[Oe List ...] The Common Meal

[John Cock]

Thank you very much, John Rupert. Lynda and I had lunch with Thomas
Berry on Tuesday. We discussed the transformative power of the mythic
dimension in life as compared with the rational/scientific, and how the
mythic dimension critically needs our attention today. Thomas said the
mythic reveals meaning. I remember when George Holcombe and Jim
Addington broke the bread and poured the water at the end of our PLC, I
was undone; for me, then and ever since, that mythic event has revealed
the meaning of life. I like the way you talk about it as your common
practice everytime you eat and drink.

John 

~~~~~~~~~~~
John P. Cock  
PO Box 38432 
Greensboro NC 27438
Tel:(336)404-0660  
Fax:(336)282-1557
http://www.johnpcock.homestead.com
 


-----Original Message-----
From: OE-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:OE-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On
Behalf Of John-Rupert Barnes
Sent: Monday, August 02, 2004 10:25 AM
To: Order Ecumenical Community
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] A brief glimpse inside my heart


Kamerithu village, Kenya
July 31, 2004,

Dear David,

In response to your reflections on the OE, it's
relationship to other spiritual traditions and its
possible role in future history, here are some of my reflections from my
own nearly 75 years journey of faith commitments, Quaker, Anglican,
Balokole (the great East African revival movement), OE, Sufi and now
Buddhist. I'm writing this in the large circular central room of a
unique African house 20 miles from and 2000 feet above Nairobi while
waiting in the dark illuminated by one dim hurricane lamp for the owner
who I now know is not coming tonight.

This evening's "waiting for Godot" has been an
opportunity to reflect on the 50 years since I felt
the call to come to Africa. Looking back it has become
clear that my primary covenental spiritual community
has been and still is the OE, this in spite of having
been one of those who participated in the great ritual
of ending for the Order as a formal historical
structure.

I had seen in the newspaper that Ngugi wa Thiongo, Distinguished
Professor of Literature at the U. of California was due to return home
today from over 25 years of exile and would come straight to his house
in Kamirithu. As a very old friend from his student days in Uganda I
decided to welcome him at his home rather than with a large crowd at the
airport. I arrived to find the gate locked and the place looking
deserted.

But people were there, including Ngugi's nephew,
another unexpected visitor. We were welcomed with the
now traditional African ritual of tea and bread. I
took the bread and broke it.

Whenever I break bread, I am remembering with
gratitude the brokenness of my life and of all life.
Whenever a drink is poured, I likewise remember the poured-outness of my
life unto death and the poured-outness of all life.

Jesus at his final Passover meal took the bread and
the wine of his religious community's most important
ritual, and as he broke the bread and pored out the
wine for his disciples, he transformed and
universalized his peoples' ancient and central
celebration, by which they remembered with
thanksgiving their deliverance from slavery in Egypt
and the beginning of their great journey to the
promised land.

That same day (by Jewish and African reckoning, which
starts at sunset) he consummated the transformed
ritual with the sacrifice of his own body and blood on
the cross. Christians remember his sacrifice and his
words at the Last Supper every time the Eucharist,
Lord's Supper or Holy Communion is celebrated.

We in the OE took the universalization of this great celebration -- of
possibility in the face of the brokenness of every human being's life
and the certainty of every human beings death -- a step further. We
called it the Common Meal, rightly so, since just as one does not have
to be a Jew to celebrate the great thanksgiving of the Eucharist, so one
does not have to be a Christian or a believer to celebrate the Common
Meal.

I have celebrated the Common Meal with Jews, Muslims,
agnostics and atheists. It does not require assent to
any creed; it only requires the stance of gratitude
for the universal human experience of the brokenness
and pouredoutness of life.

The OE has left humankind many actual and potential
gifts, among them the technology of participation, the
social process triangles, the Other World and New
Religious Mode. But it is the Common Meal that I
believe is the greatest gift for it has the potential
to unify us all in the Ground of our Being.

The body that was pierced and the blood and water that
flowed therefrom still have transforming power. By his
wounds we are still healed.

John-Rupert Barnes