Chicago Centrum

Continental Presidium

12/14/73

I guess I have gained a certain repute for my capacity to sleep through the news conversations at breakfast. I found it a convenient time to sleep because there was never a whole lot, that I could tell, going on in them. For 6 years now, ever since I have been in the Movement, it has seemed like the news conversations have had something to do with Viet Nam. I could read the newspaper on Monday, and pretty well participate right through the week. And if I slept through one or two conversations I really didn't miss a iota, in terms of new data. This quarter, if I have not read the newspaper by 5 o'clock in the morning, I have just missed out. Yes, it has been a "three­ring circus" going on in the newspaper. It has been a "three­ring circus" over the radio every time I turned it on. Nixon is doing acrobatics like I have never seen a politician do in my whole life; I simply can't believe it! People are pulling scandals out of hats, from behind what I thought were the "cleanest" ears in the whole world. Then, the energy crisis popped up in the middle of all this, and some people say that they are not sure there really is one.

A kind of wildness is breaking loose over the world. In the midst of the Movement, it has shown up terribly significantly this quarter. There was a time when I used to be busy all of the time. It was one thing right after another: one course, another course, another course, another course; a Local Church Consult, some sort of speaking engagement' and then something else. But they used to follow one another at least' Now­a­days, it's as if they are on top of one another.

I found myself sitting in a couple's living room earlier this quarter giving one of the better LENS pitches I have heard myself give; and was rather impressed with the fact that they were saying, "yes," they were interested in coming to LENS. Then, for a minute, I was sort of shocked. My colleague was jerking me with his elbow. I realized finally, that we were there to get money from these people. We were not recruiting for anything! I realized that I had forgotten which pitch to give! I don't know if you have suddenly discovered yourself wearing the wrong hat in relation with whom you are talking.

I don't know what all of that points to, except, perhaps the kind of missional diversification, or Missional Expansion, that leaves you reeling. It's the way in which the world has shown up in resurgence. We in the Movement show up with a whole new diversity of fronts. I used to be very clear that what it meant to love God was to recruit big RS­I's and teach them. Nowadays, if that were all I did, I wouldn't even begin to chip the number of different fronts we find ourselves dealing with. I think the terrible struggle of that has to do with focusing one's life How do I focus my passion on one particular task? I could not very well do a development call on that one day, with passion, if I was confused by thinking my passion belonged in LENS. What we need is RS­I taught with more passion. I, for one, have gone around beating myself over the head thinking that I needed to be more passionate when I teach RS­I. I think, finally, that may be true but this passion has to do with the image of ourselves as a Movement, focused in one direction in any one particular time. There was a time when all we were about, finally, was expenditure. Now­a­days, how is it that we grasp that expenditure alone is no crucifixion? In expenditure alone, I could well be putting my life down a rat hole, doing whatever thing happens to come up.

How is it that we put the kind of design upon our expenditure as a Movement so that, at any point, we are passionately dealing with the edge of humanness, in that particular situation? I guess, finally, that has to do with Rationality. Remember back to Summer '72, when we started working with this. We did something called The Designs of the Movement, a kind of a blueprint for all the things we did as a Movement, trying to begin to get rationality on those. And we worked with something called The Tactical System. Then, in Summer '73, we did something called The Whistle points.

Just take a look at those for a minute. They began to pull together both the design of Summer '72 and the tactical systems into a picture which we said held the way in which radical social transformation took place, at any time in history. We said that, in the first instance, whenever society has taken a turn, whenever there has been a resurgence, there has been the birth of a new myth, or a new way of life story­telling, in the midst of society. We have seen that happen in the Twentieth Century. I suspect that our presence here, in any way at all, is a response to the way in which the Twentieth Century way of living, has taken a shift.

Then, we have said that there is new action or new social forms that take place when there is social change. Think of the way cities began to emerge. when the Middle Ages got its story about life articulated. That kind of shift we are pointing to here. We have also said that does not happen just by magic; that happens through certain forces. The first of those we called the Servant­ hood Force, or an Order force; the second we called a Cell Force; and the third a Guild Force. Servanthood Forces are those who come into being in response to this story ­­ those who see that symbolic presence gets concretized in a Guild Force. Guild Forces are those who figure out practically the kind of social forms which embody this new story. In a way, you can see that this Cell Force is a key that holds together all three of those forces. I suspect that in the midst of the Movement this cell force is closest to what we call the "Metro Cadre." It is that body which stands as the one who, at any particular time, holds the vision and the practical task together in a concrete piece of geography.

All of these activities take place in four kinds of systems or four kinds of social forms: an Impact System, that is, a way of opening people's eyes; a Training System, that is , how is it I operate out of a new image of the world using practical methods; a Research System; and finally, a Demonstration System. We need to find a way to focus our activities and previous gestalts in our systems of Impact, Research, Training and Demonstration.

