[Oe List ...] Reflections on Christmas, the Order, ICA, the Movement and OE

[Herman Greene]

Dear All,

I haven't been a very active participant in the OE List dialogue, but I have
been on the list from its beginning and have benefited immensely from being
back in touch with so many of you. I haven't dared to write my own
reflections on the order exerience because I know so many of you stayed on
with the Order and ICA long after I left in 1975. And, except for the events
in 2000 in Denver and Vail,I haven't been in touch with very many of you
personally.

Like many who were in the Order I have my own hurts and anger that still
carry on. I hate to say this because it seems so irrelevant after 30 years
to carry this and who afterall am I to stand in judgment of anyone or any
group? I think my own feelings about this are private and it is unlikely
that anyone would gain from me sharing them.

In any event, these feelings are not what brought me to write. Rather it is
feelings that I haven't allowed myself to express, which is my debt to so
many of you and to Joe Matthews (and the many other giants who have sadly
pased away) and to what the Order meant to me. One thing that is evident to
me is that you are my family. I was 21 when I joined the Order and 29 when I
left. I would like to name each of you who meant so much to me and provided
such an example to me, but I would leave some out I meant to include. I
really mean all of you, including those not on the OE list. We were about
something truly extraodinary, something heroic and filled with compassion. I
weep for the sacrifices some of you bore and am deeply impressed how many of
your persevered triumphantly through hardships outside the United States I
never had to bear.

To me it is the Order and the movement that mean so much. The Order because
of that deep spirituality that pervaded all. I think of the song "Journey
on" not even being able to remember the words, but knowing that it expressed
so much of what we lived out of. We were on a journey, a spirit journey
beyond our reckoning or understandng.

This was often expressed in the letters and number "RS-I," as if that said
and explained everything worth knowing. In a way it did, yet it only holds a
part of what to me is spiritual now. It is, however, an important part. RS-I
was a way of knowing the meaning of religious language existentially,
sometimes we said phenomenologically. As far as a contribution to my
religious life this may have been the most significant of all, because I
have always been able to participate in religious communities with a vibrant
awareness of what was being communicated far beyond, or even in spite of,
the literal meaning of the words themselves. Second, I don't think I could
have understood the paradox of the Cross and the Resurrection without my
experiences in the Order. All life is broken . . . and yet we live. In death
there is life. In our dying we are born anew.

The movement next is important to me, because I am still an embodiment of
the movement as so many others are. The movement is a little like the
"League" of Hesse, but not exactly. Not exactly, because the movement is
rooted definitely in the life of the Ecumenical Institute, the Order. So
many people's lives were changed by their contact with the Order and the
teaching of the Ecumenical Institute. I read with amazement what many of you
have done, and I am so encouraged when I hear the voices of members of
younger generation wwho were part of all this. What truly amazing
accomplishments, what contributions, and even today what deep insights are
born by this movement.

I am estranged from the ICA, yet appreciative. Most of what holds me back
from the ICA is that I never thought "the method was the key." For me, it
was the message. Yet, I will say, I was so impressed when I met people from
around the world at the Millennium Connection in Denver who had been a part
of ICA, but not the Order or ICA. It was clear that these were empowered
people. Even to this day, I cannot think of another organization that
matches what the ICA does in doing community development in so many places
around the world. ICA is not the Order and it is not the Ecumenical
Institute. ICA only in part carries forward the legacy of the Order and the
Ecumenical Institute. The rest is in us.

As to Jim Wiegel's question, what is the meaning of the last 20 years, which
I took to be a question about the relation of the "spirit movement" and ICA,
I would say all that was a part of our experience has been carried on in
various ways and marvelously. There is no way to link ICA to what was
earlier one movement, now we each carry on that movement in part.

I do think there is a critical aspect of what we are about that is carried
on by the Order, by us, and not self consciously or practically through ICA.
I do also think that we, before we die, have an obligation to pass this on
in a way that is accessible to others. It is not carried on by the EI/ICA
archives, or by reprinting Joe Matthews words. It is the spirit that we
became aware of and is carried in us. We must give it our own voice and not
in the simple repetition of slogans like "All life is good." Rather it is
giving voice to how this spirit has become known to us as we have grown
older and deepened our experience. Much of this is already going on. It is
not memories of what it was like (though it is that in part), rather it is
more how it comes to us now.

We have a rich tradition, it is written in our hearts.

Now, may I close by pointing you to one of my labors of love, the most
recent Ecozoic Reader (Vol. 4, No. 3) available at www.ecozoicstudies.org,
on "If we are moving into an ecological age . . . where are we going?"

Love to all,

Herman
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