[Oe List ...] Earthrise witness: response to Riffing

[John-Rupert Barnes]

Those colleagues who have read this on Earthrise,
please delete; it may have some relevance to the wider
debate on the OE/ICA/EI issue

EARTHRISE WITNESS JAN 18 2007

David Dunn's exposure of the deep pain of being, along
with his colleagues, 'riffed' has opened some doors on
my own painful journey.  I also experienced the pain
of being riffed (a word I've never heard before) in
1988, when all of us who still considered ourselves
members of the Order Ecumenical were deprived of that
membership also with no opportunity (for those who
were not at The Oaxtepec meeting) of even being able
to know what was happening, let alone having input
into the decision-making process. So much for "the
power is in the center of the table" - a saying that
was in practice only true of a very small group of the
elite in the Order. (Writing this I'm surprised to
find how big the chip is that I've been carrying on my
shoulder all these years!)

My own individual riffing from ICA however came
earlier in 1988, when I, as Director of the then
fledgling ICA in Zimbabwe, was summoned to Nairobi by
the Troika there: Terry Bergdall, Sandra Powell and
Sam Were, to be given an most uncompromising
ultimatum. I was to immediately shut down ICA
Zimababwe, which had operated under ICA Zambia and out
of ICA Zambia's base at Kapini, and leave, not just
Zimbabwe, but Africa, the continent of my citizenship.
I was told to take a "sabbatical", which turned out to
be a terminal leave, for the 8 months or so until the
Oaxtepec Conference in Mexico, for which my expenses
would be paid. During this time I would receive a
stipend of $100 a month, generous by our african
standard of $5 -10, though of course inadequate for
the USA where it was suggested I should go. I was also
told to get some psychiatric counselling as a
condition for continuing in relationship with ICA. The
Troika had in my eyes dubious authority for this
ultimatum and when I proved stubborn I was threatened
with the prospect of an advert in the Zimbabwe press
disavowing both myself and ICA Zimbabwe. The ultimatum
was delivered at a very intensive weekend "retreat"
just for the four of us at the National Christian
Council of Churches conference center in Limuru,
sequestered from all outside influences. I have never
experienced such extreme pressure before or since.

I recognized that taking this extreme action was very
costly for ICA Nairobi in prayer, time and money and
appreciated the genuine concern that was felt for
myself as a human being in this process; a concern
that several of those riffed recently from ICA USA
seem to have felt was lacking.

I asked for some time, and was given 24 or 48 hours to
decide. I remember in my deep despair going for a walk
alone in the Ololua forest on the outskirts of
Nairobi's Karen suburb where I used to take my two
elder sons on Sundays to track on foot the herd of
giraffe there. This time I found 3 giraffe, two adults
and their half -grown offspring. As was our custom I
crept up on them very slowly and quietly and spent
half an hour observing them from maybe 50 yards range.
They gradually became aware of my presence but did not
move; giraffe are almost as curious about us two-legs
as we are about them! Finally, the youngster's
curiosity overcame fear to the extent of taking
several paces towards me, an event unprecedented in
all my years of giraffe tracking there. The wonder of
these few steps somehow totally transcended my despair
and I was able to make the inevitable decision to
submit with something approaching "open eyes and
joyous heart".

In New York I rented a small room in the ICA house on
E 4th St and supported myself doing telefund raising
for organizations like the Sirra Club. We were paid
according to results and I proved able to do well out
of the proposed Arctic Caribou Reserve Oil drilling -
still a hot issue!

This double riffing from ICA and then OE was a turning
point for my entire life. I felt, like many very
little emotional attachment to ICA, but a very strong
and lifelong commitment to our order, so the latter
riffing was much more painful than the former. But it
opened the door to a brand-new career as amateur
scientist in Zimbabwe in the 1990s and in Kenya since
then, leading to new and I believe quite important
discoveries in two separate fields, both concerning
microorganisms. I never had any biology at school or
university and I'm amazed even now how this was
possible - all a matter of serendipitous synchroniciy
- "being in the right place at the right time".

My life has been the story of one whose gifts of
imagination and holistic thinking have never reached
real fruition because of indicipline, self-indulgence
and fairly severe psychological flaws which I have
mostly denied until recently. I almost took the
Troika's advice and that summer of 1988 found a
psychiatrist in Manhattan, a Catholic priest who could
have understood my deep connection to the Order, but I
chickened out, to my grear regret ever since. Since
then I'm fortunate to have found a fine counsellor in
Ken Gilbert.

Today on the streets of Nairobi just after sunset I
saw the kites flying home to roost and felt gratitude
for them (just as I had felt for the young giraffe)
and for the "all sorts and conditions of humans"
streaming past me on their way home from work. I was
given the sense of real possiblity for integration,
even at this impossibly late age of 77, for my
rebellious and undiscipline ego and savagly suppressed
shadow. THIS MIRACLE OF GRATITUDE seems to have
catalysed the process of composition -- I'd no idea
beforehand of what to write about.

Perhaps my colleagues who have just been riffed, who
have been gifted with such great talent and
experience, may also find brand-new avenues of
opportunity and service beyond anything they could
possibly have imagined.


John-Rupert Barnes commutes between NAIROBI and
Kamweleni village, (site of ICA's first rural
development project in Kenya 1978-80) where he teaches
English part-time at Kamweleni High School. He was a
member of EI/OE/ICA 1967-1988 in Chicago, Kenya,
Jamaica, Brussels, Zambia and Zimbabwe, now retired on
a small OE pension.



 
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