Who am I?

I'm reading Radical Presence: Teaching as Contemplative Practice and just finished The Garden at Night: Burnout and Breakdown in the Teaching Life, by Mary Rose O'Reilley, both thought-provoking and very relevant to my state of being. I seem to be called to teaching and learning, information literacy (as a relational practice instead of the behavioral and skills-based model), holistic and visionary thinking--I enjoy strategic planning and brainstorming and fitting ideas into the bigger picture and assessment, contemplation, convergent Friendliness, and ecumenism.

I'm in the midst of writing a book about having spent 2 years as a Quaker recorded minister in the Seventh-Day Adventist church. It helped me understand evangelical Friends without feeling the need to change them to be more like me (a liberal Friend and radical Christian who still feels like a non-theist at times, despite God having asked, "Why do you resist me?" while I was driving one day).

I'm also in the middle of wondering why I am in this particular job at this particular time. Students are the people we are trying to help in their learning...if we don't value their input and seek their feedback, what is the point of teaching? Teaching is like healing--we're never really responsible for the learning of our students or the health of those who come to us for "healing." We facilitate, walk alongside, challenge to think and live differently.