FootprintsintheWind.com

My Being grows from my Doing
Yet my Doing proceeds from my Being
As from eternity, a thread through all my ages

:- Doug.

The something being done of necessity is good, for destruction is undoing. A negative is a nothing. It is sometimes the work of a shrinking, pain-engulfed ego. To say we are going to work together to do something then makes it clear it is a positive good, not a harm. A harm merely takes away, subtracts, and subtracting is not doing. Ultimately you end up with nothing. Less than nothing is not possible, so to work at harm is to work for nothing. Nothing is left behind, the person is not built up, but torn down, there is no Being to this actor. The Being is the eternal part of the human Doing/Becoming, and if the Doing is nothing, Being is not.

Holding other people at bay, keeping them outside our circle, is the same thing: negativing. We are negativing them, subtracting them from us, and in so doing we are becoming naught.

:- Doug.

Conscious conversation is both a starter of and a companion to conscious evolution. Conversation in the sense of meeting and intercourse is necessary for such conscious evolution, but not sufficient—there needs to be something to flow along its sluiceways. That something is desire to do something together, acting upon each other or upon the world. In this doing is expressed our being, and the thing done creates, in Blake’s terms, our form, image and Being. Doings are the fiery stones out of which Being is made.

:- Doug.

Let us create
conversation came before creation
conscious conversation
has to come before we
can arrive at conscious evolution

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 756

Pulling the grey cloth overhead
do we choose to sleep some more?
Instead, selecting threads
we can weave with one another
a web of gossamer upon which
the lightest touch can alert
setting to the work of imagination
this whole woven body

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

What is the larger than us that is in us?

:- Doug.

What can we create that will outlast us? What is the eternal within our palms? If we can think such thoughts, we have the call to create.

:- Doug.

This is the issue that the fundamentalists, among others have: they are stuck in the cycles of time, seeing with dark glasses no way out. And some of us are seeing the apocalypse, not an imposed end of the world, but a work for us to be about. They see the big bang at the end of time, and we see it at the beginning! They see time as having no end, and we see it as ending and eternity remaining. We see a way out and it is our way to choose. Choose life.

We have the cycle of Noah and the Flood. If that is the cycle, it did not work: we are still stuck. Abraham from Ur; Noah and the Flood; David and the Philistines; the exile and the return to a land of sweat not milk and honey; Jesus and death: if this is the limit of our vision, then our vision did not work. God’s vision must be larger. And it must include us, not as dumb driven cattle, but as actively creative Beings.

Read the scriptures, read the world, with fresh eyes, eyes to see what God is up to: a vision. A vision so far as I have seen of a large human body, the body of Christ, diversity in unity, acting on the world, creating a City of God.

:- Doug.

Only in the what could be do we progress, not ever in the what is.

:- Doug.

Throughout the sweep of history humans have been developing, coming together, making cities and nations and larger and larger groupings. The move to keep others out is a natural resistance, but not consonant with the path of history which is bringing people together, so is unlikely to prevail.

The resistance however shows that we want to keep our individuality, and in that it is good. The resistance is not logical since it is entirely possible, if we work at it, to honor the diversity and the individuals. This is the work of evolution, unfolding: to unfold in such a way that persons are not smothered but instead released.

It is significant that this resistance be faced and understood, so it can be channeled appropriately and we can get on with our work of growing the world.

From small tribes to larger, to nations and international organizations and alliances, to seeing ourselves as one blue planet: this is the direction of our culturing. This is important to see. Why? Because it shows us the direction of our progress, and seeing allows us to choose. What will we choose? Will we choose to come together (is this not the definition of love?) or will we choose some other unfolding?

:- Doug.

Classes are based on the explicit premise that you have something they don’t. Conversation is based on the premise that they have something you don’t.

:- Doug.

People are about involvement.

:- Doug.

G*d helps those who together help others.

:- Doug.

Why do we think we are in competition when we are in meetings? Why do we think we must win and another lose? It need not be that way, and in fact the only way to progress is to break out of that thinking. This then is the challenge of group work: to break out of the shell of competitive thinking into group cohesiveness, and more than cohesiveness, an explicit group intention of creating new people.

Of course the why is I-It thinking: insular ways of looking upon the world from outside. The way is to jump to the inside: mix it up, consciously realizing, consenting, and intending that we will come out changed. So the How and the Why, the way and the intention, are identical: changing us.

This takes faith that who comes out will be better than who goes in. It will not always be so, of necessity. Or more precisely, we may not think it is so every time as we come out. We may feel we lost, and therefore lost something of ourselves. We may feel bruised—we are. We may seek to disengage. But if we keep meeting, if we keep standing up for truth in the face of others standing up for their truth, growth and life and imagination comes out. This is the faith we need.

:- Doug.

Are your meetings contests? What if they were somehow turned cooperative?

:Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 755

See my dance,
hear the beat-beat-beat of the drums,
hear the beat-beat-beat of your heart,
take a deep breath, go!
Hear my song, hear my dream:
people coming together,
people of all shapes, sizes, colors,
dialects, stories,
people care,
people working,
people striving to create a new world,
if only in this corner of the room,
people coming together with others of like heart,
people seeing what they can do with what they have,
forgetting what they have not for that does not exist,
it’s us!
We are creating a new earth,
a new future, a new now.
We are solving our problems
and a few others fall with those.
We are hope
because we have heard, and
are still hearing,
and are seeking out,
your story,
but mostly you.
This dream demands performance!
You tell me about your lost child.
You tell me about your struggles with illness.
You tell me that getting your laundry clean is a too large expense.
You tell me that getting to work without a car is a challenge.
You tell me you care.
You tell me “Maybe…”
and my world starts to change.
A few short words,
a heart-light,
a mind embering.

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

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the Commander in Chief of the Terrified States of America.

:- Doug.

Who are you Lord? You are the one we meet. Personally. You are the glue that calls us together. And propels us apart. Reaching out, reaching out, to gather in, to gather in. We are one and several and in you.

:- Doug.

People act together. People change things. People change.

:- Doug.

To be a person is to be perceived as a person. To be a person is to perceive other persons. Therefore, we come forth as persons when we meet other persons.

:- Doug.

You are personal, you are the G*d we meet.

:- Doug.

I speak not out of optimism but out of process.

:- Doug.

It takes not a rosy view
to say what I have said
merely an eye on who we are
—sharers in divinity, creativity—
and a call to set about our work
I am less an optimist
and more a prophet
telling what’s possible

:- Doug.