Of God, Stones, and Political Candidates - RESPONSE

I think discussion is valuable. I appreciate the comments that I get from readers and even those who disagree with me. Here are great comments that I received concerning the Politics post. I believe that the poster raised good points so I wanted to respond openly. Thanks for your comments below is my response.

COMMENT: As a member of the discussion board you reference, I am not aware that people said that pro-choice candidates are muderers.

RESPONSE: Go back and read the long list of post. There were many things said that I found a bit disturbing. I believe the comments were that pro-choice candidate don't believe in the sanctity of life and sanction murder of the unborn. What I saw little of was compassion or understanding for anyone who might disagree.

COMMENT: I think many people feel that there is no law in place to protect the unborn child.

RESPONSE: I believe that a discussion of how to truly protect children would be valuable. I include all children in that and saw no real discussion about protection but instead a lot of moralizing about the sin of the mother. It would have been wonderful to have an exchange of ideas about the many ways in which we can protect ALL children everywhere. Unfortunately I did not see that discussion.

COMMENT: As for the other issues you mention, there seems to be a tone that perhaps a conservative person does not care about the poor, healthcare etc.

RESPONSE: It's not a tone. It's just an opinion. I did not see the same fervor or quoting of scriptures about those things that I did about murdering, killing, and stoning. In a Christian forum I'd appreciate a response that is in line with scriptures about how God feels about the poor. Unfortunately I did not see much of that.

COMMENT: I believe that many conservative people (not necessarily candidates) believe that in many cases the various government programs just enable people, not help them.

RESPONSE: I wasn't speaking as a conservative or liberal but as a Christian. Those people who are being enabled have children that have no voice. Those children need someone to speak for them just as the unborn. When a child sits down and is hungry or is hurt and can't go to a doctor I don't think it is Christian to punish them because of what is thought of their parents. As a Christian I know that the Bible says time and chance happens to the just and and unjust alike. Just like the hurricane of Katrina or today's tornadoes, it could be you or I that needs a little help. There, but for the grace of God go I. I have no problem saying that I would prefer my taxes to go to feed hungry people. (Matthew 4:45, Ecclesiastes 9:11-12, Philippians 4:12)

COMMENT: "Give a man a fish feed him for a day, teach a man to fish feed him for a lifetime".

RESPONSE: The word of God said, "feed my sheep." It's great to teach a man to fish but he'd perform better on a full stomach.

To me pro-life means just that. Do whatever you can to promote life on earth. Feed, protect, challenge, love and show compassion to every living person on God's earth. It is always easier to dismiss than embrace but that is what God commanded us to do. The pro-life debate sounds a little like the scripture that says, if you hate your brother that you can see how can love a God that you cannot see. (1 John 4:20) We say that we love the unborn but watch as children that we see every day live in poverty, lack, and hunger. That seems inconsistent to me.

Someone else sent me a note that I will also respond to.

COMMENT: You don't believe you can be pro-life and pro-war. There are many that disagree with you.

No. I don't believe that you can be staunchly pro-life and pro-war. I know that others disagree with me and they are free to do so. There is a passage in the bible that says that the power of life and death are in the tongue. It is important that we always speak life and positivity in a situation. (Proverbs 18:21)

There are Christians on both sides of many issues, that is why I am glad that God sits on the throne. That is why I am glad he is gracious and merciful because inevitably even when we try to get it right we will still often times get it wrong.

Here is an article on God and War that you may want to read.

Of God, Stones, and Political Candidates

What a day? Super Tuesday and the elections are underway which began a discussion among Christian adoptive parents. The straight line argument was that Christians should vote for the person who upholds Christian values and morals. There seemed however to only be two moral issues of concern, gay marriage and abortion. Feeding the poor, caring for the homeless, and providing healthcare were not seen as moral issues but rather socialist politics against the word of God. Homosexuality wasn't discussed much but the rhetoric was high about abortion. I think what got my attention was the insistence that a candidate that is pro-choice is a murderer, unholy, immoral, and against God and that pro-life candidates were upholding their Christian duty.

Romans 10:9 is one of the first scriptures that I learned in church. We were taught that we had to consciously decide to accept God into our hearts and lives. That you had to not only know who God was but to believe. Believing is a choice (the right choice for a Christian) just as Christians can, have, and do reject Christ by choice.

