[Oe List ...] Thoughts on Parker's paper

Wed Sep 15 20:05:01 CDT 2010

Herman Greene wrote:

".method never was the key for me."

I agree in the sense that it was RS-I that unlocked my passion and made
going back to a "normal" life impossible, unwantable. But that is really the
"being"-not the "doing" that emerges from the "being"-in my opinion.  If we
were going to change the world, we had to enable the oppressed to
participate in their future, and for that a structure to enable the
participation was necessary.  So while my heart is forever bound to RS-I and
to some extent the other RS and CS courses etc., I also know in my heart
that what changed the world was giving it structure (the participatory
methods/facilitation) to stand upon firmly so people could create their own
lives. 

And no one will ever convince me, should he try, that it was other than the
EI/ICA that catalyzed the change that makes facilitation and participation
something the world now takes for granted as the way things should be
decided (even though the least taste of power causes the empowered to
abandon their affection for consensus and strive for authority instead of
leadership).

Susan

From: oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net [mailto:oe-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf
Of Herman Greene
Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2010 5:53 PM
To: 'Order Ecumenical Community'
Subject: [Oe List ...] Thoughts on Parker's paper

I was in the room when Parker spilled out his thoughts now more carefully
described in his paper. I identify with it. I like this sentence: "We are
living in a time in which a 'new pedagogy' must come into being; not
facilitation of everyone's mixed up and confused thinking that yields a
sense of hopelessness and cynicism except on a most reduced scale."

Jim Wiegel was in the room too and when this came out he said something
about how he couldn't accept that what he was doing wasn't worthwhile. 

I missed that period when facilitation was the order of the day. I've always
been puzzled by it, but I have been very impressed and moved by what ICA
people were able to do through human development projects and I am sure
great moments occurred in the thousands of facilitation sessions led by ICA
people. The Great Sacrifice went on far beyond when I left in 1975.

 I would put the turn to the world later than 1970-71, but it's not
important. We were either primarily the Ecumenical Institute when I left in
1975 or I missed something. True, RS-1 wasn't being taught much anymore, the
original LENS was, which I understand because mostly a methods course. 

I'm not trying to criticize, but method never was the key for me. 

So we get back to pedagogy. Not defined in Bill's paper. For one thing, we
would have to have something to say. I spoke with another order colleague
recently who recalled her initial experience with EI. She said "They had an
answer to everything," and in a sense they/we did, though the answers we had
then are not the answers for today.

Pedagogy, what would that mean today? Surely not the style of pedagogy of
the past, but I drawing on the past I guess pedagogy would still mean
stirring people deeply. Yet that has to be with profound content so that
people are not only moved but also in-formed.

I can't imagine a disciplined order like we had coming out of this group
again. I can imagine their being a kind of ancestral tradition that goes
back to those days with the deep spirit movement of our early days carried
through all of us. I can imagine continued networking and connecting and
sparks coming together at different places among us. I can imagine ICA in
Chicago developing a presence, as it is, and I can imagine a revival of the
Ecumenical Institute of Chicago.

My recent efforts have focused on the Interfaith Consortium for Ecological
Civilization, which will come to be on October 19 in New York. This is
certainly an expression of the pluriform religious about which Bill writes.
(Outline attached.) I am hoping that ICA/EI connections around the world
will help ICEC pull off the ecological civilization conferences mentioned in
the draft. We'll need facilitator/pedagogues . . . and something
else-"dialogue" as a method.

I haven't read Jack's paper yet, but I will. I spoke with him in OKC and
anticipate some of the ideas he shared there to be in his draft. 

I think if we were pedagogues we would be teaching about ecological
civilization.

Herman

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