[Oe List ...] Now Showing on Your Local Repository: the May Report

[John Cock]

You guys are doing mighty deeds. Thank you. Just listened to Joe. And, by
George, I'm going to read your book. 
 
All part of the great work,
 
John

  _____  

From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
Of Gordon Harper
Sent: Wednesday, May 27, 2009 12:21 AM
To: Colleague Dialogue; Order Ecumenical Community
Subject: [Oe List ...] Now Showing on Your Local Repository: the May Report


(I warned you there'd be another message . . .  This one is about what's new
with the Repository.)

Warning: This is the first of a series of monthly updates.  Our Repository
team thinks that perhaps we may have been just a bit too laid back recently,
that like some of our friends in the US financial sector, we may have put
slightly too much faith in the Invisible Hand of the Market.  So, starting
with this note, one of us will be assuming the role of town crier or newsboy
or something like that, to let you know about some of the new material that
has found its way, possibly undetected by your sensors, into the inky
shadows of the Repository during the previous thirty days.  There are now
five of us shouldering this burden; we'll see how it goes.

To get right to some highlights for this month:



*	You've already had a heads up on one of our major projects: making
the Golden Pathways available to us all.  As you might guess, this wasn't a
simple matter of just plopping the contents of the CD up there.  There are
lots of categories, subcategories and sub-sub-subcategories on that CD,
along with a variety of file formats.  Tim spent several nights on this,
while the rest of us checked out and reported back which pathways were now
working and which still weren't.  We think they're all working now.  We all
now have access to a wonderful compendium of our corporate wisdom.

If you haven't already bookmarked the link, here it is again: 


	http://www.wedgeblade.net/gold_path/gold.htm
	

*	Equally exciting--and brand new--is a book that many of us have been
waiting for and hoping to see for several years now.  George West, with
editorial help from Karen Snyder and Ken Gilbert, has completed his book on
our foundational understanding of community development.  He's generously
given us permission to publish it on the Repository.  This is from the
opening of Creating Community:




	This book is dedicated to the two thousand souls who participated in
the research and demonstration of community development in 24 communities
one in each of the 24 time zones across the globe. Sponsored by the
Institute of Cultural Affairs, the work began in Chicago in 1965 and
continues today in various countries. The book is a distillation of wisdom
gleaned from their work and reflection.

	The reflections in this book are what I wish I had had in 1965 when
I walked into the west side, inner city of Chicago for my first experience
in an intentional effort to create community. I hope that those on the
journey of creating community will find the reflections helpful, if not as a
guide, then as something to bounce against to deepen their own insights and
intuitions. We began with the conviction that development had to be bottom
up, that all the people must be involved , that all the problems had to be
addressed, and that whatever operating images blocked the self esteem of the
individuals had to be overcome. These were great principles; however a
somewhat larger context would have been helpful, hence this book.



	
*	This is the first book the Repository team has ever published, and
we feel very honored.  ICA International is passing the word on to all its
national member ICAs, many of whom are deeply engaged in community
development today.  You can scan George's Table of Contents and download
your personal copy here (sorry, you have to go to Litibu to have your copy
autographed):

http://twiki.wedgeblade.net/bin/view.cgi/Main/CreatingCom



*	Len, with help from Jack Gillis, has added a page to our Completed
Lives for David McCleskey.  A number of you shared memories and stories on
these listservs as David approached the end of his life and may want to add
some of those to the page.  (We also need a good photo.)

http://twiki.wedgeblade.net/bin/view.cgi/Main/DavidMcCleskey2



*	To conclude this update, a small treat.  At one of the Springboard
gatherings, George Walters shared some old recordings of Joe made while he
was still at the Faith and Life Community and teaching in Texas.  This audio
clip is from the end of a class he is concluding on Kierkegaard.  It was
obviously recorded on an open reel deck (remember them?).  We had to work a
bit to clean up the sound, but I think you'll not have any trouble following
it.  I've called it, "JWM: Our Crutches and the Word."

http://twiki.wedgeblade.net/bin/view.cgi/Main/JoeWord



So endeth the May update.  (You can see why I didn't try to combine it with
my previous message.)   Now get out there, and share some of your own
treasures; you know what they are!

This is probably obvious, but any of you who'd like to work on the
Repository and think you could put up with us would be most welcome.  We do
almost everything as a virtual team (I don't believe that Tim, Len and I
have actually ever sat down around the same table in real time and space to
work on it), using email, Skype, Google Docs and the like.  Shoot one of us
a note --

Gordon


  

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