FootprintsintheWind.com

I like this idea I just thought through in my journaling this morning. I will see if I can put it into practice and see how I can grow it.

That’s what life is about, yes? To put something into practice, to experiment and grow what grows. Look to nature and how profligate she is with life, scattering thousands upon billions of seeds just to see what sprouts. And if it sprouts, scattering new generations beyond there. Send out messengers and scouts and see what they bring back, go with what grows. Go with what grows.

:- Doug.

What does it mean to be churched? Why would we want to be churched? Does it have to sound like being clubbed?

:- Doug.

Complexity is the key to our world and to making it work for all. We must engage the complexity. Since the complexity itself is increasing, we must engage more and more. How? By engaging others who have seen other parts of it. This world, these times: too complex for us? We do not “solve” complexity by ignoring parts of it. Complexity cannot be solved; it might be outgrown, it might be wrapped in a new complexity, plaited and tied with a ribbon, yet always there are stray hairs and growing; or maybe we get lost in the complexity, swimming and splashing and letting it float us. What’s in an ocean? Life and death, light and dark, movement and stillness, incomprehensibilities, vastness, lost and found, surface and profundities. All these, together.

:- Doug.

We need to disorganize ourselves in order to get anything done.

:- Doug.

Conversation impregnates us. We then know we will bring forth, but what is born will utterly surprise us.

:- Doug.

Conversation leads us far outside the boring stifling room of the intended, anticipated and controlled to the pregnant outdoors where exciting things are born.

:- Doug.

Conversation is the way we arrive at an accurate picture of complexity.

:- Doug.

This is about action. This is about making change.

:- Doug.

When you look at life clearly you get questions. Questions lead to more questions, questions lead to possibilities.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 668

Only play
play with life
play with happiness
play with others
play with G-d
play with death
play with wisdom
play with creativity.
What else matters?
Play with that as well.
Come to the play-dom:
this is life–
only play.

Please pass it on.

© c 2006, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

To my good friends–

Last evening I saw something new here: an unprotected border means that the criminal element can make use of that, too. But then, we have ways of catching criminals here, and a fence and an orderly immigration policy won’t prevent them from doing us harm. They could always waft anthrax in on the winds. The truth then becomes that we want to protect ourselves not from “terrorists” (however we might choose to define or not define that term), but from the hordes of poor Mexicans. What then do we fear? That they will overrun us and we will have to learn Spanish? That we will not have enough jobs for ourselves? That they will corrupt (meaning change) our ever-changing culture?

There is a fear of people coming here “illegally.” What does that mean? It means simply that we have set up a way for people to enter the country and these people have circumvented it. Now that raises the question, Why? Why have they circumvented it, and Why do we think this is bad? The issue is on both sides. Perhaps the rules are more restrictive than they ought to be. Perhaps whatever rules we have they will ignore. Perhaps we have something here that is more important to them than breaking a few rules. Perhaps they have no in-bred respect for rules. Perhaps our quotas for their country are too low. Perhaps we fear them. Perhaps we could do something to make it better in their country so they would not want to come here. Perhaps we have a moral duty to do so. I do not know the answer and neither does anyone involved. Only together can we hope to find the better questions, and some ways to live together in this world.

For that is the object isn’t it, to live together? What would we do if there were a million Mexicans dying? Would we not send aid and food and medicines? What if that catastrophe threatened the lives of people in this country? Would we not send troops because a weapon of mass destruction threatened us? So if we must live together, if we do not want to see people dying on the other side of the fence because we would not open our hands, then ought we not be about the business of meeting person to person?

I don’t think I want people to blend in. I want to be challenged; actually I need to be challenged.

:- Doug.

Sometimes I state an hypothesis and add to it just to test it.

:- Doug.

There is a chance for us. Shall we then get to work? Only in a hope is it worth going to work. Life is a game of chance, built solely on hope.

:- Doug.

Might it be true subtly or more that G-d as world-ruler could mean something very different from what we have thought? Heavy-handed, magically snapping fingers, rescuing us from our poor judgments, having a plan that we understand—what if G-d were larger than this?

:- Doug.

I open by listening. I open by revealing. I also open by seeing larger.

:- Doug.

Jesus called us friends. Jesus said a friend will give his life for his friends. He did not limit the giving to one of the friends.

:- Doug.

To our good friends–

I have been drawn to ask if a poet would ever consent to being President of the United States. Is this nation ready for such a reflective time? Presently not, but things can change on a dime. But for how long? 9-11 brought us to a reflective, community-mindedness, but only for a few weeks. Then the President started beating the war and consumerism drums.

What if instead he had put on sackcloth and ashes? What if he had brought us to a reflective state of mind? What if the voices of consumerism and hate had stayed quiet a year longer?

Might creativity have been given a chance?

To what extent was the manipulation the source of what happened next, and would it have been possible to turn the attention a better direction? Or at least had a debate about where the attention should go?

Sure it is natural to have a “Let’s get the bastards” reaction. But it is also natural to step back and see if there is a better way, a longer view, a more loving view, consistent with the soul of this country.

What is this country about? What is our vision? What is our place in the world? Is it purely economic, the land of plenty? Or is there something more here?

What is this notion of freedom? What is this notion of democracy? What is this notion of a republic?

Our recent emphasis on the economic, probably dating from 1929, has narrowed our horizons, and has led to our current desire for security. We are trying to preserve what we have and have lost the who we are. We have confused the what we are about with the what we have.

War? Terrorism? They are cut from the same cloth. There have for all recorded history been criminals, those who try to take what belongs to others. Terrorism gives us a label by which to demonize criminals and allows us to cast a net that is at times wider than necessary.

The power of this label derives from what it plays upon—our fear. Fear of what? Ahh, that they do not say, for to say it would take away its power over us, and consequently the power from those who seek to wield it.

For the Fear they purvey is fear of losing our stuff and our perceived superiority because of our stuff. People who look or sound different would have to be met toe to toe, hand grasp to hand grasp. We might no longer be richer than they. We might no longer have our excess stuff. We might lose our identity as the land where people have more than enough stuff. We might also lose our identity as the most over-stressed, under-relaxed, over-medicated, over-busy people in the world.

:- Doug.

Could a poet ever become President of the United States?
Would a poet ever consent to?
Is it only for the Czech Republic?
Could the spirit of this diverse nation
be touched in a verse?

:- Doug.

Our pictures of our gods tell more about us than about our gods. Our unchanging God reflects our distress at the swirling nature of life and events.

:- Doug.

I record my meetings and glimpses and their effect upon me. To the extent they reverberate in the lives of others they may hold a wider truth.

:- Doug.

We need to take account of the individual experiences of billions of people if we are ever to know reality and truth. Our science so far is impoverished by giving little value to these facts.

:- Doug.

Get to work.

:- Doug.

To our good friends–

There is always much to do. It is a matter of choosing and doing. We need to kick ourselves in the pants. Actually, we cannot do that, it is only a service others can provide for us. Kind of like the picture of Heaven with the splinted arms at the banquet. You’ve heard that story. Now realize that the second part of that story is that it is already that way on earth. In order to get the right things done in this world, we need a kick in the pants every so often, and we cannot do that physically. It takes someone else.

The bright red cardinal is under the deck at the moment, exploring. He is lovely to look at, startling in his brightness. And going about his business somehow touches me.

How he survives, but it is just a garden of Eden for him: everything he needs is there for the eating or moving to his nest. Keep busy, keep busy. Love, serve others, make yourself useful. Find what needs doing and do it. Get your kick in the pants from looking, asking, listening to the story.

Red cardinal, red cardinal, what word do you bring me? Be useful, be useful!

:- Doug.