6-Why the OC?

Definition: Why the ECUSA® Compendium-Glossary was developed The purpose of the CG is to enhance Social Cohesion. In the beginning, however, that was not my purpose. In fact, I had no particular opinion about Social Cohesion, much less an Understanding that a glossary and compendium was what I Needed in order to arrive at an Understanding. "The beginning" I speak of was May 2, 2006. Without going into detail, that was when I collapsed at age 56. It was a crises long in the making. My old way of Understanding and doing things no longer worked. Once my crisis hit, within a few days I concluded that what I was engulfed in was not what I later would define as a Condition, but rather was a Problem of some kind, or at least I wanted it to be a Problem that had the possibility of a Solution. Again, without going into detail, I started writing and eventually concluded that the Problem was not just me or my personality, nor was it my wife or deceased mother and father or my siblings, much less my children and grandchildren. The Problem was not any thing or person that was an immediately part of my life. All those people and things and their influences on me, including the influence of my own personality, were factors, of course, in the Problem I was facing, but they were not Adequate sources of explanation of the Problem, much less of the Solution. Had they been, I would have fixed the Problem long before my crisis. My collapse was evidence that something else was going on that I did not know about much less Understand. What was it? Thus I began to look more broadly for explanations and solutions. Eventually I realized as I kept writing and writing that I was deep into a forest of complexity far beyond the possibilities of my Understanding at that time. I was like a man lost - unable to find his destination. After a while as the man kept hiking and hiking looking for landmarks that would point him in the right direction, he finally realized, "Wait a minute. I've been here before!" He was going in circles over what turned out to be familiar ground, but familiar because of repetition in his state of being lost, not because it was getting him closer to his destination. He still was lost. He was not making progress. In my case, I was lost in my own words and sentences - in my thinking and writing about my crisis, which by then, I should mention, had died down enormously. The mere act of writing was calming and therapeutic at least in that sense. In any event, I was lost, but at least I finally knew it. And then it occurred to me that I was lost despite innumerable conversations and sessions with many people that included a first class liberal arts education in my youth and a lifetime of adult psychotherapy (or so it seemed). That is when I realized that on behalf of myself and all the people I had conversed with and dealt with in my life, including the experts, I Needed to define words, pin them down and use them consistently so that I would not keep going around in circles, bumping into the same old words as if they were new discoveries. That realization was the beginning of the CG.

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I am not a philosopher, scientist or expert in any field. I have a bachelor's degree from the Honors Program of Saint Louis University, Phi Beta Kappa. That is the extent of my formal education. I was born in 1950, married in 1971, we had four children and now my wife and I have ten grandchildren. I do not claim to have credentialed insights into any Aspect of Reality. Rather, I am an ordinary Person and Citizen who has a particular biography. That is all.

Yet, I am the man with the crisis. For years I had conferred with experts and despite all their efforts and mine, I collapsed anyway. That suggested to me that the experts were Inadequate up against the real Nature of the Problem. They were not "bad" people. Their knowledge and skill were not "bad." They helped. I am convinced of it. I am a believer in the education of my youth and in the experts I have conferred with in my adulthood - a believer in all of it - I am not complaining - but I am also convinced that the youthful education and adult help I received was Inadequate. Again, my collapse is the evidence.

Now, allow me to address you directly. Compared to me, you may be a rocket scientist. However, since modern life is so complex, your expertise, no matter how lofty, is narrow and tiny compared to the vast scope of existing human Knowledge, much less compared to Reality. Outside of rocket science, you are an ordinary Person and Citizen like me who has a biography particular to you. That is all. You may think you are more qualified than me in the matters discussed herein, and who knows, you may be more qualified, in which case I say - Wonderful! Join with me and all the other participants and make the CG better! Do not stand off and be snobbish. Do not allow your expertise to inhibit you. Roll up your sleeves and jump in to help - help anonymously, if that is necessary in your case.

You and I both Desire and Need to make sense of things if we are to grasp what bothers us, make decisions, work towards bringing about Desirable changes, and thus bring about a Happy existence for ourselves and our loved-ones. To put it in terms of our Declaration of Independence of 1776 we both Desire "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" and not only the pursuit but the actual achievement of a satisfactory amount of Happiness here on earth.

While both of us should remain open to correction by our present-day teachers and acknowledge that many different kinds of Persons may be worthy to be our contemporary teachers, in the meantime, you and I must make decisions as best we can about the meaning of words we are using right now in the present and so define them accordingly so that we may use them consistently to come to better terms with Reality now.

Thus, this exercise of building the CG is important. The danger in our modern age of mass Communication is that words can be manipulated in such a way as to further obscure Reality instead of enlightening us about it. We then tend to use those words that have been foisted upon us with their manipulated meanings and so end up more confused than we were in the beginning. Like the man in the forest, we can be lost, going in circles and not quite realize it. And so for better or worse, we must nail down the meaning of words for ourselves - you and I - and agree on them in light of our upbringing, education and whatever adult expertise we may have achieved so that we may Converse with one another and with others with less confusion and do it now.

While you may be comfortable in life, and I hope that you are, I am not. I am driven. I have many practical concerns. I Need, for example, to alleviate suffering in myself and to whatever extent that I can in my loved-ones. I know from direct observation and reports, written and otherwise, that many Americans are suffering. I feel urgent about these matters. And so I appeal for your assistance and participation in the CG. Let us agree on the words we use.