FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1242

Out of fear some people do not want to have the conversation about care of Mother or Father at end of life. What is the antidote to fear? Love. How can love step in? Firmly? Some other way? What would Mother do?

What if the reason is not fear but something else?

Can we connect with those who do not want to be connected? Can we write them, journal to them, do any good by writing to them then tearing it all up? Do they really want to turn their backs? Do we want to let them?

Please pass it on.

© c 2012, 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

There is room for us as professionals to be more than technicians. There is still a role for us to be compassionate. You can make a difference. You can be kind and caring. Perhaps that’s why you got into this calling.

:- Doug.

In science, what we know and what we think we know is our armor, protecting us from all sorts of attacks. In human dynamics, we have to go in naked. So we avoid contact, thinking it will be uncomfortable. Yet our lack of knowledge, our very vulnerability, is what serves us best, allows us to bring our best and create something entirely new. You have to scrape away the rust before the welding works.

:- Doug.

Doctors, nurses, social workers, all you who assist us in dying well: Think of a time when you did this well. Tell us the story. What made it good? What made it comfortable or got you through the uncomfortable parts? In the alternative, who does this well? What does she or he do? What would make the conversation easier for you to start?

:- Doug.

Human dynamics are actually much more intricate and less well known than rocket science.

:- Doug.

Why do we grow in the direction of our deepest inquiries? Is it because we have opened our cores to a flow (and maybe a splashing) between us, where something novel might be found or created? New responses and relationships are evoked?

:- Doug.

I invite people to find their way.

:- Doug.

Fan the conversation conflagration.

:- Doug.

I am disorganizing our community nervousness around the last chapter.

:- Doug.

Exchange of information &
Exchange of fellow-feeling
Are the smaller flecks of gold
Panned from conversation’s stream
It takes the hard work of love
The mother lode to invent
(Indeed, both meanings here!
To create and
To find)
Our responses
Our who-we-are-together
Our very selves

:- Doug.

Even though this is love at work, don’t think that in this conversation you are only exchanging information. (I love this word invent for two of its meanings: one means create; a second much older meaning sounds strange to our ears: it means to find) You are inventing your responses, your who-we-are-together, and your very selves.

:- Doug.

Conversation solves the knots among us—can even solve the Gordian knot of our medical payments system, which threatens our health. The challenge is these faceless bureaucracies of insurance and government will not, cannot, converse—and our representatives are afraid to open up.

They are afraid of what they might open up—lots of screaming and consternation. Yet if we tiptoe around the issues, nothing will happen. We need a dose of conversational courage…and the skill to open the conversations peacefully and respectfully. If we recognize that others have different points of view, and that we cannot understand them without turning about with them, then we have a chance. On the other hand, without opening the door we have no chance. If we ask the conversational question that goes beyond the ideologies, that directs the conversation to what we can do and what we have in common, then we have a chance. If we work to think through how to bring us together, to think through where we are already together, then we have a chance.

:- Doug.

Listening is trying to hear
Let’s get beyond trying

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1241

Ask people to express their highest. Expect holiness: they will rise to meet you. Ask people everywhen to become emissaries of spirit.

Please pass it on.

© c 2012, 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

End of life is not primarily a medical decision. Nor legal. In this age when acute illnesses have become chronic, it is becoming more and more a personal decision. But people don’t know that they have a choice, or when. That points to a role for us who can see.

:- Doug.

We are in danger when we construct new highways to serve trucks to serve retailers and industry. We are in danger when we change our clocks to serve business. We are in danger when we believe corporations are people. The danger is in switching roles: having people serve their tools. What is the purpose of trucks and retailers and industry, of business, of corporations if not to serve people and the life they live?

:- Doug.

A great deal of the time what we suppose is thinking is instead looking for arguments to support something we once said, or heard another say.

:- Doug.

End of life is not a slag heap, a pile of decaying refuse. Living happens here. How can we best serve life?

:- Doug.

Violence & domination
Force & power
Accompany
Injustice & death
We can do better by
Conversing & dialoguing
Togethering & including
For here is lasting strength
& transforming love

:- Doug.

You have a piece of the puzzle neither of us even knows is a piece. Together we can change each other. It’s the only way to change us all.

:- Doug.

We are the story that makes this moment.

:- Doug.

In living with our families—elder and younger together—do we play together in a way that what we are starting cannot be finished?

:- Doug.

I think ordinary people—not just professionals—need to know when to say when. I need your help so we can all learn this skill—invent this skill.

:- Doug.