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. - Romans 10:9

I've always believed that pro-choice candidates where just that. They believe that every individual has a right to chose for themselves and their families. That is a long way for me from them sanctioning murder. But, that is just me. I mentioned that God sat before man choice. No one is born into Christianity they have to choose to believe. A Christian must choose to believe that Jesus was the son of God, that he came, bled, and died for our sins. It is only upon making that profession that one is ushered into Christian fellowship. The Bible said that I set before your life and death, blessings and cursing, CHOOSE life. That is the power of accepting God into your life. If he coerced you or forced you, it would be inconsistent with who the Bible tells us God is. There is punishment but there is also free will.

God urges us always to choose Him but in every story in the Bible where someone did not, God still tells a story of redemption. Read Jonah. The story is not about a whale.

I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; - Deutoronomy 30:19

And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve... - Joshua 24:15

‘Thus says the LORD: “I offer you three things; choose one of them for yourself, that I may do it to you. - 2 Samuel 24:12

Let us choose justice for ourselves;Let us know among ourselves what is good. Job 34:4

Who is the man that fears the LORD?Him shall He teach in the way He chooses - Psalm 25:12

Because they hated knowledge And did not choose the fear of the LORD - Proverbs 1:29

For before the Child shall know to refuse the evil and choose the good - Isaiah 7:16

You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. - John 15:16

Everyone does not believe, but by mentioning that God gave us free will and urged us to choose life seemed more consistent with the pro-choice argument than the pro-life argument. The reason why I honestly struggled with this is that there are candidates that are pro-life and pro-war. Candidates that are pro-life also support the right to bear arms. Now, I proposed that one might argue that having a right to bear arms doesn't mean that anyone will be killed. Isn't that the pro-choice argument? Allowing people to choose doesn't mean that they will choose abortion. I think that statistics bear that out. There are far too many abortions in the country to be sure but the fact that that number is small in comparison to the women who bear their children to term even though the choice is there. I'm not arguing for abortion. I'm saying that I can't demonize or criminalize someone who makes that choice.

One person even took the argument and said that bearing arms had to do with liberty and protecting our freedom. Shewww.....!?! Who's freedom is the question? Because the other argument was that Christians don't have freedom of choice but are bound to abide by the 10 Commandments. You first have to choose to be a Christian. So following this logic, there is a freedom to bear arms but no freedom of choice? Another person compassionately said that someone has to speak for the unborn and I agree. The question is how do we do that? Do we speak for them by shutting down the conversation are dealing with the issues that lead people to think that abortion is their only option? I honestly have no answer. I just can't seem to grasp how it is only this commandment that we should be legislating. I'm trying to see where bearing arms is in line with the 10 Commandments.

I wrote the post below and I'm really confused as to how quoted scriptures about God's love for all mankind received such a negative reception. The post below received a much more negative than the talk of stoning people and the difference between murdering or killing. After all the duty to love is the first and second commandment. It is from these two that all the other laws hang. The response I got was that God said it was okay to stone people for certain sins. I wrote the post below in response and the response was shocking. I guess there are somethings that are lost in translation in the group forums. The intent of my message was to say that abortion or adultery or not the only sins. I was trying to say that everyone of us including me sins and that God wants us to deal with others like he did for us. The Bible says that God tosses our confessed sins into the sea of forgetfulness.

I was told that my sarcasm was not appreciated, that I was making somebody hot under the collar, that I was not being supportive of the troops. I was told that my thoughts were interesting when they are not my thoughts but scriptures directly from the Bible. I'm not exactly sure how you get that out of these scriptures but I am quite confused. I thought that showing God's grace was the right thing to do. Go figure. For my faithful readers, if I have any left (smile) let me know what you think. I stand open to your correction or you can just pray for me.

The post:

My Bible said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."(John 8:7) It also says in my Bible that "ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23) If you flip over to 1 John 1:8 it says plainly "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and truth is not in us." Romans 3:10 says, "There is no one righteous, not even one..." So, which stones should we get out for "you" and for me?

The Bible says further that "God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He that believeth on him is not condemned." So, if God is not doing the condemning what man has the righ to condemn and stone?

My Bible says in Deutoronomy that thou shalt not "kill". Now I use the KJV and murder is not what is says. Even if it is, I cannot believe that we are trying to parse words to determine who it is okay to kill or murder.

