Some of our models of God translate well and almost directly as models of human conduct: our role in relation with the world. They become ways of asking, How high can we aim? Thus, God as mother translates as each human as parent to the world. The earth as the body of God translates as the earth as our own body-extension.
How high can we aim?
:- Doug.
We can in our volunteer hours and in our donations to alleviate suffering from hurricanes and tsunamis, and especially in our attitudes about our work (I am making the world better, little by little, by my work) and our conversations (When we talk about global warming and starving children, we are helping, just that little bit). Not everyone will want to be an activist, jumping in and making something happen. But we can make something happen on this block, in this neighborhood. What is needful is this mindset of taking charge for.
:- Doug.
Let us have a momentary religion: spirit arises within the moments of our lives and challenges us face to face. Let us notice those moments and work in them. It is in the moments and the experience that we find G?d, moments when we meet the really real.
:- Doug.
I am not enlivened by the notion of rescue—this has for a long time not called to me, and sometimes repulsed me. What I like is fulfillment of humanity. The twin ideas of justice and inclusion pull me most strongly. What we need is not the grey cloth nor even the ripping, but the rainbow lights. Fulfillment, a nice Old English word, is grand! Fulfill, don’t sustain! What is the absolute best we can be?
:- Doug.
Take on a work radically different: Ask the people to take charge for their world.
:- Doug.
What is this—
The melody
of still hush?
The touch
of opening?
The opening
of presence?
:- Doug.
World is womb
Children are we
God facing
Moving
Deeps are we
Deepening
Livening
What is here?
:- Doug.
Look to the little children who demand our engagement. Here is God coming to the surface, seeping through.
:- Doug.
Speak to me of—
comfort without being in arms
love
lovingkindness
using diversity to make good
cosmic reach in the stellar sidereal
presence in the here
this comforter that bounces when I fall on the bed and pull it up to my neck
safe resting places
rejuvenating places
kids playing and scampering on a big old bed of our grandmother’s
closeness and coolness and warmth and feeling good at the same time
opening my world to an always widening view
:- Doug.
This night I fall asleep on the comforter-quilt that stretches from here to Betelgeuse.
:- Doug.
Footprints in the Windsm # 1087
Hummingbirds and butterflies: why are the names of these creatures so long? Is it our unconscious desire to stay with them longer?
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Sometimes I have found it useful, even if very difficult, to suspend my lawyer’s “What’s wrong with that argument?” way of thinking. It might be nonsense, but even nonsense can get us moving. Moving is good.
:- Doug.
What can we learn from this nonsense?
A lot of what I write does not, or does not seem to make sense, in the ordinary mode of thinking. Yet it is to get us thinking, to get us looking and feeling and touching and sniffing and licking and hearing.
What can we learn from this nonsense?
:- Doug.
What do we need to know of God? And do we have experiences to say G*d is that?
:- Doug.
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