What is our work?
What is your work in the world?
Is that as big as it gets?
What is our work?
:- Doug.
Archive for December, 2006
in the spaces
Truth
wisdom
do not reside
in any one node
or person
but in the
spaces
in between
it takes two
often more
to touch
:- Doug.
Iraq: An undefined “winning”
To our good friends–
The last day or so I have been noticing that our President seems to be stuck in some ego warp around an undefined “winning.” Just what is this winning? In Iraq, we are the Redcoats who battle in straight rows and neat uniforms against rebels behind every tree and in civilian dress. We cannot bomb away all their weapons caches. We cannot find someone to surrender to us. How will we know we won? When our last soldier dies? When the last widow and baby die? When the last green shoot in Iraq dies?
Is it possible that winning means something bigger? What if winning were large enough for all sides to win? What if it means making friends, finding the people of goodwill, and other difficult work? What if it means we have to give up some cherished idea of our own?
:- Doug.
Wired but not connected
We are wired but not connected. Even our cell phones, wireless as they are, only connect us to people to whom we have given our number code. In the wholer world anyone can bump into anyone. If they choose, connection can arise. Do we choose? Do we open to the larger connection.
:- Doug.
Why should we expect welcome?
Why should we expect the world to welcome the parts of us which are our specialness? Yet precisely here is our valuable gift.
:- Doug.
Wide open
Wide open
Open the space, wide open
Open our hearts, wide open
Open our world, wide open
Wide, wide open
:- Doug.
Footprints in the Wind sm # 727
Footprints in the Windsm # 727
The world is up to us.
Please pass it on.
© c 2007, 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
Please publish in your print or electronic periodical, with the above info.
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than ever we were told
G*d is more
kindly, gentle,
still, small,
everywhere, everyone
than ever we were told
:- Doug.
infinitely varied
Do not stop at seeing that we are connected, but move on to how we are connected: the tapestry woven by each connection is infinitely varied from each other. Patterns emerge to change the world.
:- Doug.
Life and death choice points
Life and death choice points are not about choosing life or death, but choosing life and death, life within death.
:- Doug.
Black wholes
Density upon density
Immensity compacting immensity
For touching life
Books give way to handwritten letters
Poetry packs more in
Till words themselves are
Sucked into life’s immense denseness
Silence
Black Wholes
:- Doug.
If our neighbor has no food
If our neighbor has no food, dare we withhold ours? If in prison, do we visit? If caught stealing a loaf of bread to feed his children, do we insist he be thrown into prison? How does this speak to us when our neighbor is from our neighbor country, Mexico? How are we called upon to struggle with being charitable—loving—with this person, especially when we find being charitable is not a black and white thing?
:- Doug.
too perfect
We humans are too caught up in making things perfect. Look at our antennas: dishes and bow ties, perfectly straight or exactly circular edges, nothing sticking out, parallel lines or radiating lines. Now look at a tree, how G*d puts it together: a seed, a star to reach toward, a breeze to collect food and pollen from, and a whisper, Grow. What we get are branches and leaves turning every which way, things sticking out, no perfect edges, no straight lines, pure creativity and desire to touch.
:- Doug.
Gather persons
Gather persons
“What do you see?”
break the preoccupation with the grey overcast
ask their help
“What can we do?”
:- Doug.
Hesitating
Hesitating
tentative
saying “I did not know”
frail
shrinking
having nothing
this person is G*d
:- Doug.
Footprints in the Wind sm # 726
Footprints in the Windsm # 726
Lean forward
listen intently
not for what God says
through this person’s lips
(people are not tools to any real God)
but to the soul
beginning to speak
his or her life
this
is
God
Please pass it on.
© c 2007, 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
Please publish in your print or electronic periodical, with the above info.
To subscribe, send an e-mail with the word “subscribe” to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com
what holds us up
Sometimes there is cloud cover
a grey cloth cast over our eyes
so we cannot see the sky
but the sky is still there
what holds us up is the sky
as much as the ground
:- Doug.