1 John 3:18 says "...let us not love in word and tongue but in deed and truth." Further it teaches that we can know love by observing the way Jesus lived His life. I remember him meeting the woman at the well in love, compassion, and forgiveness -- not stoning. I have yet to read about Jesus stoning anybody. Hanging on the cross he even said, Father forgive them..." But maybe that's all only in my Bible.

Hairy Situations

I think therefore I have hair. LOL! Well, if you were there (you know where) you can follow along. I spend 5 minutes thinking about my hair in the morning. It's no bigger issue than that for me. Hopefully this can lighten up the hair drama and we can all have a good hair day.

India Arie sung prophetically, "I am not my hair..." She sung it after going through her own internal struggles about what she needed to look like. India's song again points to how songs express the heartfelt experiences of a culture. In the song the best line is that, "I am not your expectations." What I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE about black people is their versatility, their creativity, and their daring to be unique. India Arie realized as an adult that she was the one that had limited her options.

Eventually she realized that she had allowed herself to be trapped on both sides, trying to fit in because of media pressure and then feeling trapped into using her hair as a symbol of blackness. She realized that it really wasn't that deep and her hair did not have to define her or be a political statement. It could just be hair! In the video she said she cut it off her dreds because it was HOT! Sometimes it's just that simple and practical. Women of every race and every color have OPTIONS. Choose the one that makes you feel good.

Finger waves, French rolls, blow out, blow comb, wrap, weave, extensions, braids, up-do, waterfall, lace-front, sew-in, fade, locs, J-5 fro, curly fro, wash and go, cornrows, French braids, box braids, twist, flat twist, love knots, tree braids, rod set, jeri curl, press and curl, loose curls, tight curls, wavy, kinky, tightly coiled, asymmetrical cuts, tapered at the base, long pony tails, bead, bows, barrettes, gel, good old fashioned grease, spritz, leave in, hot oil, flat irons, golden hot curling irons, bun, natural, relaxed, permed, tinted, rinsed, bleached, straw set, fried-died, and laid to the side, and bald.

We can wear it all and make it all look good! That to me does not speak to fragility it speaks to versatility.

I Am Not My Hair - India Arie

Little girl with the press and curl. Age eight I got a Jheri curl. Thirteen I got a relaxer. I was a source of so much laughter. At fifteen when it all broke off. Eighteen and went all natural. February two thousand and two I went and did. What I had to do because it was time to change my life. To become the women that I am inside. Ninety-seven dreadlock all gone I looked in the mirror. For the first time and saw that HEY....I am not my hair. I am not this skin. I am not your expectations no no. I am not my hair. I am not this skin. I am a soul that lives within

Good hair means curls and waves. Bad hair means you look like a slave. At the turn of the century. Its time for us to redefine who we be. You can shave it off like a South African beauty. Or get in on lock like Bob Marley. You can rock it straight like Oprah Winfrey. If its not what's on your head its what's underneath and say HEY....Does the way I wear my hair make me a better person? Does the way I wear my hair make me a better friend? Does the way I wear my hair determine my integrity? I am expressing my creativity.

Breast Cancer and Chemotherapy. Took away her crown and glory. She promised God if she was to survive. She would enjoy everyday of her life. On national television her diamond eyes are sparkling
bald headed like a full moon shining. Singing out to the whole wide world like HEY... If I wanna shave it close. Or if I wanna rock locks. That don't take a bit away. From the soul that I got. If I wanna where it braided. All down my back. I don't see what is wrong with that.

Learning Ethiopian Culture from the Inside Out: Part 2

Part 2: What is Ethiopian Culture?

Part 1: How Do We Learn Culture?

I started out like most of us I'm sure searching the internet trying to find out anything that I could about Ethiopia. The first things that I learned were about the historical significance of the country. I learned that it is the place where the oldest human remains were found making it perhaps the birthplace of civilization. I learned that it had a rich spiritual history and was linked to early Christianity and even the Ark of the Covenant. I learned how Muslims, Evangelical, and Orthodox Christian live in harmony. I read article after article about the physical beauty of the people and their beautiful loving hearts. I read how they love, care for and nurture their children. I learned about doro wot, injera, coffee ceremonies, and celebrations like Timkat. I poured over pictures of Gondar, The Blue Nile, Axsum, and Lailebella. I read about 75 million people speaking 85 different languages living in a country that bordered the Red Sea.

