FootprintsintheWind.com

Give all of your self to me means more than throwing yourself in front of the onrushing train. It means doing it in a full-brained whole way: you cannot give what you do not have, so it is important to rest and play and contemplate. It is important to withdraw and meet. This is not to say withhold anything, for in this withdrawing and playing is engagement—full, embodied, present!

:- Doug.

If people really were working their butts off…think what that would look like! Fields piled high with butts. Buildings littered with butts. People working their butts off clearing all the butts out of the way to make room for more to be added to the piles. Open a door and out pour butts!

:- Doug.

G*d wants all of you, and the only way to get it is if you give it. The world your spouse your children your grandchildren your community want all of you—and you cannot decide or for some other reason or none at all, withhold. Thus G*d meets your face and invites you to turn back to G*d’s face. Trust the people, ask their help, give.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 850

We have tough times in front of us
We’ve made a mess of this world
All we’ve got is us—& those we’ve offended
This is our hope

Please pass it on.

© c 2008, 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
Invites
Challenges
Meets

:- Doug.

Will you help?

:- Doug.

It is now. This is a new time. People are more than we have been on this planet, more in numbers, more in capability. It is inevitable we meet. But how? In violence, stupidity, love, curiosity?

:- Doug.

We must invite people to their own party!

:- Doug.

Goals are about grabbing & getting
Missing giving & hugging
Life is both choosing & being chosen

:- Doug.

I disorganize so people work together to make a world they love.

:- Doug.

Can we heal ourselves?
Can we then hope
To help each other whole?

:- Doug.

A human being is small
Set against the rolling in of the sea
Crashing against rock and sand
Wondering Why?
The power of thunder and light crashing flashing
On a dark night
Winds! Proud trees snap and uproot!
Mountains! Forests! Plains!
Light years and quantum worlds!
Majesty also is real

:- Doug.

Goals create failure. Either the goal is difficult and we reach or do not reach it; or it is easy and so the gaol itself fails. And if we attain, what is next? An endless succession of goals? Or the eventual giving up of them? There follows guilt. Those who know no goals have less guilt, living by what presents itself, by needs and gifts; more happiness.

:- Doug.

We don’t live by goals—we die by them. That’s their purpose—an end, a death.

:- Doug.

How do we change the world? That’s easy: just connect the people who are changing their communities, then stand out of our way.

:- Doug.

When did G*d lose the ability to create? Why do you act as if creating ended?

:- Doug.

How many half-brained ideas we have! Analysis, logic, serial, competing, dominating! Remember we also have another part to our brains, and minds: synthesis, wholistic, parallel, cooperating, self-organizing. Not opposites, but contraries, necessary to each other. Include, please.

:- Doug.

Let’s have conversations that make a difference.

:- Doug.

We eagerly look for the first robin in the spring. Why do we not notice the last in autumn?

:- Doug.

The man had but one hand
The woman one eye
Another one ear
This one only one nostril
That but one leg
Grasp you can’t, nor see, hear, smell, approach
Any better than they
If you won’t
Admit we are more than one

:- Doug.

“For the next minute, I’d like you all to try just breathing in, no breathing out.” We cannot do it. Circles are required. Exchanges. It is not just with the atmosphere, for eventually it would be used up. We are exchanging with other species—the plants: trees, flowers, grass, all that’s green. Thus, we cannot live on inspiration alone. We must expire. We must conspire.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 849

I want to hear what others have to say. I want to hear it so that I hear it and not aim at bolstering my arguments. I want to hear it to connect, and to be vulnerable to changing. But I want to be open to changing others, too, to bringing my voice of the majority report into the conversation.

Please pass it on.

© c 2008, 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

It takes a village to raise a universe.

:- Doug.