustaining mythology, and as trusting the totality -- the all in all. I would like to go to Maliwada. Someday, I want to see the fort that is above the village which I have seen only in pictures. That fort has something to do with urgent historical action. It must have come forth out of a colossal happening way back when, built by a group of people who believed it was the time for it. It is like the pyramids or Stonehenge. Some profound historical happening when a whole people moved into a new venture -- where they had not been before.

This has been a year of urgent historical engagement for me. It has been relentless action, all­consuming, hard. At the same time, it was a very simple year, for it required nothing new of me -- ­nothing that I did not know -- not a lot of preparation -- just action. And it required being that action. I said to myself many times, "How can I do Stake Three once again with passion?" I have been wondering how one cares for oneself in a time of such action. I knew it was not by knowing. I could not get interested in any books this year. I did not have a fresh insight in my head. I would be assigned to give a witness and I would struggle for over an hour -- ­nothing. I would brood for a week -- ­nothing. I would try to pull out wisdom from the past -- ­nothing. I tried being spontaneous, I finally just gave up. It was not knowing that kept me on the Way -- ­it was historical action that you knew was going to make a difference in history.

Then I found it very hard to be alone. I never wanted to be in my room. We talked all year about fixing up our room, but we never did. We went to Tanzania over the holidays to visit the church hierarchy and make some LENS calls, build models, etc. and swim. It was awful -- not the contacts -- the Church would love us to come there -- ­but the restlessness. We walked up and down, tried to read, did not build any models. We were so glad to get back to Kapini. When we got back, I was sick with malaria which gave me time to realize that I was all wrong. The action that is the Way is not some kind of activism in a human development project but action that is the keystone; it is like the last click when­you are opening one of those giant locks and the door begins to open. It is the last piece of the puzzle that allows you to see. It is the pivot point of any situation. It is the element which will allow a whole community to take a leap. There is something compelling about the action that is the Way -- ­it is like running down a railroad track because a diesel engine is bearing down on your backside -- you look and no diesel engine -- and you just keep moving it anyway.

I remember a sentence in the Niebuhr paper we use in RS­1 that talks about urgency. A lot of people miss that word urgency. In Zambia, Kapini just had to be a sign for the continent and the globe. That is nothing new, but I experienced it with a new kind of urgency. We worked to create that urgency too and were caught up in it. We were pharisees this year about starting daily office on time, not for the sake of the daily office, but because we all sensed that if we lost there all would be lost. Deep within us was a fear of loosing the momentum -- ­of sliding back -- ­becoming routine. A poet once said that there is a kind of dying that is easy -- ­that slow dying where you just let up a little here, then there, then you're gone or you've lost. It is relentless, urgent action that is the Way. On Saturday nights we would buy beer and coke and have "Saturday Night Fever." We would do some ballet pirouettes, Walter Nkana, the John Travolta of Kapini, would dance, and Ben Becker, the engineer from Holland didn't dance a lot so he would wave his arms and leap around the room. We were crazy on Saturday nights. It wore out a bit by June but it saved us -- ­the radically discontinuous.

This experience helped me to get clear that taking care of yourself these days is not privacy. It is care for each other. The 1001 tasks will not sustain you. Working a 24 hour day will not do it. It is seeing transformed human life and being a part of bringing that into being. I understand that the circuiters in many places have discovered how to do this. They move as a team, read from the Journal, and even decor the car. In the action that is the Way, there is not time to polish and clean up the past. The Way continues to drive on and it will burp up those who are driven to be the action that history requires.

The action of the Way is profound local care. It is profound because it transforms, heals, catalyzes, and creates new hope. One of the most important things we did this year cost about $40 and took half a day to complete. We put in a courtyard at the Training Center. One of the auxiliary said she longed for the courtyard when she was at the Human Development Training School in Kawangware. The courtyard is space that is healing for all of us.

We have talked this year about Africa as the sleeping giant, and our tactics, the workdays and celebrations were ticklers to wake him up. We have all experienced the giant waking. The power that we witness there is local and it is profound. I kept expecting it to get dull and it never does. Stake Three always turned into an event. People become extraordinarily alive when they experience their effectivity and see a new human situation unfold as the result of their action. This is going to make the difference.

The action of the Way is sustaining mythology. One of the big events in Kapini this year was the letter we received from Vinod in Maliwada. When the letter was read, everyone cheered, even though he was asking for money. That letter, in a very significant way, tied us all into India, to the global task. Hearing that others were engaged in the relentless never­ending task of local care formed a new sustaining mythology in Kapini that was not only about one person being bound to another in the global task, but one community bound to another.

Cephas is a young man on the auxiliary who has never passed grade seven in school. He is the most powerful catalyzer of action I have ever seen, however. He was looking forward to being assigned to Latin America after he read a report on Sol de Septiembre. At the beginning of the summer he said, "I want to make sure replication gets off the ground here and then I'll be ready for a global assignment." He knows that catalyzing the local community wherever you are is the global task. That is the story that has sustained us all. I wished we had received a letter from the Mississippi 200 and the Mactan 222 as well. It is the mythology that allows us to stand before the totality of the task.