I learned facts about Ethiopian culture. Just the facts. Facts alone help me see Ethiopia from the outside looking in. Reading about a coffee ceremony is not the same as smelling the aroma of the beans or learning quiet lessons through casual conversations while the coffee is being made. I could have a coffee ceremony in the US for symbolism but there is more to culture than that.

What's funny or sad is that even though I know Ethiopia is a country I approached it like it was a city. ETHIOPIA! Northern Ethiopian is not the same as southern Ethiopia. They have different foods, different customs, different dress, different language, and even different histories. Ethiopia is divided into nine regions. It's sort of how we talk about the Midwest, the Northeast, or the West. Sure we share some American customs but there are some things that are East coast and different traditions and customs in the Midwest. Ethiopia's geographical regions are much more diverse than America.

I realized that where I began learning about history was the Ancient history of Ethiopia. To understand my children I would have to learn more contemporary history of Ethiopia. What led to the poverty? Why are there orphaned children? What happened to the parents and why? One of the first questions that I asked the agency was, "How does Ethiopia feel about children being adopted and taken away from the country?" How do children come to live in orphanages? What was there life like before that? Most importantly if my children remained in Ethiopia what would life be like for them. Sorry, I don't believe that they would simply perish if it were not for me. The God that I believe in always has a master plan. If they lived and I focused on "life" and not despair what, would life be like for them at 5 and 6, 12 or 15, or into the age of dating or marriage?

Learning Ethiopian history and culture from the inside out meant putting myself in the place of the child or my children. If I stood in their shoes, if I tried to imagine what it was like to be them everything changed. A child led away from their village and family may be proud of Ethiopian history but from the inside they are wondering where they are going, what will happen to them, and why. For a 3 or 4 year old history is what my mother made me for dinner last week, the songs their father was singing the last time that they saw him, and the child that they played with every day. Their history lesson wasn't leaning the names of dances but watching their elders dance and trying to imitate them. Their history is the last thing that their mother, father, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, or grandmother told them just before they headed to the orphanage.

Helping them preserve their heritage meant really understanding how to explain to them that with all the historical significance, rich spiritual history, 75 million people and 85 languages that they had to come to America live with a woman that can't make injera or speak their native tongue. For every day that they live with me remembering small things from their past, longing for foods, sounds, and their mother's touch I know that they are wondering if they will ever get to return home. I believe that my job is to make sure that if they do, that they still feel some connection that is more than symbolic.

Learning Ethiopian Culture from the Inside Out: Part 1

Read Part 2

I guess all of us have been asked what will you do to preserve your child's Ethiopian heritage and culture? I had to answer a series of questions before I could formulate an response. [Here goes another series.]

1. What is Ethiopian culture? What is the history, the celebrations, the food, the music?
2. What is the spiritual connection or foundation of Ethiopian people?
   
3. What is the hope of an Ethiopian mother and father? What do they expect from their children and how to they prepare them for the future?
4. What is the hope of a little boy or girl growing up in Ethiopia? If they ever returned home who would they most want to be and what would they want to do?
5. Why does it matter if they retain part of their Ethiopian culture if they are going to live in America.
6. How does growing up in America change their lives, their opportunities, and their self-identity?
7. How did having a strong cultural understanding, shape me? Who would I be if I didn't know who I was? Who would define what I should be?
   

As I started trying to fill in the blanks, I realized that it all seemed a little hollow. I was learning about Ethiopian culture and not how to preserve Ethiopian culture in the children. I had to jump to question number seven.

African American people have a very deep, rich culture. Like any culture it is built upon a historical reality and a preserving response. We hold on to the best things about who we are and shed others in an effort to assimilate. I asked myself, how did I learn my culture? I learned it from the inside out. I didn't come to understand the traditions by reading about them, I learned by experiencing them with generations of African American people who told me why certain things were significant. I didn't hang pictures or flags on my wall first. I developed some sort of admiration, respect, connection, and/or reverence for the person or the symbol. I bought things and placed them around the house, because I drew strength from them. Drawing that strength was only possible because I understood them in context to a struggle of a people.

Cultural things are not the trends of a hairstyle but the tradition of sitting between your mother's legs to get your hair done. I don't know of many people who went to the hair salon back then, but I do know that any little black girl could get a lesson sitting in the kitchen on Saturday night while hair was being washed and styled.

