FootprintsintheWind.com

Is there a difference between wisdom and love? I don’t know.

:- Doug.

Wisdom is truth, your own truth. Wisdom is shared. Wisdom is vulnerable. Wisdom is more question than answer. Wisdom has largeness—length and width and depth. Wisdom has happiness. Wisdom is focused on others, on their good.

:- Doug.

What are the most basic elements of wisdom? How can we reduce our class to them, so we notice them?

:- Doug.

What I espouse is my wisdom. Simply to show you how yours might look, might be sighted. You need your own.

:- Doug.

Holy, holy, holy
Other, other, other
Larger, larger, larger

:- Doug.

All is love. All is conversation.

:- Doug.

One thing that is happening is that we have become more and more separated: by our devices, by our cars, by our individualisms, by our big business, big politics, big churches, by our labeling of other. This generates fear. Fear further separates us. Stepping forth to meet is one little big thing we can do.

:- Doug.

So the new class is a pushing out. Staying with the young man at the festival who wanted to show us Website coding. Even though there was a bit of fear to engage. We will ever have this fear.

:- Doug.

Pushing myself to reach out: this is necessary. Little forays. Little efforts. Little risks. Preparing for larger. A conversation here, accepting an offer there.

:- Doug.

Love seems weak in the face of fear
seems

:- Doug.

A little pushing
ourselves out of the nest
a little pushing
each day a new
life or death

:- Doug.

We profoundly fear one another. What overcomes fear? Conversation.

:- Doug.

Wisdom is feminine by nature.

:- Doug.

Spirit is not as elusive as I am.

:- Doug.

air thin as it is
moves leaves
has solidity

:- Doug.

Flittering leaves in the tree
green gems catching elusive light
so too human spirits today

:- Doug.

I will keep on keeping on, keeping active and engaged, improve my diet, get more exercise. Those will help me enjoy more.

:- Doug.

Do you feel wiser? And yet, has something changed, progressed? Would you make the same decisions now? For instance, do you think people are in too much of a hurry? What does hurry mean? Have your priorities improved?

:- Doug.

I don’t have anything to teach you
that you don’t have more to teach me

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1615

Wondering about the various attacks and shootings the last week or so, and whether there might be some response less than lethal. The point is, we might learn something from these people: whether and who their accomplices are, how they got this way, how we might prevent radicalization.

The Dallas shooter for instance might have been taken down with a flash-bang and some tranquilizer or even tear gas. The motorists killed for reaching for a wallet might have been prevented by a stun gun from bringing out a feared weapon. I have not received police training so I don’t know what is possible. But it seems the only response we have been using is to kill.

There was a call today for all-out war on terrorism. How does that work if radicalization happens in families and small groups and even individuals? If the enemy wears no uniforms and comes at you in ones and twos, what good’s an atom bomb or a battleship? Sounds kind of like the colonists fighting the redcoats.

The answer may be at least in part to get the information we can where we can, and that might mean making less lethal the default.

Please pass it on.

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I believe in humanity
Its divinity
Its wisdom in kindness

:- Doug.

Elders greet death
Some greet loss of mind
As additional privilege
In peeling away ego, gain
In dropping mind, divinity

:- Doug.

Come and read about yourself! The adventure you want to have, the life you want.

:- Doug.