<font color='black' size='4' face='Times New Roman, Times, serif'><font size="4">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:</font>
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<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"><b>Gordon</b><o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"><b> </b><o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">The
name in our title is that of Gordon Harper, a friend in his 80s who died
February 8. Diagnosed with leukemia last
September, he expected to end his existence within a year. He lasted four months.<o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> <o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">This
reflection is not about the historical particulars of Gordon, spacetime occupied
and roles played. Nor how he affected other people, including his
supportive wife Roxanna who stayed in the background. As a facilitator,
he worked with groups to corporately articulate their vision, identify
contradictions, offer proposals, and decide on a course of action after a
consensus.<o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> <o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">I remember
him '77 as a staff member in the Maliwada Human Development Training Institute
(HDTI) to trigger a movement in India of new communities, <i>Nava
Gram Prayas. </i>In the plateau of
Maharashtra outside of Aurangabad where the relics of history are carved in the
Ellora and Ajanta caves, I journeyed to learn of their construct only to
find out that whatever they had on their plates emerged collegially from heads
butting against each other around a table, and that conceptually, I was
pedagogically familiar with it. <o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> <o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">As a
group, we took the four-year BA program and make it accessible to those who thought
they did not have the brain to handle it, nor the resources to pay for the
chance. This was Gordon's brainchild, a course called University 13; yup,
a 13-week construct. A movement waited to be triggered in India, and we
had a generic construct ready to be filled with local flesh and blood. The
construct got transformed into the HDTI.
In the same fashion, I wanted to go to the Philippines, and "just
do it".<o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> <o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">I
did, on Mactan Island among in Sudtonggan village, with the Dick and Linda Alton
family and resident staff. Gordon and
other colleagues facilitated an HDP, a Human Development Project on the new
globality for participants. Success in numerical achievement, or awards
from the Rotary Club, or recognition from the Chamber of Commerce, was no
longer our agenda. From Maliwada, as far as career went, I no longer had
any. I learned to just go do whatever I knew needed to be done, to ignore
the judgment, critique, and expectation of society and history, but work in and
through them.<o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> <o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">We
called it HDTS, a school targeting 24 villages in Mactan, built a training
school in Sudtonggan and invited villages around Langub HDP north of Davao City
in Mindanao, by a geo-thermal plant in Camarines Sur, and oil drilling in
Palawan. <o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> <o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">I told
time by watching Gordon mix his 5-pm gin-and-tonic, smelling the waft of his
pipe as he lit up in the afternoon. A Baptist minister, I never
understood how he could get away with his habits (I was an ordained Methodist
cleric) until I realized that not all Baptists were created equal! Nor
Methodists for that matter! Gordon was a pedagogue <i>par excellence</i>. I sat under the smell of his cherry-flavored
smokes. He kept his gin-tonic routine to himself, not encouraging others
to join him.<o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> <o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">Since
Gordon announced his leukemia, I've reflected more about the facticity of aging
now that I've passed 70. I've turned
into a "clutch", dropping things easily, and finding it difficult to
get back up again. The leg calves cramp at night, and I go to the restroom
several times before sunrise. Brain cells freezes on recall. <o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><font size="4"> </font></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">I
taught SVES six graders mid-2000s; it is embarrassing to recognize faces of
former students but could not remember names. Many now staff offices in
the Community College where I go these days to see if I can teach a few courses
for the next term; I am invariably greeted by a familiar but older face behind
a desk smiling like it was only yesterday when they showed up in my class.<o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> <o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">I get
into the car to drive to the store, and when I get there, I forgot what it was
that I drove there for. More disconcerting is to connect to the Internet
and do not remember what email I needed to send. I am busy at my dwelling
everyday, with many indications of things that got started but not accomplish
any at the end of the day. <o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><o:p><font size="4"> </font></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">I
picture Gordon (and many among my peers getting on with age) nodding his head
on all of these, raising a twitch-like lift on one side of his mouth, finger
his goatee without letting on that he probably went through this part of aging
in the last ten years. Like Gandhi, he had playfulness about him on
life's serious matters.<o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> <o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">We
won't go into "eternity" as I do not think Gordon publicly delve into
that much. One of my students last year asked, "Are you an
atheist?" after my spiel on the here-and-now; another responded:
"You've not been listening. He just wants everyone to know he is
totally responsible for the 86 years of his existence."<o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4"> <o:p></o:p></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font size="4">I imagine
how Gordon spent his last moments. He grimaced at the terminus, welcomed
the friend. The end cometh, it says. Gordon lived his life.
The review of its fullness is finished, outrospection done, he
introspects. With a beatific smile plastered on his face, he dies his
death. As the old metaphor exuded: Glory, Hallelujah, praise be!</font><o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment--><br>
<div style="font-size: 18px; clear: both;"><i>wangzhimu2031</i>
<div>earthrise consciousness, a gift; earthbound commitment, my choice</div>
<div><i>yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today, participate! in all, celebrate!<br>
</i>
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Sent: Thu, Feb 11, 2016 4:44 am<br>
Subject: OE Digest, Vol 47, Issue 7<br>
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