Archive for December, 2007

calling wrapped in a deep sense of

A deep sense of calling is wrapped in a deep sense of hearing and being heard. This is heart work, work from the depths. This is braiding, weaving, hugging work.

It is about conversation among people about things that really matter. It is personal and active. It is making the world a more loving place by making it a more heard place. Every voice heard.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 31st, 2007 | No Comments »

Personal fire

My work is igniting conversations. Locally. One on one or a few at a time. Personal fire.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 31st, 2007 | No Comments »

first persons

Nothing happens without first persons.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 31st, 2007 | No Comments »

The best way to frame the live question

Fighting global warming is not the best way to frame this live question of the day. For one thing it is a double negative, and no one has yet figured out how to do that. More importantly we need to focus on what we want to accomplish. It needs to be more than stabilization or even a return to the levels of an index year. If we believe that the earth is really a living organism, or is akin to one, then realize that the earth cannot stand still. Only when finally dead will it reach stasis. It is easy to posit we want global cooling, yet that is not likely to be good either. What do we want?

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 31st, 2007 | No Comments »

Make flames

Make flames lasting
Make flames personal

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 30th, 2007 | No Comments »

Spread the fire

The most effective thing you can do to help your cause is talk with persons. Wherever you can, as much as you can, spread the fire. No thing spreads the fire as persons conversing.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 30th, 2007 | No Comments »

No shortcuts

There are no shortcuts
At every step the work needs persons

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 30th, 2007 | No Comments »

This year’s Christmas gift giving upset me

This year’s Christmas gift giving upset me: the kids had so many toys they were not given time to play with them—just open them and then Here is another, Give me that one, Put it down so you can see what else you have.

I do not want gifts of things. Things don’t make me feel better; ideas and imagination do, and you don’t satisfy one with the other.

My preference is to limit the gifts we give to children. If we gave them one or two well-thought-out gifts, things that will allow them to use their imaginations and lead them out into a larger world, to think of others, to give themselves away, then we have done well our jobs as grandparents and parents. If we think of what we value and where we want to lead our grandchildren, then we have done well our tasks. But if we simply heap on by counting numbers and Dollars, then we get the shallow next generations we decry. So let us choose and think out and love.

Let us see what lifts us up, what serves our grandchildren. A cornucopia may not be the best metaphor: what they get is about as deep as the horn goes, and if they keep digging, there is no more stuff. But if we give from our love—our minds and hearts working together—then we have a horn that can never be emptied.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 30th, 2007 | No Comments »

Footprints in the Wind sm # 820

Footprints in the Windsm # 820

What is my dream? What does it smell like? It smells like peanut butter cookies and turkey stuffing. It tastes salty and sweet all at once, like a chocolate kiss baked onto the top of a pretzel. To the touch it feels like the bark of a sycamore tree—rough and smooth and warm and cold all at once. It looks like a cardinal on the wing coming toward you with a snow covered backdrop, and like the mesmerizing flames of a campfire. What does it sound like? Voices all around speaking softly, sobbing, speaking passionately, loudly, justly, unjustly, too much, too little, finally being heard. Up close the whole is a cacophony, closer still a heart beating, further away a single divine human organism with many organs pulling this way and that but all walking toward the same next.


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Published in: FootprintsintheWind/sm | on December 29th, 2007 | No Comments »

The work is the work

The work here is the work, not the answers. Answers are never final, questions always live. The work is to do the work. The answers are not to be memorized, only the feeling of doing the work, the way of doing the work, so that if the questions, any questions, arise, the work can be done in that moment.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 29th, 2007 | No Comments »

This is of all questions the key

This is of all questions the key
How fruitful can we be?

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 29th, 2007 | No Comments »

From differences

From differences
Look away
Seek where we are one
To our hope
To call our attention

Where we are one
Is a small voice
Still, seldom heard
Shh…gently listen…
To call our attention

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 29th, 2007 | No Comments »

What is the real divine sacrifice?

