[Oe List ...] Thank you Clare. Evelyn's witness.

[Evelyn Philbrook]

Thank you Clare, well said, great witness.  

Evelyn Kurihara Philbrook here it Taipei, Taiwan

 
I am not unbiased, nor should any of us be about ICA/EI/OE history or
future. However it is important to remember this is not the ICA but the ICA
US structure as controlled by the board.  This is more the tip of the
iceberg and much of the symbol/ money in the form of the Kemper Building.

If a structure is being taken out of being, I am firstly in 

 

SHOCK.            Oh Shit! What, why, numbers, figures, people involved etc.


ANGER.            How could this be the only reasonable choice?

DENIAL.           Certainly couldn't this be overturned or changed?

MEMORIES.      How many among us don't remember the great summer programs,
JWM funeral, Phil's funeral, all the weddings, the baptisms, the EG
programs, the Student House, the Centrum dynamics, the Development Teams,
the Program teams.just walking upstairs and seeing Alice in the kitchen.or
knowing how the freight elevator is run.all the stories each of us could
tell.  It is so sad. 

I feel like we should honor all the heroes, all the saints who have kept it
going, not just cast them out like a used rag. I for one say thank you.
Thanks to each and everyone who has kept the light of hope burning in each
location where you are as part of the unseen league of colleagues on the
march. 

DESPAIR          There is a mistake here.  All those people who speak their
mind and create their models to get anything that needed to be done were
taken to be trouble makers and unable to live out of life's fiscal reality.
How many of us did whatever we could with very little money and always found
a way to make it happen. There was never any free lunch.  We all have worked
very hard to be the heart and soul of those who care. We have all made the
sacrifices of fiscal stability over the years. If it is really over, what is
it that is over?

SILENCE:         Listening to the calm after the storm, waiting for the
inside to be still, to listen for the sign of what is to come and what is
next. 

 

 

These are the steps of Griefwork, which was rehearsed at an Open Space
Technology course provided by Harrison Owen this past weekend in Taiwan.
These steps can be used as individuals or as group continually finding
ourselves in the midst of change.  Without change there is no life, but when
you lose something symbolic of something very profoundly in your being, it
is difficult to say what is happening to inside. 

 

I was told that if I do not go through each of these steps, then I can not
be free to name what is the expression of this something which is being
lost, and therefore, I can get stuck and not be free to move forward. So I
share this with you all as a way to move forward. You name your name, and
have your memories and be still to prepare for what ever we want to have
come next. 

 

ICA and the Order never depended on a structure to be.  The structure was
created as a container and when the container can no longer hold the spirit
the container must change.

God is with us, and we can decide, and the future is radically open. What is
my choice for ICA USA - what is the form that will best allow wholeness and
forgiveness to move forward?

 

Evelyn Kurihara Philbrook in Taipei, Taiwan