[Oe List ...] ? More changes or more of the same?

Sat Jun 23 16:17:40 EDT 2007

Dear Jan,
I started this as just a personal reply, but have decided to respond to the whole list.
This is me, Margaret.  I may have been born at night--but not last night.

Yes, I am talking about ica-usa.org and there are a couple pages of history there, most of which is garbage in relation to the reality of our work.  I don't want to "remember when."  I am talking yesterday and earlier this year.  I don't know what those of you that I have loved and trusted as colleagues may be drinking or smoking these days, to think that you can resurrect an event planned last year to talk about "future" as if some idiotic paranoia hadn't grasped people--moved them right out of their minds--and fired all the staff.

Issues--sure there were issues.  There have always been issues.  We have always had to spend beyond our reality, but that was always within limits.  The building in Chicago was not outside the parameters of those limits and the staff there has been pulling off miracle after miracle with the upgrade of the facility.  It is doubly miraculous when you consider that Kemper abandoned preventive maintenance about five years before they gave the building away (just look at the records) and we didn't do any for the first twenty years we had possession.  We did a lot of build-out, but not real maintenance.  The service of the building and its magnificent uses is unequalled in our history (real past).

I don't know how anyone can pretend that what has happened hasn't happened and as far as I can tell this is such a big elephant in the middle of the country we either have a new executive with her head in the elephant's nether parts or she is in cahoots with some unnamed few who have figured out how to surrepticiously close down a not-for-profit, steal all of its real (as in real estate) assets, and go merrily on their way with the equivalent of others golden parachutes.

I am not trying to rain on your parade.  I'm allowing as to how you and others are either on mind-altering substances that have diminished any capacity for vision, judgement, responsibility, obedience, freedom, and understanding of the community called church, or. . . 
I don't know what.  I do know that whatever the impetus behind this, it is not something that would be interested in my stories.

Just a few weeks ago I took one of my parishoners to Chicago with me because she wanted to see this organization about which I tell so many stories in my sermons.  We once had principles of hospitality.  I was so shamefully treated by the new group that calls itself the ICA that my congregant ended up in tears, and I could not console her.  I am sure this reflects inadequacy on my part.  Pain, hurt, anger, shame, grief, anguish--none of them seem to begin to describe what I am experiencing yet.

This weeks lectonary scripture is Luke 8:26-39.  It seems to me that someone mistakenly (maybe thinking they were Jesus?) labeled the swine with the names of our staff members before thay drove them over the cliff, rather than the names of insecurity, anxiety, intrusion, misunderstanding, lack of understanding, selfishness, greed, avarice, struggle--or whatever.  It will be an interesting sermon.

I am counting on grace, Margaret
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Janice Ulangca 
  To: Order Ecumenical Community 
  Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2007 12:57 PM
  Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] ? More changes or more of the same?

  Dear Margaret,

  As one working on the Living Legacy event, I find your comments helpful, but painful because I'm not sure all your concerns can be addressed, at least not immediately.  And I fervently would want to do that.

  We are talking about www.ica-usa.org , right?  You are absolutely right - there really is no account of ICA history there.  In addition to the ToP material, the two pages of contextual material deal with the present, and some possible questions we might relate to, in terms of the future mission.  

  Re the present:  the team convening work on the Living Legacy - Judy Lindblad, Ellen Howie, and myself, with board and Chicago office staff support - early realized that today no person that we know has a handle on all the many kinds of work going on now across the U.S. that relate in some way to ICA contexts and methods.  One thing we hope to do at this event is at least start sharing stories of the work people are doing now.  This isn't to say that history will be ignored.  But many are saying they do not want only to "remember when" and look at the past - but they want to raise questions about the future.

  The three categories in the image on the page about the present are meant to hold current work that our small group knows about.  In some cases we happen to know just one or two individuals who have gathered colleagues around them and are working on spirit retreats, or environmental efforts, or churches effectively serving their communities, for example.  We're pretty sure there is much more that we do not know.

  In terms of ICA history - it could make a powerful book for someone to write.  In the meantime, it would be great if you would write an account of the history that seems most critical, and post it on the message board on the web site.  Your stories are important!  And we want to honor them.  You might inspire others to add their accounts.  

