FootprintsintheWind.com

G-d is to be discovered:
Explore! Explore! Explore!

:- Doug.

To my good friends–

About Fowler’s Stages of Faith: wondering if indeed these could more efficiently and accurately be understood or comprehended as stages of relationship. Where do Buber and Fowler meet? 1. Family that simply is, primal others, no differentiation. 2. Those like us, the start of separation, the forming of It. 3. Groups within which I operate, a collective of Its. 4. Self chosen norms and insights, or rejected ones, groups which cohere to that, feed that, a full It-ness. 5. Ideas and symbols rejoined, mystery, re-enchantment, touching other groups, the beginnings of Thou-ness. 6. Love become oneness, identification with the species, love of being, Thou experienced as united with one’s self. 7. (ddg addition from current thinking:) Service, love in action, love lived, seeing the other as one to meet, to interact with, to turn to, to change me. I like that. It is important in the growth of my understanding and growth.

:- Doug.

I am a mystery to myself and to others. Others are a mystery to me. We are each mysteries that grow as we grow. We are rays of the eternal and efinite mystery–the enigma that is out of time, out of limits, beyond bounds. (Looks like efinite is a word I had to find–or that found me–and not many have used it, if any. It simply needed to be: out of the limited.)

This fits with the wind that I am, too. Wind is always a mystery. We do not know where it comes from or where it goes, or whom it will choose to embrace and caress–but we know it will touch us all. The mysterious wind. Not a title to hold, for we cannot hold a mystery. Simply a descriptive.

Mystery: we cannot have life all figured out. I would not want to: how boring! Meet it new each day. See what wonders are brought forth continually for us. Mystery, my friend. Another name for G-d. O G-d of a thousand names, none of which name you, none of which delimit you, all of which inform us and expand our understanding of you! When shall we begin to touch you? What life we could have! Engage! Meet! Sacrifice–self, which means to today’s humans, sacrifice your plans, control, best thoughts–and see what more comes up for you.

:- Doug.

O Lord your joy is so large!
And I–unlimited–too small to contain it!

:- Doug.

We cannot live all our day in mystery
we must cut off a piece
and make it into a tool, or food, or work
we must try to define and limit ourselves
to manipulate our lives
else our minds would break, and we
would…what? Seep out?
But always remember what we said at the start–
cut off a piece.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 607

Lines of relation
rays of the eternal, efinite Thou
mystery abounds
we cannot know ourselves
we cannot hold another
the between has infinite rays and strands
each eternally flowing to a center about us
each interacting with each, creating, being created
touching, expanding in all directions
faster than eye or mind can catch
the all there is knocking, asking
“will you come out to play?”

Please pass it on.

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Birth is in questions
death in answers
What does it mean that my life
is questions?
How much larger is life, that Thou
are question?

:- Doug.

Be my mystery
Be my lovely mystery
Shh: Seek not for words
It is too precious to hold

:- Doug.

I am mystery
Is not the world and each one in it mystery?
Can I allow myself an enigma to be?
Can I enjoy being my mystery, pointing
others to the savory strangeness about us,
unanswerable questions when we want clarity, simplicity?
I must, for the strangeness addresses each of us
by name.

:- Doug.