FootprintsintheWind.com

What is the predicament of humans? It seemed to me last night that it revolves around knowing we have to move, must do something, must be someone, but not knowing what or who. We have been given a puzzle with pieces missing. We are expected, commanded, to solve. No, we have an inner compulsion to make the pieces fit.

We only think there is a puzzle.

Or we only think there is a puzzle with one way to solve to make a picture. Or only one picture to make.

We are a puzzle with pieces missing.

We have a puzzle with pieces missing. Sometimes we have to shake those up to see new patterns.

:- Doug.

Every good and generous person started by shaking the foundations of their parents’ world.

:- Doug.

Could we meditate/contemplate in conversation?

:- Doug.

Do you need to meet G-d?

:- Doug.

It is entirely possible that to get where we need to be we will need first to break what has been. Sometimes to give the good seeds a chance, ya gotta break apart the clods. Ya gotta forget how to walk in order to swim.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 677

What is our predicament?
To have to do
but not know how or what or when or where or why
To need to be
but not know whom
To be the puzzle
with pieces missing

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

I hear the word redemption
as freedom
freedom to do who I am
as predicament
being lost but having to act
as sanctuary
knowing who I am is enough
without any doing

:- Doug.

“Make money with your business. That’s the point, right?” read the billboard. Actually that’s not the point. The point is not you, not what you put in your pocket. The point is what good you are able to do for the common good.

:- Doug.

Life is not about guilt.
The fact that you’re not perfect
is your perfection.

:- Doug.

What’s the fun for G*d
if G*d knows
as you and I know?
Full of heart, G*d laughs—

:- Doug.

Does G*d grieve? Over our deaths? Over our griefs? Over our sins—or over our feelings of guilt? Over our sorrow when we ought rejoice? Over our failures to act? Missing our lives? Does G*d cry?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 676

How large can we serve?
How great the birth?
Love without a why
People gathering
Children of G-d
Playing together
Compassion and Justice
Creativity and Interplay
Wisdom and Death
Nothingness and Happiness
How large can we serve?
How great the birth?

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–

A general direction is preferable to a distinct target. For life is not a convergent problem with one goal, one target, one place to get to. It is divergent, with many things, a cornucopia, some of which are good and some bad. So it is up for us to find a direction, the direction of that which is good and wholesome and fulfilling and completing, not those which are divisive and killing and unjust.

Thus the purpose of conversation is to find and nurture and expand the good, to find a world that works for all, that allows all to be whole and complete, but it has no goal.

Thus we can perhaps have a purpose but no goal, a vision but no aim.

Where does that get us?

To the place of saying we have an aim in conversation of creativity and working together for something that is good and fulfilling, but no goal of a particular outcome. We are not pre-selecting, not prejudicing the outcome, but we do seek an outcome that is good and life-giving, life-enhancing. What that might be in particulars and specifics is what we leave open.

The concept needs to be cleared.

The purpose is coming up with new solutions. Engaging creativity. Living together despite our differences, in celebration of our differences. Working together. Working on a specific project to accomplish concrete things.

So perhaps our immigration conversations for example could be not Issues and Opportunities, rather: What projects can we work on together? How can we get on with the business of making life better for our nation of immigrants?

:- Doug.

Blessed are they who gather.

:- Doug.

I am infinite! I am part of all there is! I contain all. So each of us.

:- Doug.

Conversation is my business. Life is my business. Conversation is the blood of life. Conversation is the business of us all.

:- Doug.

There is harmony and disharmony alike. There is lovingkindness and there is murder. None of us is stranger to any of it. Perhaps this is the underlying truth of the concept of sin—that we have all of this part and parcel of who we are as people? Then our task is not to run from “sin” but to embrace it and use it all for good. All things work together for good for those who love life. Conversely, All things work together for evil for those who love evil? Even these are to be loved, for love is stronger than evil. It appears to me that the message of the Bible writers, taken as a whole, is one of caring and loving and being together in community. Community, coming together is the essence of love.

:- Doug.

Life is to death as love is to embrace.

:- Doug.

Out of death life will come. Flies lay their eggs, maggots crawl, buzzard alight to feast. Death is host and compost. Death is but a resting night dream rejuvenating life, pulling back its bow.

:- Doug.

This morning as I was waking I saw my connection to this earth and at the same time to all there is.

:- Doug.

Do you seek the concluding word or the beginning one? Thus you choose—against or for dialogue.

:- Doug.

Conversation is a tuggle between life and indifference. We must enter in if we are to progress. When we engage we huggle. A huggle is a hug with dance in its pants.

Tuggles and huggles: these are what we need!

:- Doug.

What’s the most enlivening thing in your life right now?

:- Doug.