  Within a couple of weeks we should be ready to give more information about the facilitation team (that is not us, and is part of ICA so they know us well) and a general outline of what to expect at this Living Legacy event.  There's no intent to be mysterious - we're working pretty flat out to get things confirmed before making announcements.  

  Yours has been the most articulate cry (if I may use that word) in favor of honoring the breadth of ICA history that I at least have experienced in working on this.  So thank you.

  Janice Ulangca

    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Margaret Helen Aiseayew 
    To: Order Ecumenical Community ; Barbara and Don Barkony ; Beret Griffith 
    Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2007 9:38 AM
    Subject: [Oe List ...] ? More changes or more of the same?

    The new sameness seems to be:  ELIMINATE IT.  And in my opinion it is with extreme prejudice.  Truth, whatever it may be, is much more often inconvenient that even Al Gore might think.

    I am astounded by the web site and the selectivity of memory it represents.  I went back to try and find the reference to JWM and no matter what spelling is used, the ERROR seems to have been eliminated from the website by eliminating the reference.  At least the search system won't bring it up.

    I was signed up for the previously scheduled "Living Legacy" event that was to have been at the Aragon Ballroom in Uptown.  I'm sorry I can't bring myself to sign up for this one.  I can't imagine a history that discusses only our international conferences and ToP programs and eliminates all references to ongoing community development work, the entire community revitalization network across the country, eliminated.  All of our periodical publications, eliminated.  All of our work with the poorest of the poor right here (the homeless, the drug addicted, the immigrants, the refugees, the abused and neglected), eliminated.  All of our work with churches (even as the ICA), eliminated.  All of our work with building sustainable urban environments, eliminated.

    We would appear to be an organization very good at sponsoring international conferences.  Whose passion is that going to arouse?

    I seem to remember in some lecture we used to give, talking about trying to patch over the intrusions of reality into our lives with bandaids.  I find myself ashamed of and then sorry for those who could no longer tolerate the continuous intrusion and the uncertainty it always represents and felt compelled to eliminate it.  I find the actions of colleagues who have related to this as just one more intrusion (some strange attempt to prevent them, stop them, deter them from declaring the word with all they do in their lives) courageous.

    Personally, I find it offensive and desperately sad that some few people are putting so much effort into denigrating, denying, prevaricating and even eliminating so much of my personal history of care.  It happens.  I also worked as a permeator enough to have been resigned, reassigned, downsized, outsourced, redundanted (I know it's not a word), merged, bought out, closed down and even outwitted in the workplace.  My engagement with the ICA was never just a workplace.  I am ashamed to have to try and explain how what shows up on the website seems to have nothing to do with the stories I tell of what I gave my life to for 32 years.  Not to worry, I'll keep telling my stories.  They have to do with faith and persistence and care and are worthy of being told because they inspire.

    I have no spell-check, just a passion for the word.

    Margaret

      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: John Cock 
      To: 'Order Ecumenical Community' 
      Sent: Friday, June 22, 2007 2:26 PM
      Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] More changes at ICA-USA!

      Thanks, Judie, Ellen, and Janice. 

      Also, in the brief history of ICA, please exclude "ICA" from pre-1973 entries. I noticed one in quick r3ead.

      John

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      From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Norm and Judy Lindblad
      Sent: Friday, June 22, 2007 1:44 PM
      To: Order Ecumenical Community; Colleague Dialogue
      Subject: [Oe List ...] More changes at ICA-USA!

      Dear Friends and Colleagues,

      It's great to know you are logging in to the ICA-USA website...it is embarrassing to know we made some errors.  We are changing those misspellings ASAP.  If you find more in the Living Legacy information, let us know and we will treat you to a glass of cider at the LL Event in October! 

      Under the rubric of confession being good for the soul,  it was 40 year veterans who somehow let this slip, not our new staff who have been wonderfully diligent in putting together an interactive webpage.  

      We ask your forgiveness and hope to see some of you in October at the 2007 Living Legacy Event.

      Judy Lindblad, Ellen Howie and Janice Ulangca, the Planning Conveners Team

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