Inheriting responsibility
We are heirs
We inherit all the gifts
All the responsibility
:- Doug.

This room open to another, larger
That to the world’s opening
Here is a window with the briefest
Slice of the panorama
In here intimate, out there opening
Here we seek to make the conversations
Of home
:- Doug.
What if we are living in a big seed as of a sunflower? What do we know of the creatures who people the surface of a sunflower seed, or its inside for that matter? What do we know of their work, their lives, their hopes & dreams, probably so much like our own? So our seed is getting ready to shoot into space, to split and send down roots & out shoots but before all that to rest a season—yes? And we, & we, just do not see large enough.
:- Doug.
When we enter that sea as one of its drops we become not dissolved but whole, the whole, completed and complete. No loss to fear, gain with whom to play!
:- Doug.
Because it implies marching against, overcoming, struggling with, maybe we should not pray “in the name of” any thing or any one. Perhaps we can pray “in the light of” something or some one. Then we no longer rend apart but are part of the whole.
:- Doug.
A tree chopped down is dead for ever
You can say it shelters humans
But did you ask its permission?
You can say it rots or maybe sprouts again
But what might it have been
For birds and microorganisms?
What sun collect, what oxygen create? What life?
:- Doug.
I set before you a choice: seize life by the throat, or dance with her.
:- Doug.
How do we control the world? It will not. Try this experiment: tell a two-year-old what to do. Do you meet with 100% success? If then you cannot control a two-year-old, how much less the world?
Where is our effort likely to meet success—in seeking control of the uncontrollable—or in meeting it?
There are some things we can control, but by and large, others and forces have sway too. For me I say better to dance with.
I am still learning to dance. It is fun. It is work. It is lively.
:- Doug.
We often live in a world of control. We drive here, we program our computer, we write checks—and something happens. Something we intended. Even our prayers are to a God we demand pull some strings for us. Yet there is another way to live—we can live in a world of responses: of world to us, us to world, us to one another; in short, in conversation with. Which is uptight, which is relaxed? Which boring, which limitless? Which strangling and dead, which living?
:- Doug.
Marching
to demand
that the government
overthrow
its
policies
And working
to gain a seat
at the
table
where decisions are made
Both branch from the
same bush
ceding
power
to others
Tend with
us
the whole
garden
:- Doug.
Not important who gets credit
Important the new idea gets
Set at large
:- Doug.
We live in times of change so rapid our heads want to spin—or go take a nap. Has this sensation happened in other eras? When and to whom? Was it meaningful when it did?
:- Doug.
Footprints in the Windsm # 1184
Many we are, one dance
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We need to disorganize our thinking
—especially the part where we puzzle it out alone
Look in & look out through new paradigms
together we see more
If we are to get somewhere new
Does everyone have enough?
Does everyone love enough?
Do we We enough?
:- Doug.
There is a paradigm at work, a point of view, which says there is someone who holds the keys and is keeping them from us. Our jailer is ourselves. There is always something we can do: a brow to cool, a load to help carry. It is said by some that when creation was done, God’s light shattered and the shards were spread all over the world. Each creature had or was part of that light. We each, each!, reflect that light, carry that light. It does not take a very big mirror, nor even highly polished, to show the sparkle. So the question is, are we using our light? Are we willing to put it to work? Will we get up off the couch even when we are dog tired and do our part?
Our part is our essence. It is different for each of us. Since we were given life, we were given, as our minimum gift, creativity. We can make something happen. But that does not mean we do it alone. All the others have a piece of that divine light and it will take us working together—wherever two or three of us are gathered—to put that divinity among us to work.
:- Doug.
Invent the new:
Better not to bring your answers
rather open our questions
:- Doug.