FootprintsintheWind.com

People are verbs not nouns. We exist only in moving and relating.

:- Doug.

To our good friends–

Perhaps meeting is about being real, finding one’s self and others to be. We are never sure that we exist. We think what we think might be invalid. I certainly do. When we seek to keep up with the Joneses or impress them, it is based on this same fear. That all fear is the fear of death might be looking at it wrong side to: the real fear is the fear of never having existed. For having once existed we can go to an eternal death satisfied. Religion could be based upon such a proposition.

We think that we might not be valid. It is in meeting that I find I am real, valid, existing. I find also that there is something more than I: there is a we, and moreover there is a between which is dynamic and static at the same time, coming and staying a short while and going. I find and we find that this between is not just between us, but between and among he and she and us as well, giving a lift and a light and a continuity. There is something more when people meet. It is almost palpable in music and story.

This something inexpressible is perhaps a soup in which we stew and swim, and so it does not come and go, but it is we who close our eyes and minds to it. It is more than a thing: it engages, sometimes you, sometimes me, sometimes he and she. Makes real as it engages. I suspect it is bigger than all that.

But what difference can we make in our lives because of this? We can meet and seek to be met, consciously, on purpose now that we know it. We can seek to be met in a context that engages more of us.

This expresses some of conscious evolution.

:- Doug.

To meet and be met embraces these: to be heard; to give; to accept; and something inexpressible beyond and encompassing.

:- Doug.

Conversation enlarges us.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 667

Why do we go to meetings? In meeting, if open enough, each person’s need is met. The creative creates, the kind expresses caring, the intellect analyzes, the listener hears. Even if the meeting is closed we go away tantalized, expecting that satisfaction is possible. We go home chatting with each other about the stimulations we received, and we come again to meetings hoping beyond experience for a greater portion next time. Because we know it is possible. What we are seeking is to be heard, and something unnameable just beyond and within being heard. We go to meetings because we need to be met. We go to meetings because we need to give. We.

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 our good friends–

How do I get to this notion I have, what is it, how to express it? G-d seen not as Grampa Goodgifts, who knows all and gives all, but rather who challenges all, seeks to expand us. This is close. But a God who simply sits on a throne and directs traffic is too small for my heart. G*d is a needle, a haircloth shirt, a burr in our shoe. A G*d who says David is a person after my heart has allowed for David (and many other people) to be a panorama of people, some dark, some light, some large, some shriveled, some delightful, some tiresome, some mean, some a thousand thousand other ways. G*d is a challenge: a loving, cheer leading challenger.

This picture of directing traffic in some small way captures the idea. What is the role we see for G*d in our lives? G*d is the between: us and others; us and the world: the medium of transfer. G*d is a help from trouble, but is not just a sick nurse, either. G*d is a risk-taker, risking his beloved world and all his children in the hands of each new one whose foot he sets upon this planet. All are extensions of G*d, so G*d is risking G*d and the crucifixion anew of G*d’s only child (you, me, her, him) each moment: a heart thrown into the mill chute is apt to get ground to pieces. G*d is our opener and stretcher. G*d expects something of us: not as payment, but as a parent hopes. G*d is not God. Whatever our picture of God, it is smaller than the reality. G*d needs us. I am not sure why, but our existence proves it. We are not playthings, either, but children, and friends. So G*d is our mother and our brother.

What are we to make of this? We are to make of life our challenge and get in there throwing ourselves into the mix. We are to listen for the larger challenges, the things that scare us. These are of G*d.

Can you see G*d larger than that? Can you see yourself larger? Truth is larger, ever.

:- Doug.

Mystics see a larger G*d.

:- Doug.

Perhaps we are not here as in a school learning, so much as in a quest for truth. Truth is a calling, a growing thing, moving out ahead of us. We may even create some of it. It must ever stay ahead of our grasp, tantalizing.

:- Doug.

Our reliable future is made out of our unreliable past.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 666

Perhaps it is bigger than that

If you think your calling is
Dictated from on high
And your first task is to find it
Perhaps it is bigger than that.
Perhaps you are given to create it
Whole.

