Daily, learners enter learning spaces (virtual and actual). After many years teaching, before I perform the sacred act of teaching, butterflies flutter in my belly. Daily, I ask myself, “Do I have something significant to offer them?” They take their seats, put their bags on the floor, take out a writing tool, and a sheet of paper (or we engage each other virtually). The moment hits me again and again and I remind myself I’m working with precious lives. It is such an important task because, I plant and cultivate new worlds; I show individuals how to use language to shape their individual lives and life in community. I test the limits of language’s ability to define our humanity. I daily cultivate the use of language for the purpose of moving humans into an increasingly more human expression of love, humility, and hope.

Daily, I cultivate communities which have never existed before or will exist after. For a time each day, I shape new worlds in the same space and at the same time. I’m in a delicate situation. From around the globe people converge to recreate themselves and community. Thoughts, emotions, and experiences shift from day-to-day from person-to-person. I arrive with different attitudes and emotions and situations shifting from day today. I arrive with biases and attitudes shaped by events occurring prior to this set of new interactions.