[Oe List ...] Gordon

[Jaime R Vergara via OE]

What saw print on Tuesday's edition of ST (only slightly edited from previous drafts):



Gordon
 
Thename is Gordon Harper, a friend at '79 (Scalia of the Supreme Court inyesterdays column was also '79) who died February 8.  Diagnosed with leukemia September, heexpected to end his existence within a year. He lasted four months.
 
Thisreflection is not about the historic particulars of Gordon, spacetime occupiedand roles played.  Nor how he affected other people (he did, many), includinghis supportive wife Roxane who stayed in the background.  As a group facilitator,like his colleague Joe Slicker who at 96 finally drew the curtain also thisweek, he worked with individuals and groups to assist articulate vision,identify contradictions, push practical proposals, and decide on a course ofaction, after a consensus for a group and cognitive discourse for an individual.
 
I rememberGordon '77 as a staff member in the HDTI (Human Development Training Institute)in India, Nava Gram Prayas,to create new communities.   Inthe plateau of Maharashtra outside of Aurangabad where the relics of historyare carved in the Ellora and Ajanta caves, I journeyed to learn of theirconstruct only to find out that whatever they had on their plates emergedcollegially from heads butting against each other around a table, thatconceptually, I was already on the ground with the methodology and material.
 
Gordontook the four-year BA program of his academic background and constructed University13, a 13-week design.  A movement waited to be triggered in India, and wehad a generic construct ready to be filled with flesh and blood.  Theconstruct got transformed into the HDTI. In the same fashion, I returned to the Philippines with the construct to"just do it".
 
Idid, on Mactan Island among in Sudtonggan village, with the Dick and Linda Altonfamily and resident staff.  Gordonassisted the HDP, a Human Development Project already on the ground with thelanguage of the new glocality for participants.  Success in numerical achievement,or awards from the Rotary Club, or recognition from the Chamber of Commerce, wasnot the agenda.  In Maliwada onward, as far as career went, I no longerhad any.  I learned to just go do whatever I knew needed to be done, toignore the judgment, critique, and expectation of society and history, but workin and through 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, sniffing the waft of acherry smelling pipe as he lit up in the afternoon.  A Baptist minister, Inever understood how he could get away with his habits (I was an ordainedMethodist cleric) until I realized that not all Baptists were createdequal!  Nor Methodists for that matter! Gordon was a pedagogue parexcellence.  I sat under the smell ofhis smokes while he kept his gin-tonic routine to himself withoutencouraging others to join him.
 
SinceGordon announced his leukemia (and the death of Scalia and Slicker), I reflected about thefacticity of my aging.  At 70, I turned intoa "clutch", dropping things on the floor, finding it difficult to getback up again.  The leg calves cramp at night; I make a restroom run severaltimes before sunrise.  Brain cells freeze on recall.  
 
Itaught SVES six graders in the previous decade; recognize former students but don'tremember names.  Many staff offices in the Community College where I go toarrange to teach a few courses for the next term.  Familiar but older face behind a deskinvariably greets me, smiling like it was only yesterday when they came toElementary school.
 
I getinto the car to drive to the store, and when I get there, I forgot what it wasthat I drove there for.  I connect to the Internet and do not rememberwhat email I needed to send.  I am busy at my dwelling everyday, with manyindications of things that got started but nothing accomplished at the end ofthe day.  
 
Ipicture Gordon nodding his head on all of these, raising a twitch-like lift onone side of his mouth, finger his goatee without letting on that he probablywent through this part of aging in the last ten years.  Like Gandhi, hehad playfulness about him on life's serious matters.
 
Wewon't go into "eternity" as I don't think Gordon delved into thatmuch.  One of my students last yearasked, "Are you an atheist?" after my spiel on the"here-and-now"; another responded: "You've not beenlistening.  He just wants everyone toknow he is totally 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!  To Scalia, Slicker, and Gordon.


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







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