[Oe List ...] archives

Tue Nov 24 12:07:12 CST 2009

Just read several of the posts about the social process triangles and the
Earth or creative or universe process. 

I really like what Richard Sims wrote and share his ongoing concern for the
renewal of the church in part by this larger "ecozoic" vision.

I also really like Jann's question: "I hope people who reply to your Project
will also talk a little about how their knowing/doing/being in the
post-Order years, and how the gifts of the Order informed that."

This is what I think the project is if it gets off the ground. It is us
taking the time to reflect on the meaning of the Order in our lives as we
see it today. It is also asking us to look at what the Ecumenical Institute
was and what it was trying to do.  I feel ICA carried forward a crucial part
of what EI was about (and extended that part beyond what EI was), but much
was left behind . . . and yet lives within us and informs us.

What was/is that?

Herman

  _____  

From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
Of LAURELCG at aol.com
Sent: Sunday, November 22, 2009 6:53 PM
To: oe at wedgeblade.net
Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] archives

Herman, Your question of expanding the Social Process Triangles to include
the natural world sent me to my own archives, my notes from the New
Cosmology course  I took at UCS in 1998, taught by Bryan Swimme, Jo Anna
Macy and Stuart Cowen. In the folder, I found a printout of an ica-dialogue
e-mail Witness, dated March 27, 2000, "From the computer of Jan (Sanders)
and Richard. I assume Richard Sims wrote it because of the pedagogue story.
I hope they don't mind me resending it. I obviously loved it.

Hey out there all you frogs.

You know how to program the flipper to get the weather channel;

Can you read the times in which we live?

Well, fellow frogs, we have a new creation story for our time. I never
really got into that earth on the back of a turtle thing anyway. We now have
: 'In the beginning originating power burst forth.....' This story has Oscar
quality appeal: special effects with incredibly creative and destructive
capabilities, a trans-human focus, violence, pre-sex, interspecies
consumption, objects coming in and out of being without explanation, and
enough plot twists and turns to keep you completely baffled up to the
present moment.

So, you have probably asked yourself, Where is the church in this primal
flaring forth?

The hint is found in the 'sacrifice appendix'. The sacrifice dynamic in the
flaring forth is not integrated into this telling of the story. It had to be
glued on like a fifth frog leg. But it shows up in the process well before
the human species gets written into the script.

Since we have expanded the social process triangles beyond human sociality
to include all of existence, the church/sacrificial dynamic includes not
only 'innocent human suffering' (one of my favorite theological phrases) but
the suffering of the earth and of plants animals water air and nebula 307.
Nothing however, for me, replaces the intensity of the pain,
disillusionment, and alienation caused by the experience of social
injustice, personally or group to group. It wasn't fair that classical
religions were called out of being in the midst of my career as an
order-grounded, movemental church renewer, leaving me spiritually and
vocationally stranded. I take responsibility for not having the initiative
to develop a successful career upon reentry into the mainstream, but I had
nothing to do with taking ''every single human being needs RS-1' out of
existence and I deeply resent whoever did it. I was destined to be a great
pedagogue. Put that on my cremation box: 'he was almost the fifth ranked
pedagogue in the whole world'.

Some people experience life as a desert. Some people experience life as a
lush banquet. Some experience every encounter in life as providing material
to further the crusade for a deeply committed, perhaps cosmic, cause.

So what instruction is the look of the sky giving us about our times? PBS in
our area recent broadcast the US women's suffrage documentary. SB Anthony
was the political will of that movement but Elizabeth Cady Stanton was the
spiritual force. She was never satisfied, was always articulating new,
expanded goals..And she was only attempting to bring the social injustices
(slavery, women's rights) of her times into balance. Truth is radical. It
wakes you up in the night. It gets in your face and demands a decision. What
is the truth in the year 2000? What is our unfolding cosmos demanding of the
human species? What is the form and role of the Church? Is it the seven
streams of the Millennium Conference? Is there a movement in our future? Is
the movement the mosaic formed by those engaged in a multitude of causes? Is
there a single structure?

Someone called us the people of the question. I would settle for some
answers.

Metaphor of the frog without permission.

Herman, I'll send you a  hard copy of my paper for that course, which was
called "Granny as Ecozoic Visionary", based on the theory of Imaginal
Education.

Thanks for the inquiry that took me to this folder. When I was diagnosed
with lymphoma the following year, this vision was put aside to pursue
wellness.

I hope people who reply to your Project will also talk a little about how
their knowing/doing/being in the post-Order years, and how the gifts of the
Order informed that.

Blessings,

Jann McGuire

In a message dated 11/21/2009 11:26:49 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
hfgreene at mindspring.com writes:

That's a good statement and worth archiving!

Occasionally I muse on how to place the social process into the Earth
process. I haven't had a brilliant idea about this yet. One approach is to
have an Earth process set of triangles (like the carbon cycle, the
hydrological cycle, etc.) parallel to the social process. Another approach
is to have the Earth process in the middle triangle of the social process
triangles. Another is to redo the social process triangles to include
interactions with nature. 

I haven't really done much except muse about this. (One approach I saw that
I question is to apply the social process to nature--it's not entirely
unfruitful but it seems like an artificial imposition on the natural
processes rather than beginning with the natural process itself.)

I wonder if anyone else has thought about this.

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