Replying to LO28583 --
Dear Organlearners,
Andrew Cambell < ACampnona@aol.com > writes
>Jeff Gates noted that, - "Our notion of community is
>contracting, precisely when when it most needs to expand.
Greetings dear Andrew,
That is definitely true. Thousands of families here in Pretoria were flung
into "potential poverty" because of organisations closing down, partially
or completely. Being on their own, they had no support from the community
to make wise decisions or to overcome catastrophies like death or a
financial institution going bankcrupt with all their savings. Thus this
"potential poverty" became actual poverty.
The worst is that in their actual poverty they discover just how much all
the organisations in their community have become closed to them. They have
to make a living outside organised community. Were it not for individuals
who care for them, they would have died of want.
>Jeff [Gates] has what looks to me like a fundamental
>law. It's the law of sufficiency. Plato in his grounded
>and ideal wisdom said that for the Republic in Greece
>the ratio of wealth among people should not exceed the
>span of 5 to 1 and for Jefferson in America is was set
>at the ideal of 100 to 1. In our global village I wonder
>if anyone reading here has the answer to the question
>of what the ratio actually is.
Looking at the ratio is one way of making sure that wealth is concentrated
in the hands of the few rich. But is not the way of ensuring that wealth
does not get concentrated in the hands of the few rich. Neither is any
mindless system like taking taxes and distributing it among the poor.
All the organisations of a community have to get the message that they
have become closed to the poor in that community. That message have to be
born from within to become knowledge which will act soundly. I often think
that were most of the organisations in Pretoria Learning Organisations
(LOs), poverty would not have become such a serious issue here.
This means that I either assume or know by experience that a LO is not
closed to the needs of others in its environment.
Let me tell this story. There is a congegration in Pretoria which trans-
formed itself (with the help of God) into a "tacit LO". They did it in a
cellular manner, calling the "cells" Care-Groups (CGs). It took them three
years to get 80% of the congegration a "tacit LO". In the last stage, and
this surprised me immensely, CGs for kiddies (pre-school chindren) were
formed spontaneously.
One day the kiddies CGs decided that they want to visist a local police
station to learn what happens there. The adult leaders of these CGs were
very much afraid to allow it. They prayed a lot on it and eventually
decided that the kiddies should do the visit. They did and to their
greatest surprise those in jail told the kiddies openly what they did and
why it was wrong. Afterwards the kiddies asked spontaneously the police to
come outside in the yard and stand in a bundle. They then formed a circle
around them by holding hands and began to pray for the police, one by one.
The one adult CG leader told me that that evening he never saw many adults
crying because of kiddies praying for their safety and insight in doing
their job right.
I just now got an idea -- to contact that CG leader and ask one of these
kiddie CGs whether they want to come over and pray for this family. I will
discuss it with my dear wife and see what she thinks of it.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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