To facilitate means "to make easy"” The art of facilitation is the art of bringing clarity and effectiveness to the work process of individuals and groups. The facilitator's mandate is to ensure that the process is designed and implemented in a way that brings out the best thinking of each participant and the best resolution of issues from each group.

This morning I was thinking about my experience with cancer and the coming to knowing of my situation. I have had a slew of physicians and alternative health practitioners trying to facilitate my way to health. A few are quite good and others quite lacking with their facilitative skills. Cancer is a very individual experience. While there are many common elements and shared experiences can bring forth much useful knowledge, in the end it is my work to do. Work that is physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally taxing.

It seems relevant that I consider my own journey into a very foreign landscape and territory from the perspective of the MG Taylor system and method. Facilitation is such an important concept in our process and it has always been inclusive of several levels of recursion. There is no single facilitator or controller of the system. Instead, we consider three levels: Front of the room facilitator, middle of the room facilitators, and back of the room facilitators.

Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.
John Lennon, Beautiful Boy

Last November I returned home from working in Europe to discover I had pneumonia. No problem I thought. A few days of feeling bad and getting some needed rest. But when the same thing happened two months later, I was discouraged to say nothing about how I felt. An x-ray followed by a cat scan indicated I had something strange in my upper right lung. More antibiotics, more feeling lousy, more waiting to feel better. Another x-ray in April revealed the same story ... something strange in /on your lungs. "It does not look malignant but it does have a strange shape. We do not know what it is, probably just lingering stuff from pneumonia." This was the comment by the doctor, the x-ray technician, the cat scan team, the Pulmonologist, etc. Finally in June, the Pulmonologist declared he should do a bronchoscopy and see if he could not "sweep away" the debree still in my lungs. This was scheduled for July 8th and was a relatively easy outpatient procedure. Except the doctor found a tumor growing next to and over one of my bronchial tubes. Time for some major surgery!