What is the real divine sacrifice? It is Jesus dying on the cross, but not to buy off an angry god. It is the giving of his life entire for his friends, as we all should, if we are to have life abundantly. Who loses his or her life gains it. It is a we thing.

Why so horrible a death? You do not have to fear death, even death on a cross—it cannot touch you. Cruelty is judgment. Love overcomes cruelty. What is worse than cruelty? Fear. Love overcomes fear.

How is it fruitful to die horribly, painfully, under sentence? It says the “they” cannot sentence life. It says Judgment cannot stop Life. Life, imagination, love: all this is eternal. Death and Judgment is temporary only: is nothing. So the worst Judgment is a nothing, because it seeks to divide what no man can put asunder, it seeks to hinder, hamper, hold life—which cannot be done, because these are negatives, not contraries.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 29th, 2007 | No Comments »

Being ones or being one?

We are especially good at being ones
But have forgotten how to be one

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 28th, 2007 | No Comments »

Round bales

Round bales of straw or hay are sitting in puddles in the field.

The trees are are huddled together in a corner of the field, waiting out winter.

A lone bird wings across the highway.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 28th, 2007 | No Comments »

How much time?

How much time do we spend on Christmas shopping, choosing just the right gift, going from store to store, week to week? What if we spent that same amount of time with the person, getting to know each other, giving our life-stuff to him and her?

How would the world change?

What if we counted not things but giving? How could it be good to spend time with people?

What if we asked them? What if we gave our selves? What if spent—our very beings—on them? What if we learned what is on their hearts and heard them?

That of course is something I can do with Nathan today. I can learn what is his favorite thing, the most surprising thing, the happiest thing.

What if Christmas were family time? What if it were about loving people, not showering them with things they may or may not want or even like? What if we made gifts of what is most precious, as we mouth words about G*d giving a baby?

This is not to say Do not give gifts. Rather, give the larger gift.

It is not something we have to do in a radical way. We can sit with one other person and hear them. Today. Christmas day then is any day.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 28th, 2007 | No Comments »

What I can contribute is this

“What I can contribute is this” he said thoughtfully. We all know what he means. It is a large gift to our movement both to receive and give. It is more than money—it is time and contacts and commitment. Yet all of us have it outside in. In eternity we ask “How much can we give?” “To whom can I abandon myself?” There we know we live on what we give away—it is the very bread we eat. That little “What-can” in his offer focused on what he could afford, not on who might be, giving. It focused him on what he kept, not on what he could accomplish. Let us all be present, present all. Eternals count not cost but giving.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 28th, 2007 | No Comments »

Met G*d

Every human has met G*d.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 27th, 2007 | No Comments »

And so are you

I’m a prophet
I’m a poet
I a creator of new Heavens & new Earths
And so are you
And so especially are we

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 27th, 2007 | No Comments »

Never only things

Never only things:
Also the meaning that we give
Christmas gifts have
A little Jesus
Some are given that way
Received with such a thought
Or just habit or duty
But all contain
More
Even in our Scrooge or Grinch moods
There is
More
Daily we are adding to every thing every moment
So continual it is invisible
As the air we wade through
We are meaning giving animals
This our great gift for good or other
Wise

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 27th, 2007 | No Comments »

Pivot life

Seeing larger
Larger for life
Only one life
You I We
Nodes of the one life
Hold infinity eternity
Life is infinite eternal
Life becoming aware of itself
One little cell awakening
Be still and pivot life

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 27th, 2007 | No Comments »

Campfires and shortcuts

Christopher Carfi in The Social Customer Manifesto: “Conversation” Is More Than A Buzzword has two hands full of juicy things to say about conversation.

Key to me is his idea that local action is absolutely necessary to global action: There can be no global action without local action, and there can be no local action without igniting conversations.

He brings this home profoundly with a campfire metaphor: to ignite the big logs, you must use kindling. There are no shortcuts.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 26th, 2007 | No Comments »

repeating, alike, one

Families draw us into thinking outside our skins. And from there we start to see that we are repeating, alike, one.

:- Doug.

Published in: Conversations | on December 26th, 2007 | No Comments »
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