from here to Betelgeuse
This night I fall asleep on the comforter-quilt that stretches from here to Betelgeuse.
:- Doug.
Archive for the 'Conversations' Category
Suspending “What’s wrong with that?”
Sometimes I have found it useful, even if very difficult, to suspend my lawyer’s “What’s wrong with that argument?” way of thinking. It might be nonsense, but even nonsense can get us moving. Moving is good.
:- Doug.
What can we learn from this nonsense?
What can we learn from this nonsense?
A lot of what I write does not, or does not seem to make sense, in the ordinary mode of thinking. Yet it is to get us thinking, to get us looking and feeling and touching and sniffing and licking and hearing.
What can we learn from this nonsense?
:- Doug.
What do we need to know of God?
What do we need to know of God? And do we have experiences to say G*d is that?
:- Doug.
It is instructive to note Neanderthals ate only meat.
It is instructive to note Neanderthals ate only meat.
:- Doug.
Rather than sustain/…
Rather than sustain
Let us & all generations
Support life
Nurture our children
Generate new ways to
Be alive
:- Doug.
What have I experienced of God?
What have I experienced of G*d?
I have experienced overflowing diversity. I have experienced personal connection. I have experienced the vision of the grey cloth and the rainbow lights. I have experienced my parents on the night of their deaths. I have experienced the love of a woman and of children and of grandchildren. I have experienced the growing of a garden, and all its production and all its disappointments and all its prolific weeds! I have experienced the profundity of connection with others—being heard, hearing—and the frustration of not having my agenda accepted by others. I have experienced, in short, many aspects. G*d cannot be kept in a can.
I have experienced synchronicity and I wonder at that, now more than before. It is not a matter of seeing a puppet master pulling strings to make it all fit, but a matter of wonder how it all does come together without a puppet master, in a much more subtle and nuanced way. I see that there is wonder and mystery here and more to learn, more to do.
:- Doug.
from which we weave the cloth alive
When we chose to be born into the joy and good of family, we accepted the necessary pain and evil. These are all wrapped in the package, multicolored threads jumbled in the box, from which we weave our cloth alive.
:- Doug.
And we say that humans have not changed.
We now have the power to end all life on this planet—on purpose. Not even nature has this power. And we say humans have not changed.
:- Doug.
Look at beans!
God is growing
—Look at beans!
God is caring
—Look to the rains!
God is diversifying
—Look at the animals, plants, people!
:- Doug.
Where do we get the models?
We ascribe many things to God—anger, hands, eyes, voice—but where did we get the models for these things, and to what reality do they point?
:- Doug.
Opportunities to engage culture with culture?
What are the opportunities to engage culture with culture? To see the wealth of possibilities in engaging each other?
:- Doug.
Growth!/Is is what Life!/Is about/…
Growth!
Is is what Life!
Is about
We are hear
Less to prepare
For an other world
More for this & Now
Ever
To See
What is possible
:- Doug.
Installing software, expecting things to be out of sync
When we install new software, we can expect several things to be out of sync. The same is true of cultures: when we bring peoples together and new ideas together, there will be a time while we adjust one to the other, before we can play together well.
We must be willing to both work through this period and make adjustments ourselves.
:- Doug.
Giving all
God gave all—his beloved son. Jesus gave all—for his friends. Why would we not want to do so too?
:- Doug.
Lincoln said love the place where you live
It is all about loving God: God so loved the world, so why wouldn’t we?
:- Doug.
closer to the really real
Testing and exploring, trying things out, seeking to find our for ourselves: this means we are not taking anything on authority or on tradition or on what is written somewhere, but we are testing out for ourselves what might bring us closer to the really real.
:- Doug.
metaphor: using inappropriate words to speak about what we know not
When it comes to God no one knows, everyone is an agnostic, and everything we say about God is a metaphor: using inappropriate words to say some things that might help us learn more about what we know nothing.
So when I am playing with metaphors what I am really doing is testing out the metaphors to see what they might teach us, knowing that none of them tell the whole story and that the map is not the territory, nor is the word God.
:- Doug.
