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Letter to the Vestry
From The Rev. David R. Graham
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As logic is to Mathematics, as rationality is to Science, as reason is to Theology and as the husband is to a Marriage, so is corporate conceptuality to the Church. At the very most, it is exactly one half of the story. The managers of International Business Machines, Corp., who for two generations have led organizational development in the industrialized world, have announced intention to decentralize. This action we should regard as both monitory and prescient. Ultimately, reality is absolutely ultra-democratic (cooperatively decentralized). Spirituality (piety) tends to the same end. Over the centuries, this fact has received eloquent witness by elements of the Anglican Communion: Quakers, Separatists, Baptists, Methodists, the Franciscan wing of the Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, Unitarians, Christian Scientists, Transcendentalists and Puritans (Congregationalists). The goal of Spirituality coincides with Truth. Truth is the goal. More particularly, experience of Truth is the goal. Experience is the thing experienced. We may say that this experience, which is Truth, is ultra-democracy in action. Truth takes the form of ultra-democracy in the realm of organizations and institutions. When we want to find Truth in the realm of organizations and institutions, we look for those aspects of operations that may truly be called ultra-democratic. Therefore, we would be realistic to contemplate organizational development with this end of ultra-democratic operations in view. Our goal should be an organization and institution the inner character of which is ultra-democratic. This should be our goal because we are the Church and the Church by definition aims at achieving Truth. Equally, the electronic environment in which we are and will be living is an ultra-democratic environment. The inner meaning of the feminist movement is that there are not bosses and workers, just workers. The electronic environment is enforcing this fact and nothing can prevent its full realization. Political developments in the Soviet Union point this up. Logic, rationality, reason and the husband are useful to an extent but not for everything. Just so, corporate conceptuality is useful so far as it goes, but it does not supply all needs. For example, we do not understand any human being, including ourselves. Nor do we understand God. Any body of knowledge or person who opposes this truth, claiming to understand a human being or God, should be regarded as lying and/or insane. A Church is led from multiple points of authority, each comprising wisdom, ability and the genius of action. A Church operates by consensus and cannot be understood. The organizational development which is being pioneered at IBM is inspired by this ecclesiastical model. Ironically, the corporate realm today is ahead of the ecclesiastical realm in the field of organizational development, a field the ecclesiastical realm pioneered. The corporate realm has long been ahead of the ecclesiastical realm in the fields of human rights and charitable activity. Today, the work-a-day world is physically, mentally, and spiritually safer to live and to work in than the Church is. In this context, we should be aware that elements of the Christian kerygma, as handed to us, are not factual and are undergoing correction which is being accepted inside and outside the Church. In addition, the Church itself is undergoing transformation from a sectarian society to a Prayer Hall for the adherents of all religions. This is a radical stroke, a re-establishment of the Church's primal nature, its root cause for being. These changes are evolutionary in character. They are being greeted with enthusiasm inside and outside the Church. They will fulfill the needs and reflect the actual living conditions of people in centuries to come. There are as many religions as there are minds.
S U M M A R Y If we would call half the story the whole, employing corporate conceptuality to define the Church, let us at least employ a to-date version of the same, one which addresses the facts of our life now and futurely and which also, happily, coincides with the end of spiritual discipline, which is, decentralization, or, ultra-democracy. When the heart is devoid of anger, where is the need for a doctor? When the heart is devoid of hatred, where is the need for a lawyer? When the heart is devoid of lust, where is the need for a priest?
the patients are healthy and the doctor is otherwise engaged.
the clients are neither harming nor being harmed and the lawyer is otherwise engaged.
the members are at their station and the Sanctuary is enveloped in Primordial Silence.
Should we rejoice over an increase in hospital admissions, legal proceedings or church memberships? Are we ghouls, are we barbarians, should we be happy when others show evidence of suffering? that laity, clergy and religious are not doing their job. when the membership roster is deplete, covert operations are discontinued, intelligence files are inactive, the pulpit is silent, the world is the altar, work is worship, food is Grace, prayer is good deeds, preaching is practice, authority is such and the people are cheerful as a cricket and busy as a bee.
The three professions exist to eliminate the need for their existence. Adwaitha Hermitage |
The picture at the top of this page was drawn by Mary Graham and colored by David Graham, also. Its title is St. Francis and Friend and it is part of Orangeblossom, a coloring book from Adwaitha Hermitage.
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