Since we opened in 2018, we’ve welcomed nearly 2,000 compadres (what we call our students), all of them eager to keep learning. We’ve even had some surprise compadres.
In December 2018, the well-known Stanford professor and author Tina Seelig came to Baja to learn more about this new-fangled idea of a “midlife wisdom school.” One year later, the famous founder of TOM Shoes, Blake Mycoskie, joined us to learn more about awe and wonder. And, last week, Christian mystic Richard Rohr made a pilgrimage to MEA to explore faculty member Lynne Twists’s concept of “The Soul of Money.” Each of these three thought leaders could have easily taught their own workshop (In fact, Blake is teaching one next October), but they’re also perennial learners.
As many of you know, I quote Father Richard Rohr all the time (17 times based upon the search I just did on Wisdom Well), so to have him grace our classroom and participate in our experiential exercises was a deep honor and a reminder that learning is the fountain of youth.
Let me juxtapose that with a disappointing conversation I had with someone I didn’t know who cold-called me last week. This person had just published her first book on coaching and wanted to lead an MEA workshop. I told her that our workshop calendar was full for 2022 but that if she’s sincerely interested in becoming part of our MEA community, she might consider coming to one of our workshops. She said she couldn’t afford it. I reminded her we offer scholarships. Then, she said, “Well, I don’t really do workshops. I lead workshops. It’s hard to take a week off to go to a workshop.”
Of course, I immediately thought of Father Richard, who’s written 51 books and runs a busy social enterprise, the Center for Action and Contemplation. Not only did he find the time, but he has also found the desire to learn almost on the precipice of 80 years old. Great leaders are great learners, which is as true today as it was for Seneca over 2000 years ago.
Father Richard Rohr receiving his MEA certificate at graduation.
