Global Research Centrum, Chicago, DC, Social Methods
School 121474
The Journey of our civilization on this planet since
the beginning of time has been a long, complex Journey toward
authentic human community. Indeed, we are at a point where we
are making a new major leap. You can remember the journey we have
been on: bands of wandering families scavenging the wilderness;
then moving into settled tribes where one could have sheep or
cattle or land for cu I t I vat I on and begin to form community
villages and cities; finally, the mass of urban complexes In which
you and I now live. It has been the treat journey of raising the
question: How do you create a context or a structure In which
every human being participates significantly, grasps his life
as powerful, and engages In building the future of his community
and the future of his civilization?
Every time I reflect on what we discovered In the
ruins of Pompeii, I am struck by the Incredible clarity they had
about the basic dynamics of the city. You recall that In the east
was the temple, In the west was the forum for political debate,
In the south was the marketplace and in the north was the Lyceum
all facing Into one courtyard which contained a large
stone upon which people could stand and where community style
was forged. When people decided to get up on that stone, that
was a public local community convocation because that human befog
would address the depth Issues, and begin to cast a vision for
the community. It was there that they grappled with how the future
needed to look, standing In the midst of economic, political and
cultural dynamics In society. Our civilization, whether In the
West, the East, or the south, has been grappling with just that
question: what Is humanness, or how do we order our life together
humanly?
Primal Community Is where you hang your hat at night,
where most of your time Is spent. When you figure it out, you
have 70 hours of creative engagement to spend In that home and
that community; beyond the ten or fifteen hours of commuting,
50 or 55 hours of secular employment, then 110 or 120 hours left
over, with maybe 45 or 50 spent sleeping. We realize that everyone
has that kind of time. It is the local community which cares for
and gives focus to families and the network of human relationships.
Now we are at the edge of a breakloose In social
experimentation. We had to step back In the last several years
to ask the question: What are the necessary dynamics, the necessary
processes within any society which create full human community?"
Within the social process triangles, on the cultural pole, Is
community groupings, which directly hits most of the mayor tactics
or social demonstrations In which we are engaged. Within community
groupings are categories like social aggregations and basic roles.
It also has the dynamics of natural, vocational and volitional
community. As you begin to explore the dynamic of community, and
through experimentation, you begin to discern the spirit significance
of the dynamics.
Of the five presuppositions of 5th City reformulation,
two have to do primarily with spirit, though all of them are rooted
in that. When you deal with all the problems, you deal with the
depth human issues and the symbols in order to recover what It
means to have a self-identity and a relationship to those around
you. I am not an Independent entity, nor a machine in society.
I am related to my wife, children, extended family and community.
I am bound up with all of that and my identity is related to all
of that or It is not an authentic identity. One lives and dies
in that reality, knowing that, finally, primal community consists
In those who show up at one's funeral.
Primal community Is also related to geography and
history. It Is the place where life vocation 1s expended. Excitement,
engagement, powerful expenditure 1n society are experienced In
those 70 hours a week, and on the weekends. Primal community Is
where life Is disclosed In the fullest, where man takes respons1b111ty
for the whole family, the Job, the associations. It is the turf
where one Is born and where one will die.
The shift today Is shown In the urban lecture of
CSI. The Individual started out In a localized community where
everybody knew everybody else, 95% of the people In this room
were raised In a small town setting, whether on the plains of
Kansas or outside Chicago. On the other hand, most of your children
have never experienced that kind of community.
I was raised In a community with a population of
100 People. We had a clear Identity. Whenever we strayed outside
Its boundaries, there would be a fight to defend our Identity,
our pride and our community honor. Time was ordered around the
whistle at the mill In the valley. When the whistle went off at
8 a.m., things began. Wither you were there on the Job or you
didn't have a job. When the whistle blew at noon everyone had
lunch, and at 5 p.m., you left for home. I knew almost everyone
by first name and they certainly knew methe son of
George Cramer and the girl who married the guy who married the
Martin1 girl. If I was ever found doing wrong In that community
I was Immediately taken home to my parents.
Today there Is an Immense shift from that 1ntimate
community. The people of Morton, Washington have their primary
Images forged out by the network of communication across the globe.
