FootprintsintheWind.com

How do we include all those people? First, my view needs to widen enough to embrace all these world stances: to allow people who just want to follow to do so, to allow those who want to control a way to do so; to allow people to be whom they are and want to be. Second, an education challenge awaits: to bring people to a place where they can see others’ points of view.

Some want a world that works for 100% of the people—some not. The some not need to be exposed to the benefits of doing so. We cannot impose upon them, neither ethically nor in point of fact. But those of us who see it is possible can help others see what is possible—help them see another island-star upon which to stand—and this will move us toward critical mass.

So we invite more people, we tell the story more.

:- Doug.

From Buckminster Fuller: “To make the world work for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or disadvantage of anyone.” That was the stated purpose of his World Game and Design Science. It got me to thinking: How can the world work for 100% of the people—through spontaneous cooperation?

Some will want to be creative—some not.

Some will want to argue—some not.

Some will want to cooperate—some not.

Some want to control—some not.

Some are ill—some not.

Some are mentally well—some not.

Some are good—some not.

Some want a world that works for 100% of the people—some not.

How do we include all those people?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 787

Some day we learn we are a part and it is most important to participate.

It is a dance, a soup, a hive: communitation! Community in action. What we most desperately need is engaging community action.

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

You are a part—
where you stand
your presence
your imagination
create essence
you see

Tree falling
deep forest
makes no—
because you
do not
pronounce

Not perception
but perspective
is all
What counts is—
not what you look at
but what you see

:- Doug.

In a nursery
the seeds are planted
and soon replanted
—O, it feels like death!—
in a larger garden
to grow
into themselves

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 786

Worship services should be the least spiritual part of our week: a diving board into a life deep with God. Worship services are not particularly spiritual as a rule, but are there to encourage us to want to take the dive.

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

Silence speaks a language we cannot
but understand

:- Doug.

To be one means to be whole.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 785

Do you see the pond, or do you see the fog drifting across the surface, too? Do you see the person, or do you see what is drifting across their surface, too?

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

Once in a while someone asks What is Heaven like? and quickly the question is put aside as infantile, or dabbling in what can never be known this side of death. Yet it can be a serious question. What’s a Heaven for? the poet Robert Browning more states than asks: it is for reaching beyond our grasp.

If the job here and now is healing the world, establishing G?d’s domain, what is the task beyond this world, when we all see we are one, when we see G?d face to face, when G?d’s domain is visible? What is our task there? Perhaps, catching glimpse of that, we will begin here and now. Perhaps we would see that we have begun here and now.

If we are G?d’s friends, what does it look like here and now—and in Heaven—for us to befriend G?d? G?d is alive, moving, meeting us, getting in our faces. So why would we expect G?d face to face to be different? In Heaven then, will G?d get in our faces, encourage us to be creative and compassionate as G?d is, ask us to do?

:- Doug.

Protestants shun questions about ultimate concerns. They cut short inquiry by saying Believe and you will be saved! Implied is Don’t ask me any more. That of course brings up the question, Saved for what? What is your ultimate concern?

Is your ultimate concern purely personal: that you will not be annihilated or tortured? Or is it for all of humanity (for God so loved the world)? And is it beyond the double negative (not torture), toward something positive, like growth and love and creativity?

:- Doug.

There are tales the silence tells….

:- Doug.

We are connected by conversations. The weave is key. We are not the strands of the weave, not the nodes or knots of the strands, but perhaps weavers.

Does the Weave weave the weavers, and do the weavers weave the Weave?

:- Doug.

What are we doing to make the world better? Even if we have a project to help people here, what are we doing to help those who are helping those over there?

:- Doug.

The other is unknown: that is the attraction.

:- Doug.

There perhaps are no ultimate resolutions, perhaps not even when we meet you face to face. Obviously, for I have, and still questions emerge.

How can we meet if there are answers? There would be no reason to meet. Meeting runs on questions and story and the promise of finding out mysteries. How does it come out? Where do we go from here?

We affect you. We can turn you. You listen, you engage, you meet. We can get in your face.

:- Doug.

The narrow ridge, we,
does not cut our path
but skips from one to other
holding hands, pulling, playing

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 784

Does our community work for all? What will we do?

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 will we make of a world
which is made of us?
What will we make of this world
if we knew it is up to us?

:- Doug.

Conversation does not give us the answer
Conversation gives us better questions

:- Doug.

G?d the living question
asking us

:- Doug.

We can live outside our culture
rendering our culture transparent
so as to see if we have eyes
how the world could be
weaving working for all

Nor naked nor shouting
nor eating locusts
but doing what’s wilder:
conversing, meeting
souls, ripping grey cloth

:- Doug.

So who is making things happen in this town?

:- Doug.