FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 792

These people
—our times—
so wrapped in
themselves grasping hoarding
blink dumbly
when asked
What is your great work?

Why not? I want to ask
Why add your weight
to the burden of widows orphans?
—but I too am guilty

People are doing things
getting storing taking their leisure
only buying their charity
they could be giving themselves
receiving others
flourishing
the world needs

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

Toward what am I aimed? Toward making the world a place for everyone to flourish. Toward preventing the preventing and opening the opening.

My interest is in finding persons who want to open the opening and working together to invite more opening.

:- Doug.

Is it even possible to have a world that works for all? Do we care—shouldn’t we just get to work?

:- Doug.

There are some things only a group can do—for example, make peace.

:- Doug.

The space to open is our arms as wide as possible and then a little more. Draw a larger circle, enlarging.

:- Doug.

Conversation is a tool, however essential. The real work is the real work: meeting, flourishing, helping flourish. You cannot separate flourishing from meeting: we are in this world together.

:- Doug.

There is a grey cloth societal, cultural: separatist in base, individualist if you will. The grey cloth keeps us from seeing who we are together, and that at least half of who we are and the ideas we hold and espouse, and the good we accomplish is together. So we must rip the grey cloth not just from over individuals but from groups. Sure it is still over the heads of individuals: this grey cloth separates us not just from our own colors but those of others and significantly of the group.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 791

Now I see the ? from another side: G?d has the question for us, has “his” ear cocked for us, wants to hear us whole! So the question mark flows both ways—we are the mystery to each other, wanting to hear each other and be heard—and it flows in a spiral.

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

G?d inhabits us and we inhabit G?d.

:- Doug.

All living is change.

:- Doug.

Engage people with others to see what good we can make.

:- Doug.

Why do the religions not teach us to have compassion for G*d?

:- Doug.

Into the weave
leap
broad and soft
inviting and welcoming
it is

:- Doug.

Gulp and say it anyway. They might or might not want to hear it, it might or might not seem to fit, but say it anyway.

:- Doug.

I need to be willing to meet and be met; I need to start the weave, knowing that other hands will help the pattern.

:- Doug.

If we do nothing, nothing will change. If we do something, something may change. The results are in our hands when we do nothing. So if we do nothing, we are voting to have things stay the way they are.

:- Doug.

Refusing to recognize your power is not an option.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 790

Is there anybody with whom you would not trade places? Then it is time to get to work. Does our world benefit everyone?

It is our job to do that work, whether we get paid for it or not (read: whether we benefit or not). We get mixed up between getting paid and being able to have what we need, as well. If we have what we need (food, clothing, shelter, transportation, communication), and others do not…the need is clear, if not the next step.

The next step? Where does it touch me, how can I help? No catch in the stomach, just meet the need: yours are already attended to. Are you doing the most you can to help?

Are you using your highest and best for the task? Seek to give your biggest effect skill and resources instead of saying Yes to slinging hash in the soup line or hanging wallboard in a home-build. But that’s no excuse if you fail to give. When you have not been asked: organize the thing!

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

Instead of seeing others as other, let’s see them as others.

:- Doug.

Why should we seek answers? Questions travel wider. Answers the schoolmarm, questions the playful mate, pulling.

We want answers, but, O, we want questions so much more. Would you help me seek more questions?

:- Doug.

Let us make
conversation on purpose

:- Doug.

A promise is a conversation.

:- Doug.

The best comes from
great labs sparking
individuals sparking
great labs
not one alone inventing
there is a wisdom
known only in groups
compost heaps transform
each node of the branch
a contribution makes
do your best
work together

:- Doug.