I jump up when I hear an old R & B record because when I hear it, it takes me back to a certain place or time. I connect with the words that tell a story that is unique to our black experience -- it allows me to reminisce, hope, or hang on. Even though I probably attended black history programs and a couple of Kwanzaa celebrations I went because it was a gathering of black folks that understood the meaning. I didn't go to learn the meaning. I learned who I was by looking in the face of my mother and her sisters. They were constantly telling us what would be expected of us and how we would need to respond. More importantly the modeled the behavior and demonstrated the character.

I learned something new every night over dinner as my parents told stories about the good old days. Even when those story included tales of segregation, poverty, or injustice -- they were the history that my parents knew. They talked and we got to ask questions. I learned black history by sitting in church next to the old ladies that told me about their days as young girls traveling in America. It was because I heard the stories first that I wanted to find books in the library and not the other way around. I gained a love for books when I heard stories

I come from a large family. On my mother's side there were 10 children, 8 girls and 2 boys. On that side alone I have 35 first cousins, many who have children my age. Our parents didn't talk to us about limitations but they instilled a hope that our generation was the one the could make a difference if we worked hard and "lived right." I picked a certain style of clothes not to reflect that I was black, but to honor one of my hero's who had paved the way for me.

I tell people all the time, you see my face and my accomplishments but their are a thousand faceless and nameless black men and women that poured their faith and hope into me. Many of those people don't speak correct English, never thought about going to college, and aren't interested in being important. It was the women in my church that always told me that I could do it. It was the janitor in the school, that whispered in my ear that he saw what I was doing and it made him proud. It was the women who had very little that would buy me cards of encouragement every step of the way. The women who baked my favorite cake for the smallest achievement. What I learned is that we are a culture of love and commitment. I learned in my culture that you reach back, pull up, and push others forward. Culture is the lessons learned from the actions and not the actions themselves. Otherwise it's all symbolism and no substance.

One phrase that I've come to hate through this process is, "...just because they are black." I hate it because there is absolutely no understanding of the substance about what that means. It's thrown off as some insignificant fact that should be ignored, co-opted, or eradicated or exchanged. Black is simply a symbol of a much deeper connection, history, culture, and struggle that can't be brushed away. Compare it to saying, "...just because she's American." "...just because she is a woman." Why do we join the Yahoo adoption groups? Is it just because we are adopting or is that because we are adopting that we face different life experiences than others, that our path to parenthood is fraught with twist and turns, and that we find community with others that have gone before us? Mmmm....think of about how it feels for someone to dismiss your adoption experience that way. You would think to yourself, "do these people know what it takes and what we have to go through?" That's it it feels to me when someone says to me, "...just because you are black."

I don't want my children to understand their culture just because they were born in Ethiopia. We weren't asked the question just because the children were born in Ethiopia. We were asked what we will do to maintain their heritage because it is crucial to the development of a healthy self-identity. To be whole they have to know who they are and how they came to be.

I came to the conclusion that my culture is not the signs and symbols that I wear that tell others that I am an African American woman. My culture is reflected in how I feel about the fact that I am a black woman and I how use that information to press my way.

With this understanding I set out to learn about Ethiopian culture from the inside out. I wanted to understand how my children could preserve their Ethiopian culture living in America with an African American mother. Preservation suggest that there is something already their for them to hold on to. I needed to find out what that was.

Neither Chick Nor Child

My mother was a funny lady. She was hilarious but not necessarily on purpose. She was direct and didn't waste her time on too many superfluous conversations. She had a saying for every occasion and I'm not sure that she didn't make some up on the spot. Whenever I think of things that she used to say, I try to write them because I don't want to forget. One of my friends says that once the kids are here it will all come back.

Here are a few:

1. To people who had no children but wanted to offer advice to those who did, she would simply say, "they have neither chick nor child so..."
2. To people who were constantly talking about God she would say, "Always remember that even the devil could quote scripture. Impress me by showing me the word in action."
3. To anyone who felt that they were being falsely accused or talked about by others, she would simply remind you, "They talked about Jesus didn't they? I heard they even nailed him to the cross. You don't think you are any better than him, do you?
   
