So, as the Canadiens say.  (Jerry noticed that they say “so” before every utterance and he made them all self-concious by pointing this out.  On the other hand, Jerry about caused our hosts to wreck the car we were all riding in with a colorful Texas saying which shall go unrepeated here…)

Our “Thinking Like a Movement” conference retreat came to an end at noon on Thursday, and it was truly hard to walk away from people with whom we'd worked, shared, and eaten way too much food over the previous five days.

This conference was an amazing, eye-popping, mind-bending experience.  There are other people like Jerry in the world!  Who knew?!

People who look around and say, “Nope, not good enough for my kid, or for the people I serve.  We'd better think it out again.”

We should have known what we were in for when Jerry, a few days before we were to leave for the conference, casually asked Kristin to print out the reading materials which had been sent to us in preparation.

Dear Kristin, so obedient, so eager to please.  She didn't stop til they were all printed and neatly stacked in a 9″ high pile.  “Uh,” we said to each other the night before, “you take two and I'll take two and we'll read them on the plane.”  Which we did.

In a nutshell…oh forget it.  There is no nutshell version of this conference.  Suffice it to say that it focused on the need to find solutions to complex social problems while exhibiting profound respect for all parties involved, listening very hard to what they say, and recognizing that