They know more about China than they do about Mandel, Washington
and Mandel Is only eight miles away. My father Is a good example
of that thinking. He still fears anything like a city. He cannot
sit down with anyone other than a Caucasian of his own age and
be at ease. He would rather watch TV at his sister's or talk to
her kids. If you want to talk about China or Russia or Africa,
he Is utterly Informed. He Is aware of what Is going on across
this planet, even though his Internal space Is paralyzed by that
knowledge. That affects his decisions and those of everyone else.
The struggle to Invest money In something Is affected
by the fall of 40 or 50 empires or national leaders In the last
few months or years. New capital for Investment Is coming from
Japan and the Middle East. The depletion of resources, the enraged
and starving peoples are factors Impinging on decisions. The complexity
of the global village, Its time and Its space, constantly bombard
the Individual.
I now live In Washington, DC Six students live In
the Religious House with us. They are from Tunisia, Madras, Taipei,
Nairobi, and one Is a Chicano. Think of how many races are on
your block. It Is that kind of Interaction day after day. One
woman in our house got a Job at the Catholic University of America,
and discovered that there are eight nationalities on the faculty,
and none are American. They are constantly traveling across the
globe, operating In a structured relationship to the university.
When I visited the UN Director of Rural Development
for Latin America for LENS marketing purposes, I had to go through
three security checkpoints before seeing him. I had to show my
identification, sign my name, verify that it is my name, then
I got a badge, and was spotted by a guard when I got on the elevator
and when I got off the elevator. That is "simple" security.
You and I identify ourselves by our future vision.
I do not talk much about the past, but rather about my own passion
for the future. This Illustrates the shift from the simple to
the complex, from simple space to a global village.
How do you solve the problems of the city? How do
you do a 5th City these days knowing that in the beginning there
are three or four thousand identifiable problems? To begin to
move on a community Is staggering as you think about solving all
those problems at one time. There is all the bureaucracy and its
interrelationships, which give permission, funding or whatever.
Solving these problems becomes more complex when I consider my
own perversions. I see that I am not past being a racist and I
will not be until I die. I am Inescapably brainwashedl
am still scared when I see two or three black men come down the
street.
The Primal community Experiment begins Monday In
Bombay with a Social Methods School there as well. I have been
talking primarily about the Primal Community Experiment In North
America. I could also talk about Hong Kong. The Research Assembly
there was held In a Roman Catholic seminary that overlooks the
end of a peninsula. As we left the peninsula, we came upon a huge,
high-rise complex, consisting of four buildings each housing 5000
people all in one square block. The bus line ends
there. Each morning at 7 a.m., 150 buses pull up and then pour
out through the village of Aberdeen and around the peninsula to
Hong Kong. As I chatted with a man who lives In that high-rise
complex, he pointed out the poles that stand in front of the apartments.
His apartment, he carefully explained, was the one right next
to the pole with the red pants hanging on It.
How do you care for 16,000 people like that? Anonymity
Is a given condition. It Is possible to be cut off from civilization.
it is possible to decide how anonymous to be. It Is also possible
to create relationships, but It Is demonic It you do not understand
that you are free to create meaningful relationships.
During the past few years I have been picking the
brains of my parents for the stories from which my life was forged
and experienced. You may have done some of that yourself
trying to go back from the present to Europe or Africa or wherever
the roots are. There Is no community on this planet that Is practically
homogenous. We all tend to float around and spend six months to
a year at any given residence. We bounce about In a flux and flow
in search of authentic community for 20th Century man.
As we look at the events of the past 10 or 20 years,
the experimentation becomes visible. Certainly the Chinese and
the Russians have been experimenting with forms of primal community
such as communes. In North America, Europe and elsewhere there
are high rise villages, model cities, new cities, village projects
and so on. There Is a hunger for a way of forming new community
that Is authentic. For the most part the models that you see as
you look around are fairly grisly fifty communes,
Jesus freaks, or some Indian swami In a little cult community
living together and sharing wives, children and so on. They are
utopian, looking for some Idyllic situation which provides as
many highs as possible and as few lows.
It has not been working, to be sure. The suburban
ghettoes and the rural enclaves have not participated In that.
