Dec '00 / Jan 2001
A
Gift Given, A Gift Received: Water
to Iraq
By Edilith Eckart
Election Analysis Progressive
Directions?
By Bill Thomson
Modernizing Our Electoral Rules
&
Practices
By Rob Richie
Democracy 101
By Blair Bobier
Clean Money: Campaign Finance
Reform
By John Moyers
Book Review: The Cultural Creatives
Paul H. Ray & Sherry Ruth
Anderson Reviewed by
Peter Montague
Remembrance: Robert Theobald
By Bob Stilger
Transforming Our Dreaming
By Josˇ Stevens
Democracy and the Airwaves
By Suzi Aufderheide
StarLink: More Bad News for Biotech
by Ronnie Cummins
The US Is Warned "Wake Up
To Global Warming Threat"
By Environmental News Service
U.S. Position Threatens to
Derail Climate Change Negotiations
By Cat Lazaroff
Martin Luther King, Jr: Global and
Social Shaman
By Royal E. Alsup, Ph.D.
Sexual Union, Inside and Out
By Peter Moore
A Pagan Speak to Jesus
By John Darling
Cosmic Calendar
By Salina Rain
Remembrance:
Robert Theobald
By Bob Stilger
A year ago, November 27, 1999, Robert Theobald died. His spirit soared, leaving
his broken body behind. For those who don't know who Robert was (and is):
Forty years ago he moved to the United States from the United Kingdom because
he believed the social change which needed to occur in the United States was
key to the survival of the planet. He sometimes called himself a "defrocked
economist," because of his early training in economics and because of
his early conclusion that its models were far to limiting to serve the world.
Robert wrote more than 25 books during those forty years. He consulted with
hundreds of companies and governments, spoke before thousands of groups, and
touched uncountable hearts.
Even now, a year after his death, e-mails are still received every week from
people who have discovered either his life and his work, or his death. He
continues to touch many people. Why? Because he cared deeply and he believed
in people. He saw, time and time again, that we had the capacity to release
the full potential of our human spirits in service of the restoration of the
planet. He saw that most of us cared deeply for each other-once we were able
to connect at a fully human level.
For many years Robert's voice was one which told people "you're not crazy-the
systems you are trying to work in are." This year Paul Ray and Sherry
Anderson have identified a large population they call "Cultural Creatives"
who embody these qualities Robert saw. (See the book review, this issue.)
I call us the "caring, and isolated many." The invitation in Robert's
death is to break down the isolation. To find the connections. To do our separate
and common work. So much has happened in the year since Robert died. As I
think on it this early winter morning, I see Bill Ellis and his work with
Cooperative Community Life-Long Learning Centers (www.creatinglearningcommunities.org);
Tom Hurley and Terra-Civitas (www.chaord.org);
Joanna Macy's work to expand the vision of The Great Turning (www.greatturning.net);
Marianne Williamson and the Global Renaissance Network (www.renaissancealliance.org),
and many, many more.
My own path has led me to starting New Stories (www.newstories.org)
as the primary vehicle to carry on the work Robert and I and others did. And,
from New Stories my most engaging work in the world has been to serve as one
of the leaders of From the Four Directions: People Everywhere Leading the
Way (www.fromthefourdirections.org),
a global leadership Initiative brought forth by Meg Wheatley and The Berkana
Institute with support from PeerSpirit (www.peerspirit.com),
New Stories and many others. We do this work out of a belief that leaders
are abundant on the planet now, and that we want to lead in life-affirming
ways. Our work in From the Four Directions is to help these leaders find and
support each other to develop the courage to both be and lead the change they
want to see in the world.
What would Robert
say about all this, a year after his death?
He'd shake his head and write prolifically about what's happening in Florida.
How is it possible, he would ask, that we spend all this time and energy and
focus counting little holes in ballots and not stepping back to ask what this
election really says about the underlying uncertainty and confusion of the
United States culture?
He'd look at the breakdown of the peace process in the Middle East and ask
how long we would continue to believe that political processes could simply
gloss over the deep grief and deep pain peoples on all sides of the conflict
have felt and inflicted on each other.
And he'd look out with a spirit of great hope as he saw people, everywhere,
rising up in new ways to join together to live and work in more life affirming
ways. Robert, as always, would be infused with a spirit of hope as he saw
the different movements-like those mentioned above-that expressed people's
resilience, our hopes, our love and our laughter at the prospect of creating
a better world.
Robert would frequently flash his big smile and talk about how he was a "mile
wide and an inch deep." He saw the patterns and he saw the possibilities.
More than anything, he saw the deeply rooted capacity of us-you and me and
millions of caring people in the world-to live more sane and fulfilling lives,
in relationship with each other.
During the last week of Robert's life, the night after we brought him home
from the hospital to his small apartment overlooking downtown Spokane, we
all thought he would die. But that night, in the presence of two members of
our healing community-Anne Deveson and Francesca Firstwater-Robert had a powerful
vision. He saw how he could continue to live. He saw he could live if he could
be deeply in community. He could live if he could be deeply in relationship.
Throughout the remaining days of his life, that week, he worked on two levels.
The first was he kept trying to learn more and more about this insight. The
second was that he tried to bring his body into alignment with his new understanding.
His body was too far gone, but his new understanding continues to evolve and
it is represented so clearly in the work of so many in this past year.
Perhaps that was Robert's parting gift to us all-the deep invitation to find
our place in community and in relationship and to do our work from a deep
appreciation of our interconnectedness.
Bob Stilger is Managing Partner of New Stories, 350 East 10th Spokane,
WA 99202; (509) 835 4128; Fax (509) 835 4182; bob@newstories.org;
www.newstories.org
