And we had the common touch.
We didn’t close our eyes and pretend we were at Oxford. We didn’t speak to our students as though they were scholar-princes-and-princesses of yore.
None of this was to be over their heads. None of this was to be as if to no one, to the open air, to ghosts of the academic past. We were addressing them and only them. They were the audience we wanted to reach.
We listened. We read the room. Took the temperature – the spiritual temperature.
Looking out at them. At their faces. Reading their eyes. Did they follow? Were they involved?
Thinking with them, and only them. Making it real, for them. Something vital. Something important. Making them feel it: the Seriousness. Of the topic. Of our discussion. Making them remember this lecture. This encounter. Now. Right here …
An urgency. A matter of life of death. Of utmost importance. That something would be missed if they hadn’t attended. If they hadn’t been present here. Today …
Work in Progress 