The action of the Way is trusting the totality. What we have done this year is overwhelming. There will be more demands on us every year. The all in all -- ­complex, overwhelming totality. In the midst of that reality the Way always wins. The Way always has its Way. It will take our actions and bring them to fruition, throw up endless blocks, rip the models to shreds. It is all the Way.

We built a dam in the Mwembeshi River during the rainy season in Kapini this year. It was a tough job, but we said we would do it. Every morning we sang the songs that would whomp up the dam building crew. Every night they would come back saying this was the last dam building day. Digging out a foundation in water was muddy and mucky. They would shovel it out and it would fill again. Finally, the foundation was laid for the second time. Then the massive wall went up -- slowly. There was a large circular opening through which the water flowed. The day came to close the hole. ­The water level­rose. After the months of labor the whole community watched for the water to reach the irrigation ditch. One night in the darkness it broke through under the foundation -- just ruptured. It was awful -- impossible to repair without major cost and effort. The dam was the key to our major economic move in order for the village to have year round farming on the 20 acres which were cleared and ready. The Way always wins and you get caught surprised. We thought that dam was a sure­victory. We had bet a lot on it. On the other hand, no one expected the visit to Dr. Kaunda, the President to be the victory it was. You build the models, you do the expenditure, but the Way wins it all and you are surprised. It was not the way we expected. When you see people on the way bringing about human transformation you find you trust the totality of the Way. Human transformation happens even though the outcome surprised you.

I was looking at some pictures of the early days in the Order. There is one of the group that was first sent out to the religious houses in 1968. I was mumbling something about early pioneers and someone pointed out that that wasn't very long ago. I was struck again by the huge leaps we've taken. Somehow you almost need a picture to see the leaps. When the Panchayat team came to Kapini and pointed to the victories, "Hey, look at that," you are surprised at the victory -- surprised at the incredible care that has happened.

Sometimes you show up ripped apart for no reason at all, weary, expended with the old brokenness still there -- and yet you are stronger than ever. It is being on the Way -- trusting the Way will win.

The Action that is the Way is Exemplary Living or being the General. You are the action -- you be the action. Yet these days that usually does not mean always being out front. I loved being a nobody this year -- I just delighted in the giants in blue. When they all came back from the HDTS in Nairobi we had a celebration dinner and heard their reports. They were alive and filled with deep excitement. During the school, Harry had built a pig house in two weeks; Cephas had led the construction of the plaza and put up an Iron Man. The trench in Kamwaleni, the brochure Peter worked on, Chimwanga the Prior -- all were great victories. Theirs had been a journey to the life of service, of care, of being on the way. It is having the methods and knowing you can do the job. And they really moved. Cephas insisted one quarter that one of our maneuvers be called "Blood, Sweat and Tears". He was a builder. I forget what he was building but blood, sweat and tears was all we heard for the quarter. The action that is the Way is living at the limits of your passion. It is action that requires all of your resolve, all of your will, your whole Being. You are the Exemplar. When you begin to see that happen in the local community you know you are seeing the Action that is the Way. You become clear that it is going to take all to win.

One phenomenon in the village has been the "shooting down" of the local leadership when they try to stand. It has meant a person never making it. We finally saw the gift in that. The village had decided it was not going to have some new elite, but was going to move together as a village. You see you are not out to compete but win -- to have the whole village make it into the 21st century or no one at all.

I read a card the other day in the airport with a quote by Kamu. "Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Walk beside me kind be my friend." I think he really meant colleague. It means moving as one body, one community. ­

Yet the general sets the style, and makes sure the task is always out on the edge in a position of risk -- not security -- always a bit beyond the possible, beyond routine, beyond a reasonable outcome. I remember when the foundation for the Kapini training center was laid during pouring rain. Of course you can't build in the rain; but it was built in the rain. I remember forcing the completion of the guild hall on Sunday when it did not get done on the workday as scheduled. Or, it was absurd for all the auxiliary to leave the village for two weeks during the building of the bridge -- to travel in crowded buses and the Tanzem train 1800 kilometers to Dar es Salaam and 2700 Kilometers to Nairobi for the Council. We left project, money and car in the hands of the village. The general keeps that edge beyond reasonableness. This is the action that is the Way.

The Action that is the Way is a guardianship task ­guardianship of the Way of all, for all are on the Way. I asked myself, "Why are we concerned about action on the Way?' We are concerned about being the guides. In the Sufi stories there's always the traveller and the guide, but the guide is also on the Way. We think we decided to be on the Way -- but are reminded that the Way chose us. Someone along the Way just pointed it out to us and we said our yes or no. The guardianship task cares for the overlooked, the disengaged and points to the Way. It is concerned with putting people on the Way, with storying and visioning.

I was glad to hear again the story from the Ancient of Days. Ronstrom decides to build from stone when the wood has burned. Thorpe says "How can we do this?" Ronstrom was of the Way. He knew how to enter that situation and take out of it the rock. It's like that quote: "The weakness of many men is that they do not know how to become a stone or a tree." The situation always has the answer. Ronstrom knew the rock. He was the rock. All levels of life were open to him and could be used to keep people on the Way. That is all Ronstrom did -- ­keep people on the Way.