[Oe List ...] [Dialogue] Order annuity

Fri Apr 24 08:15:32 EDT 2009

Ellen Howie (continuing to wear my Order ring) here:
Our family was FT Order in 1975/76 assigned to Philadelphia and  
Baltimore.
For years I had a small life insurance policy whose beneficiary was  
the Institute.  It became clear that I would pay much more into it  
than the policy would be worth at my death, thus did Gary Drown  
recommend that it be cashed in, which I did, and the monies went to  
Carol Pierce who at the time was helping to handle the funds to  
benefit Order colleagues.
Our family is fortunate because Dick receives a pension because he  
worked 28 years for USAirways;  we both receive Social Security.
Love to all, Grace & Peace,
Ellen
On Apr 23, 2009, at 10:41 PM, Nancy Lanphear wrote:

> Dear Marilyn,
>
> I so appreciate you for your perspective in the midst of this issue  
> having many challenges.  Thank you for speaking.  We, too, wear our  
> silver rings knowing that we are the Order forever.
>
> With love to you and Joe,
>
> Nancy
>
> 2009/4/23 Marilyn R Crocker <marilyncrocker at juno.com>
> Dear David,
>
> With you, Joe and I have wondered how, with what criteria, and when  
> the decisions about the annuity were made, since when we travelled  
> to Oaxtapec in November of 1988, we still understood ourselves to  
> be the Order.  After 20 years in the OE at that point, we, like  
> you, were somehow “factored out” and received nothing from the  
> Order annuity.
>
> There is a plethora of documentation to support our “entitlement”to  
> the Order annuity, but when Joe was told after repeated  
> conversations with Carol Pierce, that somehow, we were “no longer  
> considered on the assignment chart as of November 1988,” I urged  
> Joe to “just forget it.”  This happened after our having risked  
> much in continuing to provide self support over the years to the OE  
> as the Orlando “outpost” to the turbulently changing Primary Unit  
> configurations, to which we had been annexed in at least 4  
> different entities in fewer years -- Jamaica, Atlanta, Houston, and  
> finally Chicago --often with fledgling priorship.
>
> I was reminded of the passage in Scripture that suggests there  
> comes a time when one is not being heard that it is time to “shake  
> the dust off one’s feet” and just move ahead into the future. And  
> that is what we have tried to do.
>
> Unfortunately for us now, but not for the OE then, Joe and I  
> withdrew all of our personal funds, including my teachers  
> retirement account, when the Move 222 was initiated in the late  
> '60s.  This was just before we and David McCleskey left to conduct  
> a teaching trek through SEAPAC and later, in August, were assigned  
> as faculty for the first ITI in Singapore.  At that time we trusted  
> so fully in our corporate mission and willingly gave all for it.   
> Furthermore, we believed that “retirement” was not a category that  
> had meaning for our future; we envisioned unfolding engagement in  
> ministry into the sunset.
>
> David, I think our colleagues who made decisions about how to  
> “parcel out” the OE funds, did so the best they could, given who  
> they were and what they had to work with.  Clearly, they did not  
> hold all the values I, personally, would have hoped.  Nor were the  
> outcomes of their decisions equitable at all.  I think it would be  
> helpful for all of us to get clear about what was the "complex  
> formula" that was used to determine equity, and how it could have  
> possibly excluded many who should have benefited, and been ensured  
> the care that we all professed to one another would be available.
>
> I admire that you have had the courage to place this unresolved  
> issue on the collegium table, so that the community can hear it,  
> and “sit with it.”  I trust those who made the stark decisions  
> about calling the Order out of being in 1988, clearly without a  
> community consensus, might think about “what they might have wrought."
>
> I am guessing that you, like Joe and me, are the remnants who still  
> wear the “ring”, because we have, indeed, never “left” the Order.
>
> With gratitude and abiding affection,
>
> Marilyn
>
> On Wed, 22 Apr 2009 23:58:35 -0600 David Dunn <dmdunn1 at gmail.com>  
> writes:
> On Apr 22, 2009, at 4:41 PM, McCabe, Diann A wrote:
>
>> Around the meetings in 1986 and 1988 when OE as a structure was  
>> ended, the small remaining amounts in order funds were distributed  
>> based on a complicated formula.
>
> It has been one of the great sadnesses of the last 25 years that I  
> have somehow not been able to participate in that symbol of  
> membership in the order I never left.
>
> How might we symbolize the gift and the blessing of perpetual vows?
>
> David
>
> ---
> David Dunn
> dmdunn1 at gmail.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Marilyn R. Crocker, Ed.D
> Crocker & Associates, Inc.
> 123 Sanborn Road
> West Newfield, ME 04095
> (207) 793-3711
>
>
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