Dallas, Texas has the most humorous collection of suburban names
In any city: Heavenly Hills, Sunshine Meadows, Peaceful Hollow.
The number of suicides is staggering. Alcohol and drug use Is
more Intense than In most any Inner city. The models we have been
given so far, are Inadequate, and, therefore, you and I have launched
this experiment.
We set out ten years ago to create a model out of
our particular understanding of life In the Word of Jesus Christ;
a model that must be profoundly human, rooted In the depth of
consciousness, anchored 1n the past and open to the future, and
which stands before Being Itself. We want a model that allows
anyone to participate In history, no matter how racked or frightened
his Interior psyche Is.
We have worked In Mowanjum, Oombulgurri, Uptown 5,
Hong Kong, Shum 01 parish, and with some 50 galaxies across North
America. Last January we symbolically launched the guild to enable
awakened secular and relig10us men to work together In the local
community. We are clear that we do not know what to do. We do
have some hunches, values, and methods, and the Word allows us
to move on. We address the victim Image of a community, and our
work Is local and geographically delimited.
One Image that comes to mind Is Byculla parish in
Bombay. You may have heard of the cages they have there, each
with a maiden Inside on a chair. The sailors come and choose a
cage In which to spend whatever time and money is required. The
model Is for Byculla or Clarksburg, South Sydney, Glasgow or Frankfurt,
Paris, Nairobi, Kinshasa It must demonstrate that
primal community can happen anywhere.
And there will be a network of demonstrations. The
Global Language School In Korea and the work with secondary schools
In Japan are examples. Yet all these demonstrations are one thrust
In history. The symbol of that for me Is our experiment with Intercessory
prayer, using Intercessory prayer to focus our consciousness on
this globe and this experiment. Our accountability will be held
In events like visits from men like A.M. Joseph or Jim Campbell,
and as we gather for counc11s to redo our models. There will be
training schools and consultations around every religious house.
We are going to recover, or perhaps discover, how
local man can be global man. Until you and I are clear that we
live In a global village and work together, local man will not
come off. Unless 1t Is done on behalf of the future of the planet,
you and I have no reason to get out of bed. Likewise, no experiment
Is going to succeed unless It Is utterly local, rooted In the
turf, dug deeply Into the soil, whether of Indian, Chinese, African
or American society.
We will have a network of sociological relationships
across this globe wiring us together. The corporate wisdom can
be plugged Into every local situation with a common context available
from each of us to the rest of the globe. I have to keep reminding
myself that not everyone has made a self-conscious move, acting
as the church, as you and I have In gathering here. And yet, there
are colleagues everywhere who are grappling with the future of
this planet and seeing possibility. Hyderabad has given amazing
reports on the training school preparation for this next week.
The reality of the experiment Is breaking loose In ways that you
and I cannot anticipate, and It Is hard to Imagine all the Implications.
Already we at the Washington house have received
numerous phone calls out of the "clear blue" asking
about this project. It will reengage people as local men and global
men. It may take a long time to allow that to happen, but we are
men and women of Incredible patience. We have seen a thousand
years and in that context, know that it may take 1, 2, or 5 years,
give or take a few years or even decades, but we are nonchalant
about this demonstration.
We know that It Is a radical sign and that leadership
Is being called forth across the planet. We are tooled up with
equipment like no one else on this planet: sensitivity, skills,
methods, Images, passion, Interior resolve, a capacity to handle
failure, and all of that. We are prepared to be patient and yet
move a thousand miles an hour.
Do you remember the account of Sydney's response
when the astronauts passed over the city? They turned on all the
lights In the city. Something 11ke that Is going to happen, I
would guess. What do you see in these 150 communities, 300 or
500 parishes across this planet; 11ghts turning on, singing, emptying
garbage, communicating across the hall. Perhaps It will just be
a moodan Intensity of passion, of Involvement. You
will see people on the streets doing meaningful things. You will
be able to tell, that much I know.
People will coming from everywhere to see the model
of 5th City, 1n Chicago, Pittsburgh, or In Nalrob1. They will
participate In the festival of life as we focus on the symbolic,
see the future, and are consumed by the next months, the next
years, on behalf of the movement of the spirit.
Don Cramer