[Oe List ...] Fred's memorial service

Thu Oct 14 07:47:21 CDT 2010

Dear One,

Thank you for your message through email and through the incense in teh air.

Love,

Nancy

2010/10/14 <cplcaruso at igc.org>

> Dear Nancy:
> I will be with you in the community in spirit on Saturday...So much to
> remember and access from this kind and gentle spirit...I lit incense today
> in Chiang Mai, Thailand at one of the most sacred temples here. I will do it
> again on Saturday when I return there. I will be with you all on this
> celebration of his completed life. This in the Buddhist teaching of my
> teacher is a time of continuation...So he continues in all of us as we
> continue in him.
>
> Many blessings on you and the family and all of our colleagues & friends,
>
> Salvatore Caruso
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nancy Lanphear
> Sent: Oct 12, 2010 6:44 AM
> To: Order Ecumenical Community
> Subject: Re: [Oe List ...] Fred's memorial service
>
> Dear Jaime,
>
> Thank you for such a fine tribute to Fred.  He was an amazing man, his
> amazing spirit is still with us.!  One of our dear friends and neighbors
> told Fred during his living "funeral" nearly two years ago,  "I have noticed
> that as you loose the use of your body, your spirit grows and grows.  It
> will need  to be big because of the projects you are envisioning for us to
> accomplish after you are gone!".  We will celebrate his life and death on
> Saturday with deep sadness and great joy!  "He finished his work!"
>
> Love,
>
> Nancy
>
> 2010/10/11 Jaime Vergara <svesjaime at aol.com>
>
>>  Nancy,
>>
>>  This was in the September 27 edition of the Saipan Tribune.
>>
>>  *In Memoriam*
>> *
>> *
>> Jaime
>>
>>  Stillness lingers in my soul
>> By Jaime R. Vergara
>> Special to the Saipan Tribune
>>
>>  “It was my destiny to join in a great experience,” is the great opening
>> line to Hermann Hesse's The Journey to the East. This is not a travel book
>> to India and/or China, though the journey itself would be just as equally
>> strange, if not unsettling to the West-originating spirit. The story is
>> about a League whose members are motivated by a collective vision long lost
>> in our narrator and was in the process of trying to retrieve it.
>>
>> Not surprisingly, a bevy of management books evolved later out of the
>> inspiration of the main character Leo, on servant stewardship, though not
>> the muchacho variety with which we've crucified Judge Ken Govendo. Leo's
>> style is more of the enabling and facilitating kind that we do not see
>> exhibited in our gung-ho in-charge macho “I lead, you follow” style of
>> leadership.
>>
>> Our interest in The Journey is the fact that I used to belong to “the
>> Order” (not the racist one in Montana), a League-like group that began with
>> the Ecumenical Institute of Chicago, developed a social program as the
>> Institute of Cultural Affairs (whose Blue Shirts once worked with Amata
>> Kabua, Tony Debrum and members of the Marshall Islands' *Nitijela*), and
>> constituted ourselves as the Order: Ecumenical, an experiment in intentional
>> community within the context of contemporary *saeculum saecula
>> seaculurum.* All right, don't quit. I just threw in those pretentious
>> three Latin words (I'm a Protestant so they are foreign to me, too) to see
>> if I still have your attention. We were about holy secularity! The point is,
>> we took glocal (global context, local operation) as our organizational mode
>> and pretty much appropriated every time zone, worldwide and history-long, as
>> our environment to reformulate comprehensive human services while plumbing
>> the depth of human consciousness. Are you still with me?
>>
>> Anyway, we had enough sense when the organization's center would not hold,
>> to dissipate in 1988 to “a thousand lights” (my family disengaged in '84)
>> and went about our individual business in diaspora without benefit of
>> collective wisdom and support of Centrum, nexus, way
>> stations/ashrams/religious houses of a spirit empire. However, thanks to the
>> Internet, we managed to be tenuously connected.
>>
>> More than 20 years later, founders and members are dying off, prompting a
>> North Carolina colleague to exclaim: (my paraphrase) “May we stop dying for
>> awhile already!” That comes strange from a group known for its passion for
>> living and graciousness in dying. But like every one else, time comes when
>> the question of legacy is raised. *What hath God wrought?* is the
>> traditional language in King James' milieu. Our response is unequivocally in
>> the realm of pedagogy. We chose to live in another world in the midst of
>> this world, where the quality of the moment rather than its longevity
>> defines its eternity. We are, as it were, in this world but not of this
>> world! We beckon others to join! It is free. It is the only way to be.
>>
>> This comes home personally because my mother just turned 90 today (Sunday
