FootprintsintheWind.com

We are able to surpass ourselves. We think not. We see the barriers and not the ways past. We think that what was is and always will be. Unchangeable. Yet the truth is that if we can ask whether we can surpass, we can.

We are able to surpass ourselves. We can see the mountains. We can see the skies. We can see the effects of the winds. We can dream.

:- Doug.

There is not a division in my day between meditation/contemplation and doing the work of the day. The work of the day is doing divinity.

:- Doug.

It’s all about conversing with the other.

:- Doug.

You don’t know the answers to your end of life preferences: you need thinking together with others to find the many permutations settings which are possible. This means heavy doses of conversations with many people.

:- Doug.

We all can be strangers at any time and have been. We have responsibility for God’s body to the least and last. It is my particular work.

:- Doug.

Passion and responsibility; hear and obey; awe and work; cushion and jumping up: all come together in one chorus, one verse, a uni-verse.

:- Doug.

We meet God as workers; we have responsibility for God’s body, the universe all the way to the least and last; this for which we are responsible is holy ground.

:- Doug.

Ample now there is
Widely to love thoroughly

:- Doug.

Not
One
Of us
Has the question

One
Of us
Has the question

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1090

To whom are we friends? This is a bigger question than it looks for it points the finger at our heart and asks, How big?

Please pass it on.

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Do we love this widely and this much? Would we give up our children and grandchildren for the stranger, the guest, the world?

:- Doug.

Enemies not—only strangers: xenophilia. Exclusion is the blot on the heart. Welcome our stranger, love our guest, for we bring to each other great riches.

:- Doug.

Do we yet live by the gospel in a nutshell? Do we love the world this much? If this is the summary, then we are called to love this broadly, inclusively, and destabilizingly.

We cannot limit our love nor our beneficial action to people who look like us or think like us, or even only to people. As well, the degree of our love is called to go beyond ordinary limits, sacrificing dear ones.

:- Doug.

This is enough for now. Now enjoy the blue of the sky and the breeze of the afternoon.

:- Doug.

But together….
Together we are more
Than we ever thought we were
Colorful, thoughtful, engaging
Healing, bringing together, living
But together…

:- Doug.

Plugging in starts with the telephone cord, when we call 911. Our attitude is to do something; but we need to work out ahead when not to call. When not to call is symbolic; and it is a moving target. So it calls for continual conversation.

How do we recognize when it’s Now? When do we not call 911? Answers are not given. We cannot resolve this ahead of time; we can only be on the lookout; we can only address it each time. Between stimulus and response, stop, consider, give it your heart, too.

:- Doug.

We’re healing the world
We may not be able to resolve the world
But we can address it
Meet it

:- Doug.

We can never perfect the world. If one being is perfectly healthy, another may die. Things are so interrelated, any touch on the web is felt by another leagues away. But we can hope to heal: to make a whole that is more alive than the sum of its “parts.” There are no parts in life, no species: only one life.

:- Doug.

We cannot cure the world, only heal it; this is a modest task, for the work is complex and will take all of us. Then again, this partakes of particle thinking: yes, as individuals we can do little except salve the wounds and comfort and work in a direction. But together….

:- Doug.

I am sorry that people sometimes push each other away.

:- Doug.

Like the hod-carrier who was building a cathedral, one conversation at a time I’m bringing the universe together.

:- Doug.

Life may not end by a nuclear explosion
Nor yet by our sun flaring out
It might end by stupidity or greed
A broken oil well here
A couple copyrighted & patented viruses there
Soon we have devoured ourselves

:- Doug.

I don’t want a perfect world
I don’t even know what it would look like
I just want to pull & tug & invite & nip at its heals to get it to move a little more together

:- Doug.