4. Her continual warning to her children had two parts, "Whatever you do in the dark will always come to light." It always did. "You might get by but you will never get away."
5. My mother was always curious about people who didn't want to discuss their age. To that she'd say, "Tell it! If you're not getting older you're dead, so to me it beats the alternative." I'll be 42 in two weeks! Thank God! It beats the alternative.
   
6. My mother didn't believe in quitting and would say, "Nothing beats a failure but a try."
7. To any of her children showing disrespect, she couldn't just say that. Instead, my mother would say or sing, "I pay the costs to be the boss at 3052." Our old address.
   
8. When I graduated from college she let me know that, "God never created a roof big enough to cover two grown women. Every woman needs her own place." This might have been a shock if I hadn't always heard that it was my job to take care of me and that there was not enough pretty to cover a full month's rent.
   
9. My mother cautioned that, "Nothing in life is ever free make sure you understand the cost and that you are prepared to pay them."
10. When she was stumped (not often) and couldn't think of anything else to say, she would say, "I don't know what to tell you. Pray about. God has all the answers not me!"
11. If you disagreed with her assessment of a situation she would tell you, "Keep living and then come back and tell me about it."
12. To children teetering between a truth and a lie she would always tell you, "If you tell the truth, you never have to remember what you said."
    
13. Then there were the (more normal) one's that we probably have all heard. A bird in the hand beats two in the bush. Little pictures have big ears. Your eyes are bigger than your stomach. Never let the right hand, know what the left hand is doing. God does not like ugly and two wrongs never made a right.
    

One that sticks with me the most happened my second year of college. Maybe a week before I returned to school we received a letter saying that I had no financial aid for the semester. I asked my mother what we were going to do, she told me calmly and simply, "We are going to pack the car, I'm going to take you there and drop you off. Stay there until we figure out what to do or they put you out." That was her straight forward way of teaching faith and hope. I went, it got figured out, and they didn't put me out.

What I Love Most About What I Do

I don't really think I ever said what I do. I'm also not sure that it matters but here goes. I am a learning strategist or adult learning consultant. I have a master's degree in Instructional Systems Design with an emphasis in adult learning and human performance improvement. I've been in the profession for 15 years and I worked as an instructional designer, internal performance consultant, external consultant and director of a training company before starting my own company. I love what I do for a living. I go into organizations when their is an identified performance deficiency and help build programs to speed time to competence or to help people work better, faster, and cheaper.

The work that I do takes many forms. Over the last few years I've spent most of my time developing models for increasing the rate at which people learn, unlearn, and relearn. In a knowledge economy it is imperative for people to learn faster than the rate of change. I write articles about strategic thinking and it's power to improve problem solving. I've been working at writing a business book and use the adoption blog alot of the time to help me break through a mental block.

What I love about what I do:

• I am exposed to a variety of organizations and every kind of people that you could imagine. I get an opportunity to work with a diverse group of people and over the years have had every stereotype challenged for the good.
• Learning people's stories. We all have them and the more I stories I hear the more I realize how we are all connected.
  
• No two days are ever the same and something unexpected always happens.
  
• It is a challenge to find the right levers for different groups. I like trying to come up with different and unique ways to engage an audience.
  
• I've had the opportunity to teach in foreign countries. Teaching while using a translator is a really interesting experience. Your brain hurts by the end of the day. But, I'm always reminded by my favorite line from a movie. In a Walk In the Clouds, the Spanish American father says to the Keanu Reeve's character, "Just because I speak with an accent doesn't mean that I think with an accent." That is the best line!
  
• Getting to work as a part time or adjunct professor. I've taught adult learning, human performance improvement and now teach group and organizational dynamics. I teach in a non-traditional program where adults are returning to school to get their degrees. It's pretty rewarding to be a part of that.
  
• I am always in learning mode. Every time that I think that I've "got it" I learn something new.
  
• My greatest love is seeing people do more than they thought was possible. I love when people light up with the personal "aha." To see people walk out of a room with much more confidence is the best feeling for me.
• Getting letters months and even years later from participants telling me how they have exceeded their goals.
  

These days like I said I focus more on how people think, learn, and solve problems. Here is a link to one of my favorite articles Thinking Through Problem Solving. It was published by a company called Change This.

If you are really bored or at least curious you might read, 35 Thinking Dispositions. Most people find it really interesting to try to figure out their thinking style. I've classified them into three groups. Can you guess which one I am? You might even get a little insight into why some of my forum post are what they are.

Which one are you?