Testimony
The body of my work is testimony to the presence in my life.
:- Doug.
Since ultimate insights come through experience it is experience of wonder, even mystery and radical amazement we must invite. All else comes behind.
:- Doug.
Archive for the 'Conversations' Category
Not just our hands/…
Not just our hands
over our eyes
our minds
our hearts
callouses
We can see
think & feel
clearly
if we lay them aside
:- Doug.
But the trees know
There are leaves on the ground near the trees, but leaves on the trees are still green. We are not ready for fall, but the trees know.
:- Doug.
leave room for ambiguity
Mary Catherine Bateson quotes a Catholic saying: “a sacrament effects what it signifies.” We can make something holy by saying it represents the holy. This is like the ancients blessing having power in and of itself to cause what it says.
This is something that Quakers do not seem to have. Except by going into a common everyday silence, they notice the holy and make the everyday holy. So I suspect it is there. And so it is in circles: we can make sacred by pointing to the sacred. This was my experience in the first circle I attended, with the Eagle feather. Saying so makes it so, if we leave something open.
So holiness is found in the noticing, in the finding, in the openness to finding, and in the looking to find. It is not inherent in the particular items: water, bitter herbs, candles, wine.
The question of course is how to bring our awareness to holy. I suspect it is a matter of a pausing to reflect, of someone pointing out what is in front of us. We may not all or even a few of us catch it, fleeting and ephemeral as it is. The door is opened, both ways.
It seems necessary to leave room for ambiguity and evoking and mystery even in how we point it out.
:- Doug.
Conversations we don’t want
Conversations we don’t want is how we take charge for our world.
:- Doug.
How we take responsibility for our world
Conversation is how we take responsibility for our world.
:- Doug.
Do this and you are changing your world
When you invite conversations that matter, you are changing your world.
:- Doug.
Conversation is how we make our world better.
Conversation is how we make our world better.
:- Doug.
That of which we cannot speak/…
That of which we cannot speak
No words there are for our beyond
More we are & more shall be
More we are & more shall see
:- Doug.
Of course we have learned
Of course we have learned some things. Of course we still have to deal with the desires of our old ways. This is the tussle, and we progress by a not so sure step.
:- Doug.
We are able to surpass ourselves
We are able to surpass ourselves. We think not. We see the barriers and not the ways past. We think that what was is and always will be. Unchangeable. Yet the truth is that if we can ask whether we can surpass, we can.
We are able to surpass ourselves. We can see the mountains. We can see the skies. We can see the effects of the winds. We can dream.
:- Doug.
No division in my day
There is not a division in my day between meditation/contemplation and doing the work of the day. The work of the day is doing divinity.
:- Doug.
You don’t know your own answers
You don’t know the answers to your end of life preferences: you need thinking together with others to find the many permutations settings which are possible. This means heavy doses of conversations with many people.
:- Doug.
We have all been strangers
We all can be strangers at any time and have been. We have responsibility for God’s body to the least and last. It is my particular work.
:- Doug.
one chorus
Passion and responsibility; hear and obey; awe and work; cushion and jumping up: all come together in one chorus, one verse, a uni-verse.
:- Doug.
this for which we are responsible is holy ground
We meet God as workers; we have responsibility for God’s body, the universe all the way to the least and last; this for which we are responsible is holy ground.
:- Doug.
