FootprintsintheWind.com

How are we alike?
Alike is of our deepest humanity
Alike is of out deepest mystery

:- Doug.

Wheels within wheels. The days spin round and come back to 9:56 am every day, the weeks spin round and come back to Sunday, the the months spin round and come back to January. Our lives spin round and they are all going someplace it seems. It seems.

:- Doug.

With one another, let us look for openings to speak spirit.

:- Doug.

You don’t always need to hear something in meditation/contemplation. Just sitting is enough.

:- Doug.

Fog hugs

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1303

Stay Put: What do you do when the doctor rushes out and you did not have a chance to ask all your questions? Ira Byock, in his latest book, The Best Care Possible: A Physician’s Quest to Transform Care Through the End of Life says “If the doctor is rushed and leaves the exam room before answering these basic questions, stay put. They need the room and someone will come back to speak with you. If someone in the office gets annoyed, you needn’t raise your voice. If you wish, you have my permission to blame me. Tell them Dr. Byock said it would be unsafe to leave the office before clearly understanding these basic parts of the doctor’s plan for your mother’s care.”

Stay put. Good advice. Unsafe to leave: even better advice. So many people, my mother in law among them, are afraid to question the doctor and other medical staff: if I anger them then what will they do to my husband?

But the fact is most people want to give good care. They are harried by the pressure of modern medical business which says you must see 20 people a day, you must keep moving.

So it is up to you to keep your mother safe. If you are confused, muddling through cannot be good for either of you. Nor safe.

Byock’s advocacy mantra is “Be informed, prepared, polite, and persistent.” Polite and persistent. Sounds almost Zen: Don’t just go and do: stay put. But it is practical. And safe.

Please pass it on.

© c 2013, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/301-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

The between
living
moving
maybe intending

:- Doug.

You
can’t get there from here
there are such places
light centuries
away
and hidden in
a subatomic wave

:- Doug.

Streaming changes
the course of
all it touches
So between
intends

:- Doug.

It’s time we grew up about God.

:- Doug.

Whatever you say about
Whatever you picture about
You are limiting
God
Still these are
Some of

:- Doug.

We are not earning
the hugs
for the hugger
is yearning
to hug us

:- Doug.

We are true agnostics. There are many big things we do not know of God.

:- Doug.

We set a goal and we set our minds and hearts on a particular outcome. Our story may not end till lifetimes after our own. Outcomes are not ours to own. We are wise when we hold outcomes—and goals—lightly.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1302

Close not your prayer
Rise and walk
Within it

Please pass it on.

© c 2013, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/301-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

“God” can be shorthand for “something bigger than us.”

:- Doug.

When a thought comes by in meditation/contemplation, simply say “Next!”

:- Doug.