THE VOYAGERS: A View from one of the Crew, Larry L. Foster

Stardate: Fall, 2008, Second Issue

Ed. Note: This is the second effort at a little newsletter for a crew of remnants who directly or indirectly sat at the knee of the late Rabbi known as Ed who sat at the knee of Murray who read logs of the Beagle (see Darwin). These seekers and explorers continue a voyage toward a vision of differentiation while inviting see-worthy guests on deck or pulling into faculty ports. Sailing the seas of anxiety looking for a passageway, this ragtag bunch has sailed for 12 years. Memory recalls Bob Hunter and Pete Steinke formulating the original launch plan and mission. Some of the original crew have put into settled ports while others continue looking for silks and spices with other crews. New recruits joined over time. This newsletter offers a mosaic of presenting items, notes, commentary, reflection, reports, and other trip stuff. Readers who find this floating to their bailiwick are invited to respond. LF.

LOG: Continuing to go where no one has gone before:

Voyagers continue to stay in touch with the elements of a theory involving loyal remnant strains from a Waverly, Tennessee Psychiatrist and one from a Manhattan Reformed Rabbi relationship. The Bowen/Friedman Axis brought the Voyager group to D.C. Now it's the twelfth year since Ed's death.

This little band of students and searchers is only a small nucleus connected to thousands who sat in swivel chairs in the shadow of Murray and/or Ed. The impulse has been to meet, stay in touch, and explore. D.C. offers Axis facilities and faculties found nowhere else. Yet "the thinking" and its hybrids are everywhere now. As someone said, "If this stuff is accurate, and it seems to be, it won't become a cult." And as Ed once said, "How do you differentiate from the differentiated one?"

People In Times of Engagement

So far presenters have included:

• Victoria Harrison on Bowen Theory and health issues

• Kathy Wiseman on consulting and leadership
• Candice Pert on her research
• Robert Coughenour on Old Testament and Wisdom
• Larry Matthews on Pastoral Theology
• Doug Murphy on Theory and clinical practice
• Pete Steinke on work with congregations
• Mike Kerr on unidisease, siblings, differentiation, cases
• Kathy Kerr on Attachment
• Chris Keiser on Technology and Theology
• Roberta Holt on Calhouns's study of rats and societal regression
• Dan Papero on leadership in the church, family of origin guidelines, emotions, stress
• Priscilla Friesen on the brain
• John Haught on religion and science
• Shira Friedman Bogart on Rites of Passage
• Doug Murphy on Coaching and Supervision
• And Members of Voyagers on various topics:
  • Individual Voyagers gave papers or presentations related to topics of interest such as Rembrandt and Differentiation, Theological excursions, Ed's view on Spirituality, PhD proposals, Papero Paper, and an update on the potential 9th Concept.
• Also major presentations were given at the 10th Reunion: One of the results of the reunion is the publication of The Myth of the Shiksa, a collection Ed Friedman's writings.

Quotes

"All families are pretty much alike. So when I am talking about my family, I am talking about your family. The volume is increased some in some families, decreased some in other families, but we are all pretty much alike across cultures, and in my view, also across species. So, it is not personal in that sense. Anybody that can get to the point that they get beyond taking it personally in their own family has made a big step."

"This is the role of the coach, and the coach doesn’t have to say anything. If the coach is truly out of it. I am not saying that is all there is to coaching, but having contact with somebody that was outside the system but who was interested in me, interested in my family, and thinking theory, helped my head clear. Then it became a series of these experiences, over and over and over, learning about what the system is like, what you respond to in it, how you get caught in it, how it changes you biologically and psychologically, and then this relationship with somebody who can stay outside of it. So, again, this notion of what does it mean to eventually be able to make contact with the system, and not get into it? Nobody accomplishes that in a short time."

"So I saw something with my mother. I was able to be a little bit different with her. A little more separate and distinct. Not so quick to be governed by her anxiety and my anxious response to it. Wham! Translates over into the marriage."