>> in Honolulu, though already Monday on Saipan) and she is sleeping longer and
>> more often now than when she was still sprite five years ago when my Dad,
>> nine years her senior, completed his journey at 94. They supported “the
>> Order” with three of their five children as members. She has made peace with
>> the inevitable and is biding her pace to see when it is time to let go into
>> the abyss.
>>
>> I am not using that language just for poetry. One of our members literally
>> did that recently. *Fred Lanphear,* a genius in intentional community,
>> established a communal housing outside of Seattle *(http://songaia.com/)*after serving in various capacities around the world with “the Order.” He
>> was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (commonly known Lou
>> Gehrig's disease), and this October, was to raise some research funds in a
>> walkathon while in his wheelchair. He didn't make it. This month, when he
>> knew terminus was in sight, wrote his last blog, gathered members of kin and
>> kindred, did his exercise in bed one last time, still counting to make sure
>> the nurses did not skip a beat, and then went to sleep, and literally “gave
>> up the ghost,” if I may be allowed that old metaphor. Response among the
>> living to the completion of such a life can fall into grief, but
>> momentarily; it is mostly a silent but nevertheless profound celebration of
>> being, unique and unrepeatable, none of its like was ever nor will ever be
>> again.
>>
>> *Stillness lingers in my soul* in our title was coined by one of our lady
>> Presbyter members who has since retired. My Tar Heel colleague's lament is a
>> human cry when hearing the clanging of Mephistopheles' spade gets louder. My
>> email address has 2031, the year of my life covenant's termination. Dec. 15,
>> to be exact, and anything after that is icing on the cake. Termination
>> before that is merciful c'est la vie! The stillness issues from the gracious
>> acceptance of life and death, first, by that which transcends, is immanent,
>> and transparent of, our existence, that resounded with the big YES from the
>> original blessing to our acquired enfeebled assent. Then we freely map out
>> the details of the stillness in our own individual journeys, from which
>> “cometh peace that passeth all understanding." Lost you again? That’s what
>> Leo said!
>>
>> It is Mother's Day at Aala Park in Honolulu today, and in her own way,
>> Lucrecia has stillness in her soul!
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Nancy Lanphear <nancy at songaia.com>
>> To: Order Ecumenical Community <oe at wedgeblade.net>
>> Sent: Tue, Oct 12, 2010 7:52 am
>> Subject: [Oe List ...] Fred's memorial service
>>
>>  Dear Ones,
>>
>> I have trying to decide how to get a message out to those of you are
>> attending Fred's memorial service on Saturday, since I do not know for sure
>> who is coming.  So here comes an email that will let all of you know what is
>> happening and those of you who are coming, to know what is expected of you.
>>
>> Those who are coming, please come to the front right of the tent in the
>> reserved area.  It will be marked.  We will be singing "The Vision."  Fred
>> asked for Kaz's words to be used and this seems like the most appropriate
>> way to do that.
>>
>> Later in the afternoon, as we process to the burial site, the Order and
>> Songaians will stand to the right of the tree.  Michelle will guide us
>> there.
>>
>> I look forward to being with those of you who join us on Saturday,  and
>> will feel the presence of those who are not present on the land.
>>
>> Love,
>>
>> Nancy
>>
>>  Place:  Songaia Community, Bothell, WA
>> Date: October 16, 2010
>> Time:  1:00 to 4:00 pm
>> Program:  Reflections from Family, Community and Friends
>> Burial of Ashes – a special rock under a family tree in our back nyard
>> Walking the Land –stories and places on the land where Fred’s passion is
>> evident
>> Potluck:  Please bring beverages and cookies to share (juice, soda, etc.)
>> Veggies and fruit will be provided
>>
>> RSVP: Please let us know if you are planning to attend and how many people
>> in your group.
>> Reservations can be made at Fred's Memorial Website
>> http://elderfred.wordpress.com/freds-memorial-service/
>>
>> Dress: According to weather (umbrella and appropriate shoes if rain is
>> forecast)
>> Parking:    Carpool if possible, offsite parking
>> Please let us know if you have a disability or need assistance
>>
>> Gifts: In lieu of gifts, donations can be made to:
>> Journeys   www.riteofpassagejourneys.org/get-involved/donate
>> ALS Association (Fred's Folks)  www.alsa.org/donate
>> Kirkland Congregational Church UCC  www.kccucc.org/
>> Fellowship of Intentional Communities  www.ic.org/in/donation.php
>>
>> Questions: Michelle Grandy (michelle at songaia.com or 206-321-4220)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
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