I suppose no matter what gestalt we use, the issue becomes, how does that Cell Force operate? How is it you operate in the midst of this kind of activity? It has something to do with the way that Cell Force or Metro Cadre, those who, like a field general, are responsible for the local situation grasp Priorship. I suspect that has to do with how all of us grasp Priorship. It comes to me, more and more, that Priorship has to do with "generalship," not so much with quicky heroic expenditure, like Patton but rather with the strategic image of how troops need to be deployed to do everything all at once. Priorship, as far as I can tell, has to do with generalship. Priorship is not "doing it yourself." In the movie Patton, if you recall, he decided at one point that he himself would deal with the planes flying above his office, so he got out there with his pistol and he shot at them­­heroic, perhaps, but having absolutely no effect relative to those planes.

It is increasingly humanly impossible for us as a Movement to ourselves do the job that needs to be done relative to this world. The group that you might be able to muster together as your close and immediate colleagues in any particular situation are increasingly ridiculous in the face of the kind of task that needs to be done.

As far as I can tell, Priorship has to do, first, with figuring out who has within them the remotest shred of Priorship you might be able to use in some way, so that it may blossom into something useful. How is it that you mobilize the largest mass of troops, of whatever quality, to do the job that needs to be done? Priorship actually comes by doing prioring. It does not show up in the field full blown. It is by actual recruiting that you get a recruiter; it is not by keeping him home and sending out another who himself is ready to do the job.

Secondly, I sense Priorship is not magic. I find my greatest desire these days ia to be a prior like the guys in the Kung Fu movies: they walk into a situation and, "A­Ha"' It's done! The prior walks into that "A­Ha" situation and painlessly, without struggle, it is dealt with. He makes a fantastic, heroic show, but, generally, does not show appropriate results. I suspect that Priorship actually has to do with seeing ahead of oneself to the long­range, or the large battle, that has to be won, rather than the immediate stack of wood which would be very oppressive to split. How does he devise the kind of plan which will win this entire battle? How is the story told about one engagement or another which enables its contribution toward total victory? I have been to courses this quarter where we were told there would be forty people. When we arrived Friday night twenty­five appeared at a table set for forty. The whole course comes off as a sort of defeat. If someone had said, "Well, we expect twenty," and then twenty­five came, it would have been quite something. There is no reason to say you expect forty when you know well enough that you are not going to get that number. I suspect we have to learn how to adapt our story to assure that winning has taken place.

Thirdly, Priorship does not take place out of the "line of fire." But it isn't just anywhere there's shooting. The general is in the trench which is crucial to victory. No one is too good to be in the trench; no one is too good to be in the kitchen, if the kitchen is the key to the whole. I could not get over a PLC I taught in this quarter, in which a galaxy pastor cooked for us. The power that action held for the clergymen in that course was overwhelming. I suspect it had something to do with a decision that that particular trench had a kind of signal secret power. So he decided to take it and sustain it. The general, or the Prior, or the Cadreman, is the last one to go home. He does not necessarily have some glorious role in or out of the session; he just happens to be the last one to go home.

How is it that we operate this way? What is the content of this kind of generalship? On that chart before you, you will see twenty things; I find it very helpful to tell myself that we do twenty things only. We do four systems: Impact, Research, Demonstration and Training, nothing else. There are six programs under Impact, six under training, four under research and four under demonstration.

I find it helpful to say to myself that, with these four systems, I, finally, am doing nothing different than teaching RS­I. Impact addresses people's lives with the Word of Jesus Christ. Research points to where that Word takes place in the midst of life. Demonstration creates signals verifying that Word as true. Training provides methods so my colleagues can Be that Word in the midst of every situation.

In Religious Studies, we spend our time impacting every Tom, Dick and Harry with the Word of Jesus Christ in a new kind of way on a weekend. The Parish Leadership Colloquy is similarly defined, but experienced differently. The peculiarity, or uniqueness of the PLC has to do not only with providing the impact of the Word, but the practical tools for leadership for parish leaders. Any clergyman or religious I run into today has struck me as a cross between the cutting edge of history and a dinosaur. It is like being a race which in ten years would be utterly different but at the same time, a race that is devising what vocation is. That is the fantastic group of people we are dealing with in the Parish Leadership Colloquy. LENS is our demonstration of engagement, or creating a framework in which resurgence can happen. With LENS it is as if you have on a coat called "standing present to the Word as it shows up in society," and over it you put a sticky sign that says "secular problem­solving methods;" and you put people in that coat for a weekend. It feels rather funny, but on the other side of that weekend, it reveals a whole new kind of world.

The Local Community Convocation is the celebrative event in the community in which its story gets rehearsed. Presently, this dynamic is being held through such community events as 5th City celebrations or the Uptown 5 Car Park. Someday, this may be some kind of meeting, such as a one­day convocation at which the selfconscious identity of the community is raised up for anyone in that community: a kind of visionary statement of what the community is.