"Bowen used to say, "That which is created in a relationship, can be fixed in a relationship." Kerr 2000

"So I did a presentation on the relevance of the prophets. And it wasn’t so much what they said. It was the way they functioned. Which was that they didn’t function in coercive ways, and they were taught to preserve their own integrity." Friedman quote, 1994

"You have inherited a lifetime of tribulation, everybody has inherited it. Take it over, make the most of it. And when you have decided you know the right way, do the best you can with it.” Murray Bowen

Reflection by the Writer

Transcribing tapes recorded from eight years at the knee of Ed, and at other events where he presented his ideas, is taking some time to accomplish. Along the way I catch various stages of ideas or themes in his thinking that were expressed. Below is one I came across recently and I'll note it in light of the recent election. This may make for possible discussion at our gatherings-- or through other channels. Here's a distilled quote from a presentation on Spirituality given in 1993:

"I presented to you four or five ideas about leadership: about the importance of vision, the importance of persistence, and the importance of stamina in the face of sabotage. I guess what runs through it--and I didn’t quite touch on--is the importance of connectedness. An enormous amount of people who are great visionaries or who are very efficient and very effective people just don’t get what they want because they don’t realize the importance of connectedness.

I think a critical issue in change is leadership. I call it leadership through self- differentiation. No change will last , unless you have somebody in that family who is working at the continued evolution and growth of their own self. These people who called me desperate to stay in their congregations, when they realized what they had to do, namely that they had to look at their own emptiness, that they had to develop their own soul. When they got that from me rather than a technique, they quit.

The way out of the rut rather, lies in rethinking the way we conceptualize organizations and relationships, and in developing a capacity to gain some separation from and be less reactive to, the anxiety that ricochets from sea to shining sea.

That the major differences in life do not have to do with culture and gender and all those social science categories. They have to do with levels of maturity.

Reflection: A recent comment by Pete partly clued my curiosity about how Ed would discuss Obama and leadership. Pete's suggested, as I understood it, that Ed might have some positive things to say about Obama and would think it best if he could come to enjoy the punches he's going to receive (reminiscent of Ed's story of the Golden Gloves champion being asked how hard was it to take all the punches. The boxer responded with, "It's not just taking the punches, it's loving it.")

Looking back at Ed's 1993 list of leadership characteristics, which emerged from his maps presentations, how might Obama connect to these features? ….That is, vision (seeing what others cannot see), persistence, stamina (energy), and not getting thrown by ambushes or sabotage (which will definitely come when a leader does well).

Also, in finding a leader in a family or organization Ed came to have one criterion, "The person with the least amount of blaming." I notice Obama isn't punishing Lieberman, like others are talking about. Also, the losing side is expressing a good deal of blame, according to the media I catch.

A most intriguing thought has to do with the extent Obama did some kind of family of origin work through his books on his father, mother, and life? (McCain appears to have done some work on his lineage as well in his book). It was also public for observers to see and "audit." Without operating from an intentionally expressed theory for those efforts it may be the natural workings of the theory without thinking theory. Also the public watches a continuation of taking responsibility for the family unit in the midst of it all, taking children to school, breaking in the middle of campaign climax to visit a dying grandmother, staying less reactive than many others (some who have complained about his calm way--a sign of doing well??). It is an interesting question how we may be watching a positive process that Bowen and Friedman gave a lens to see regarding leadership in an age of the quick fix. I wonder what others think?

Other notions stick out such as what kind of staff or team does a leader gather around him or her. I think the idea is that one chooses a team that reflects one's level of maturity, or capacity to lead. How much have comments on Lincoln's Team of Rivals shown up? Also, casting a larger picture or vision seems to include capacity for restraint from invasive action with the current leader domain until the term ends.

Then again, "nobody gets over 70%."

Your comments are welcome.

Yours, for the cause of exploration with Voyagers,

Larry L. Foster clergyseminars@oceana.net www.clergyseminars.net

See you in the Fall/Spring Orbit.