Just returned from the Lilly North conference on collegiate teaching. Tired. Exhilarated. Richer. Deeper. Poorer. I say "poorer" because Susan's "retail therapy" for her degenerative neck discs raised the economy of Traverse City by four points. Epidurals haven't work on her neck to ease the pain. Accupuncture has been ineffective. We've tried sacro-cranial massages and upper cranial chiropractic. Nothing has, not even meds. But, deciding which trying on a pair of ear rings or an outfit, and adding them to her fashion stash, sure did! It was worth every dollar to see her smile and laugh. I guess, no guessing, that makes me richer in the important ways, and the heck with the bills. Anyway, here I am, the "Monday after the weekend before," what I call the most important day of any conference. So, here I am, with a cup of freshly brewed coffee while the thundering rain outside is keeping me from my meditative pre-dawn streets thinking about just what is it about these Lilly conferences that is so alluring. More specifically, just what is the Lilly way? It's more than a conference on teaching in higher education. It's more than leaving your egos on the doorstep. It's more than an "experience." It's more than a "retreat." It's more than a network of empathetic, sympathetic, loving (yet loving), supporting, encouraging, and enlightening friends. It's all of those things--and more, so much more. The Lilly way reminds us, tells us, that teaching, like life in general, is a living, breathing work of art; that we paint our canvas as we go; that we ourselves are a painting as we go; that we are not what we know but what we are willing to learn; that we each are not a static "am," but a dynamic "becoming;" that each day is a new beginning. Our assumptions and perceptions, those roots of our feelings, thoughts, and actions, the sources of our attributions of others are our windows both on the world and our inner selves. Lilly helps us to scrub the obscuring dirt off the panes, so we can both see in and out, and let the light come in and go out.
Make it a good day, Louis Louis Schmier http://www.the<http://www.the/> randomthoughts.edublogs.org<http://randomthoughts.edublogs.org/> Department of History http://www.valdosta.edu/~lschmier/publicity Valdosta State University Valdosta, Georgia 31698 /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ (O) 229-333-5947 /^\\/ \/ \ /\/\__ / \ / \ (C) 229-630-0821 / \/ \_ \/ / \/ /\/ / \ /\ \ //\/\/ /\ \__/__/_/\_\/ \_/__\ \ /\"If you want to climb mountains,\ /\ _ / \ don't practice on mole hills" - / \_ --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=5199 or send a blank email to leave-5199-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
