FootprintsintheWind.com

To our good friends–

It occurred to me last night that what I am, and we are, about is the transforming of persons. This is what it means to rip: we are covered over with a grey film and do not know ourselves. When we rip, we not only see our colored light, but we see that we are all those colors and creativities and light itself!

Last night I wrote: “If I am then in the transforming business, what does this mean? Transforming from what to what? Transforming into human beings…meaning what? Discovering what this means?”

I think this is right: we are much larger than we had thought. We had thought we were money-getting machines, here to put up houses and shopping centers and things people would consume. We after all thought we were consumers. Perhaps we need to think of ourselves as larger than that, as producers, creators, humans.

What can it mean to be human? What could it mean?

I do not know if goodness, truth and beauty are the keys to the universe; I do know that these are some of the basics of human thought, from ancient Greece to now. So these are doorways into what is deeper, what is more truly human.

So we have power/doing, feeling and meaning: things to open us to seeing more, doing more, being more.

Hmm…: goodness-power-doing; beauty-feeling-being; truth-meaning-seeing. Parallels if not synonyms.

:- Doug.

My investments are in people—investments of time, of being, of opening.

:- Doug.

It’s not just me—it’s all of us together.

:- Doug.

Give to me even your fear.

:- Doug.

It’s not the conversations
that draw me to conversation
nor even what the people do
but how they are transformed
and thus am I; thus are we all

:- Doug.

Conversation is how we give birth to groups as persons now beyond labels

:- Doug.

There is a price I have to pay for this
Conversing, bringing forth—my life
I must give it; I must give it entire

:- Doug.

What is the hardest to say?
That direction goes truth.

:- Doug.

There is a love in conversation
Let me touch

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 700

The day ahead
can be
a challenge
to be met
with all your force and ingenuity;
or a
gift,
a mystery to be explored,
a precious child to be set free
to be full, complete, adult:
Choose.

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–

The only ones who are going to get “these people” out of poverty are these persons. You cannot do it for them; you cannot do it to them; you cannot even make them want to do it.

You can, however, meet them as persons and invite them to meet you as a person, and to invite them to help you see how you can help, if they want your help at all.

“Poverty” is a construct, a term made up by those who have to describe those who do not. Might it be pejorative?

:- Doug.

Conversations are footprints in the wind, blowing where they may, from where and to where we cannot see far. These nodes of conversation blow around us and we stand in them, lean against them, are turned by them, or just think them nice breezes, by turns. We do well to note the wind, to catch it when we can, and to know it is beyond our control.

:- Doug.

This is what we have to offer each other: not the assurance of success or change, but the possibility. We can assure each other that if we do not meet, change if it comes will come with pain and great effort. But if we do talk, it is possible. The only thing we have is conversation. We live in conversation. Perhaps one person can today go into the woods, fell the trees and build a cabin, even mine the ore to make the saw and axe blades with which to cut the timbers. Unlikely. We need each other. Help only comes through conversation.

We are offering, inviting possibility and with it hope.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 699

Whether we see our task as making a living or something else, we are making a life. Day by moment. What we do is what we grow. We may not see it whole often, yet there it is, little glimpses behind the bushes that line the yard.

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

Meeting pokes holes.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 698

All the world’s a conversation
and we the meeters and the met
and we the seeking to be met and still unmet

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

The end of heart is art—creativity, beauty, sensitivity.

:- Doug.

Why should we want to consciously evolve?

At first I thought it a response to two poles: hubris, in that we think we cannot improve our species; humility in that we hold back from trying.

Then I thought it necessary: for the good of our grandchildren.

Now I am thinking it is wholeness, fullness, completeness: to poke holes in the grey cloth over our heads, poke holes that can show us we can let it out, let it out!

:- Doug.

How can we be complete without being heard?

:- Doug.

If we could choose how we evolve what would we choose?

Would we choose to make our species better at building shopping centers? (Careful! It’s not as easy as it looks to answer.) Better at getting money from each other? Better at extracting and using up earth’s resources? (What’s better?) Better at caring for the ill, the justice deprived, the respect-less?

:- Doug.

To our good friends–

Conscious evolution toward what? Can we agree upon the direction of our evolution? There are religious fundamentalists on the fringes who would want us to evolve toward their particular gods. Yet I think the truth of G*d is like Jesus: don’t tell people who I am, just go out there and say that the queendom is among us. What is the queendom, the unfolding? I think we can agree on some dimensions of it: goodness, beauty, truth. Sanctity of life. Perhaps freedom. Yet these are vague from overuse.

Beauty is difficult to define, but universally known. What is truth? Well, I think we need to talk instead about what is real: this can be less charged and more towards what the real meaning of truth is.

Goodness is where there is plenty of room. What is the good life? To recognize the worth of each person. To re-spect each person: to look again and see them as person, as being who is us. To include more and more of us, of all life, in the circle of what matters. To include more and more of life in the work that matters.

:- Doug.

The challenge is to welcome
strangeness without estrangement.
It is painful, there is mistrust
even hate coming from the other
and if we admit, from ourselves.
Worse, politeness.
Beyond, a little: living
where we are not there yet
but underway.

:- Doug.

There is beauty in perfection: a rose
There is beauty in imperfection: a cloud
Sweet mystery

:- Doug.