[Oe List ...] OE Digest, Vol 47, Issue 7

[Jaime R Vergara via OE]

Second draft (with a little edit of the first) on the Gordon piece.  Final copy will be on the Tuesday, Feb 16 edition of the Saipan Tribune, for those interested:



Gordon
 
Thename in our title is that of Gordon Harper, a friend in his 80s who diedFebruary 8.  Diagnosed with leukemia lastSeptember, he expected to end his existence within a year.  He lasted four months.
 
Thisreflection is not about the historical particulars of Gordon, spacetime occupiedand roles played.  Nor how he affected other people, including hissupportive wife Roxanna who stayed in the background.  As a facilitator,he worked with groups to corporately articulate their vision, identifycontradictions, offer proposals, and decide on a course of action after aconsensus.
 
I rememberhim '77 as a staff member in the Maliwada Human Development Training Institute(HDTI) to trigger a movement in India of new communities, NavaGram Prayas.   In the plateau ofMaharashtra outside of Aurangabad where the relics of history are carved in theEllora and Ajanta caves, I journeyed to learn of their construct only tofind out that whatever they had on their plates emerged collegially from headsbutting against each other around a table, and that conceptually, I waspedagogically familiar with it. 
 
As agroup, we took the four-year BA program and make it accessible to those who thoughtthey did not have the brain to handle it, nor the resources to pay for thechance.  This was Gordon's brainchild, a course called University 13; yup,a 13-week construct.  A movement waited to be triggered in India, and wehad a generic construct ready to be filled with local flesh and blood.  Theconstruct got transformed into the HDTI. In the same fashion, I wanted to go to the Philippines, and "justdo it".
 
Idid, on Mactan Island among in Sudtonggan village, with the Dick and Linda Altonfamily and resident staff.  Gordon andother colleagues facilitated an HDP, a Human Development Project on the newglobality for participants.  Success in numerical achievement, or awardsfrom the Rotary Club, or recognition from the Chamber of Commerce, was nolonger our agenda.  From Maliwada, as far as career went, I no longer hadany.  I learned to just go do whatever I knew needed to be done, to ignorethe judgment, critique, and expectation of society and history, but work in andthrough them.
 
Wecalled it HDTS, a school targeting 24 villages in Mactan, built a trainingschool in Sudtonggan and invited villages around Langub HDP north of Davao Cityin Mindanao, by a geo-thermal plant in Camarines Sur, and oil drilling inPalawan. 
 
I toldtime by watching Gordon mix his 5-pm gin-and-tonic, smelling the waft of hispipe as he lit up in the afternoon.  A Baptist minister, I neverunderstood how he could get away with his habits (I was an ordained Methodistcleric) until I realized that not all Baptists were created equal!  NorMethodists for that matter! Gordon was a pedagogue par excellence.  I sat under the smell of his cherry-flavoredsmokes.  He kept his gin-tonic routine to himself, not encouraging othersto join him.
 
SinceGordon announced his leukemia, I've reflected more about the facticity of agingnow that I've passed 70.  I've turnedinto a "clutch", dropping things easily, and finding it difficult toget back up again.  The leg calves cramp at night, and I go to the restroomseveral times before sunrise.  Brain cells freezes on recall.  
 
Itaught SVES six graders mid-2000s; it is embarrassing to recognize faces offormer students but could not remember names.  Many now staff offices inthe Community College where I go these days to see if I can teach a few coursesfor the next term; I am invariably greeted by a familiar but older face behinda desk smiling like it was only yesterday when they showed up in my class.
 
I getinto the car to drive to the store, and when I get there, I forgot what it wasthat I drove there for.  More disconcerting is to connect to the Internetand do not remember what email I needed to send.  I am busy at my dwellingeveryday, with many indications of things that got started but not accomplishany at the end of the day.  
 
Ipicture Gordon (and many among my peers getting on with age) nodding his headon all of these, raising a twitch-like lift on one side of his mouth, fingerhis goatee without letting on that he probably went through this part of agingin the last ten years.  Like Gandhi, he had playfulness about him onlife's serious matters.
 
Wewon't go into "eternity" as I do not think Gordon publicly delve intothat much.  One of my students last year asked, "Are you anatheist?" after my spiel on the here-and-now; another responded:"You've not been listening.  He just wants everyone to know he istotally responsible for the 86 years of his existence."
 
I imaginehow Gordon spent his last moments.  He grimaced at the terminus, welcomedthe friend.  The end cometh, it says.  Gordon lived his life. The review of its fullness is finished, outrospection done, heintrospects.  With a beatific smile plastered on his face, he dies hisdeath.  As the old metaphor exuded:  Glory, Hallelujah, praise be!


wangzhimu2031
earthrise consciousness, a gift; earthbound commitment, my choice
yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate! in all, celebrate!









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