If you think your calling is
Grand, a work of immense proportions
Perhaps it is bigger than that
Perhaps it is created in
Your moments
And little loving gestures.

If you think your calling is
Elsewhere
Perhaps it is bigger than that
Perhaps it is
Here
Now.

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

In what ways can I open to you? I can open the parts of my soul, bright and dark. I can open my will, desires, plans, ideas, wisdom and hopes. I can open the ground beneath my feet, leaving nothing but you. I can open who I think I am: my personality; my dreams; my life story: I may not be those things, those things might be taken away from me and still I exist in your love.

:- Doug.

When you pray, do you take notes?

:- Doug.

I am involved in an experiment, testing to see whether a life lived, from this moment on, in service, can sustain itself and others.

:- Doug.

It is human, part of life to be pessimistic, to see the dark side. We must give room to this, not shut out part of ourselves. We must also not let that darkened sight convince us there will never be light to see. See we must, the whole of life.

We must allow ourselves room to grieve. We must also remember that it does not rain every day—or even most days.

:- Doug.

It is important to remember that two small groups will have more conversation than one large group. It is natural that we allow one person at a time to speak, so everyone can hear all that is said. With additional groups, two or more people can be heard at a time. Arithmetically the output is increased. As more ideas bounce around and more persons have a chance to be heard, the output is increased mathematically. Multiple groups allow for cross pollination, and output is increased geometrically.

:- Doug.

The most freeing thing we can do is to speak our truth. Mark this, to speak our truth requires someone else to hear. Two persons are born. Three.

:- Doug.

Let me tell you who you see around our circle of immigrants—These are poets, songwriters, storytellers, professors, doctors, lawyers, hardworking persons, hopeful, generous—and if you haven’t figured it out yet, I am talking about you.

:- Doug.

We are here to become our-selves. We are freed when we do who our self is. We grow powers and creativity when we come together. Who is our self? This of course is the question. We are difficult to do. It takes scary screwing up our resolve to step forth and declare our commitment to some cause. What we fear turns out to be our best self. And in speaking our truth to others we turn the power loose.

:- Doug.

What is your dream? For America? For your community?

:- Doug.

Look to the dream. The dream is the seed. Tell the dream. Pull out of us our dream. Here is the work. The dream is a collage of colors and aromas and more.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 665

What if the people who sought to come here were singers, song writers, ballet dancers, novel writers, doctors, scientists? Would we welcome them? Would we go out of our way to make the way here easier? Would we arrange language lessons and meetings with other creative daring people? Perhaps there are creative daring people among the poor—can we think such a thought? Could they be good for us—all of us? Do they bring a hope and a promise to us when they seek out our hope and promise?Is it then their poverty we seek to exclude? If the cream would elicit our help to contribute, would not the milk? How can we determine who has the larger contribution to be made? By excluding one and welcoming another. Thus we convict ourselves. The more we welcome, the bigger we grow. Thus we acquit ourselves.

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

If we see the outsiders as coming here greedily, is it because they hold a mirror up to us? Do we see that we have told the world a story about our greed and plenty?

:- Doug.

To our good friends–

Last evening I read about a book where churches are doing ministry by bringing radical acts of kindness, like nachos and salsa and skate boards and car repairs to their space. Also read about a group of people doing kind things for strangers, like paying the toll for the next driver, paying for the meal for the next person in line, leaving an anonymous gift somewhere. Then I think of Fran Peavey and want to combine this all in Open Space. Random radical instanteous acts of opening space. What might that look like?

It is living-kindness. It is spacing it. It is opening.

It is turning and telling jokes with the person behind you in line, and opening just a little space for making the world better. Don’t you just wish you could do something about that? What if we…?

Point out the kindness already extant. Build on life. Expect it in others. Assume living-kindness beats in this heart. Expect life. Grow on it. Grow with it.

Expect! I am expecting!

:- Doug.