FootprintsintheWind.com

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1365

The whole task of humankind is to help the others live.

Please pass it on.

© c 2013, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/341-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

With a single lens you cannot get a picture of the whole without distorting something.

:- Doug.

What’s our responsibility for our world?

:- Doug.

Spirit transforms are other words for spirit moves. We might also say spirit quantum leaps.

:- Doug.

Perhaps our ideas of heaven originated in seeing a possible fulfillment of our being—a reaching of wholeness. Living in perfection would be the positive extension of this; “suffer what Pharaoh does to you in this life, your reward is in the next,” the negative.

:- Doug.

What questions do you bring? Your questions are more pregnant than any knowledge you could bring, for they can initiate an exploration and maybe that is wisdom.

:- Doug.

Here are some wisdom questions you might ask yourself, your friends: What is wisdom? Help me find my wisdom. How would I take into the world a task like Fostering conversations that matter?

:- Doug.

Where in your body does wisdom reside? Is it in your brain—what you know, what you’ve experienced? Or perhaps in your feet? It might be if you dance. Or in your voice or mouth or breath if you sing. In your imagination if you tell marvelous tales to your grandchildren.

:- Doug.

What is my wisdom? Maybe there is another way to look at it, a different question. Maybe wisdom is not a thing, especially not to possess. Maybe it is a way of being, a movement through us, with us, some action or way of acting that takes hold of us. Maybe it possesses us, or maybe we are interwoven with it, inseparable, something that grows on us as we move through life. Maybe it is a companion, sharing bread with us, asking us to share bread. Maybe it is our midwife and we wisdom’s midwife, bringing something new, a dream, a better way for the world to be. Maybe wisdom is the wind.

:- Doug.

Wisdom = Dream

:- Doug.

What is the nature of wisdom? Is it a thing? Static? How does wisdom act? Is it able to grow?

:- Doug.

What have you pondered and what insights from the last two days?

:- Doug.

Who could benefit from your wisdom?

:- Doug.

This wisdom thing is at the edge of things because we are creating something new. Wisdom is not a thing to be described and used: more it is a wind blowing through us, urging us on, going on without us, oblivious to us, but dependent on us to invent itself. We are at a new place in history. We are about, this instant in time, to write a new story. A new chapter perhaps, or only the first sentence. Make no mistake: the work we do here this specific day is invited to be profound, a new beginning.

:- Doug.

It is impossible to describe all of spirit, to get an overview because by definition it is moving, creating, inventing, conversing. So I resolve to stop trying to get a handle and instead to let it expose me. Draw me.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1364

Do you have enough to share? A spare room for a few days? Some water to throw into the soup? We all have something to share. The world can be an hospitable place, if we choose.

Please pass it on.

© c 2013, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/341-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

We are at the edge of things because wisdom itself takes us to the edge of things so wisdom may be renewed. We feel like we are reaching out, feeling our way blindly, simply because we are. We are at the beginning of the new story, and we are it actors and its raconteurs.

:- Doug.

We cannot, dare not, restrict wisdom to a thing, reify it, hold it up for people to see. Indeed it is not wise to do so. Wisdom has to keep transforming, keep drawing its people to throw out the old wisdom and invent some new.

:- Doug.

Wisdom is not some lump on a shelf. Make no mistake: it rolls up its sleeves, it works, it creates.

:- Doug.

So when you take a piece of paper and write your issue or opportunity, consider the long view before you write. You may not change a single word, but your thoughts of what is profound or sacred will infuse others.

:- Doug.

There once was a gathering of a dozen sages in South Bend. They were the last of the sages known on earth and they were intent on something: a bold new story. A procreation of sages, a bringing forth from wisdom meeting humanity, for the seventh generation. From that gathering little seeds were offered: insignificant things really. But O! the stories we can now tell! One sang, one danced—such a dance! Such a song! One painted—O the colors of life! One told new stories that bored into the people’s hearts. Plays and businesses and social actions and justice! Now it is up to you to enact what happened. Here.

:- Doug.

What is the story of human wisdom we want to tell? What the story of South Bend wisdom? Of your family’s wisdom? Of yours? Is it a good thing or evil? Is it large, small or nonexistent? Ever?

:- Doug.

You can choose to believe there is climate change or not; you can choose to believe the world is billions of years old or not: no one will force you onto the train before it leaves the station, though some may dare invite you.

:- Doug.