The Secular Piety Studies may be better known as the Sanctification or Holy Life Course. This weekend­or­longer course gives people an opportunity to stand present to the deeps of life as they are encountering them in the midst of Sanctification today. How do you begin to talk about the sort of journey people are in the midst of? How do you begin to teach that journey as a course? We have done some work with that this quarter.

The Human Resurgence Mission may be better known as the Preaching Mission. That includes any of those programs in which one to three sermons ­­ the New Church, the New Man, and the New World ­­ are preached in congregations in a gamut across this world. With any of these courses, there is no particular presuppositions for who comes to them, particularly with the Human Resurgence Mission.

In Research, the Problem Solving Unit is an experiment in corporate decision making. It can be in a Week II form that is highly structured, or in an activity which takes place in a Regional Council, or in a dynamic of the Guild. The PSU is a way in which a group of people, in a delimited amount of time, take a particular problem arena and consense about the direction it needs to take in the particular research it is fulfilling.

The International Research Assembly is the large corporate gathering held across the Movement, in which we discern a new edge of our work. It has been most commonly the Summer Research Assembly. Perhaps the Continental Auxiliary might be that. However, there might be other forms which take place from time to time. I am not sure, but those Guardian meetings may be playing that role in terms of discerning the edge.

The Global Interchange Centrums maximize autonomy and develop our corporateness, by exchange, through the mail and through story­telling. The Local Church Galactic Report, the Regional Council or the Presidium play that sort of role in terms of exchange from local to local.

In the Research column all of those are, in one way or another, looking at the polity of the world and discerning what kinds of forms need to be experimented with. What would it mean to have a Research Centrum like this one here in Chicago, somewhere else in the globe? What would it mean to have four Research Centrums, four Development Centrums, four Operations Centrums in different places around the world to hold the dynamic of exchange in the midst of the global situation.

Research Extension Service has begun to do the kinds of consultations in which we share our methods with other groups. When local churches become interested in some particular method, how is it we share that? Bishop Mathews, in Washington D.C., had some of us in the Research Centrum do a workshop methodology with him by which he was able to work out a needed model.

The Advanced Training Course is like a large catechism. It takes all the different disciplines, or ways in which we talk about life in the Twentieth Century, and pulls the Word through those; it gives you a new context for talking about those in the midst of our time. This Advanced Training Course reminds me of where Ortega says, "Nobody takes the whole universe and redoes it all at once; they do it bit by bit." The Advanced Training Course does "bit by bit" Community and Polis, Nation and World, etc. It redoes my universe a little at a time ­­ regrids the world I live in.

The International Training Institute is a one step formulation school, an extended training program. Mobile, it shows up any place in which both laymen and clergy from an area get together and explore what it would mean to live out a new and extemporaneous way in any particular given situation.

The Social Methods School we have talked about as a five­day social methods course, or a five­day training school. After the LENS Course, there may be people prepared to take responsibility for that community saying "What on earth do we do next? We can't keep doing this LENS weekend stuff over and over again" "What are the sorts of methods being used to do Uptown? What are the sorts of methods used to do 5th City?

The Globa1 Movement Academy is a residential training lab used over the years to develop movement leadership.

Finally, Priorship Training School refers to the updating of tools for those who are already Movement leadership, and re-motivating those upon whose shoulders rests the burden of how and where the Movement needs to go. The image of the Prior's Training School is adapted to a short­term exposure of two or three days. Passion in this Movement is not a moral category, though I find myself perpetually wanting it to be. I used to say, "Yes, I will expend my life, but don't expect me to like it"' And it was perfectly all right to go around not liking it, just as long as you did the job. You could go around with gritted teeth. But somehow, on the other side of the resurgence happening in the world, you cannot even do the job with gritted teeth. Somehow the whole job has to do with the style of expenditure, the ability to dance in the midst of the three­ring circus that our world is in terms of social events. Now passion is something you create in all sorts of ways, spirit ways as well as practica1 ways, if there is any difference. I expect that if it is not through this construct of the Twenty Programs, then it would be some other construct. However, I suggest we experiment with this construct for a while before we come up with another one.

Any construct we use needs to hold together our thrust in a single focus, thereby placing rationality in the midst of our activity. Otherwise, in the Centrum or Region or House, for instance, you tend to forget part of its mission. Something happens to the passion of the entire Body. It gets carried away. When you show up in an RS-I and you just cannot get yourself into it, it is not because you hate God, necessarily. It may we11 have to do with not having a way to say what is the history­long, world­wide cruciality of that RS-I. The Twenty Programs ground the story we create for ourselves in order to be the ones who take responsibility for the future.

Maureen Jenkins