FootprintsintheWind.com

Ghettos are a failure of imagination. Imagination has failed those living inside and those passing it by and maybe especially the blind who come in to fix things.

Stuart Kauffman, on page 60 of Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason, and Religion writes “when the diversity…is high enough and the ratio of reactions to [individuals] is high enough…. the emergence of collectively autocatalytic systems becomes a near certainty.” In my words, when we have enough diversity leading to enough reactions, the group is self creating to a near certainty.

Or the opposite: suppress the diversity and the creating of the group and therefore the individuals within it is suppressed. When all we see is hopelessness, hope dies.

Here is where the ghetto insight comes alive: because it lacks diversity by definition, it lacks the creativity, the imagination on the inside. From the outside, people do not get enough diversity to make anything new happen either.

The start of a response? Bring in diversity. Open the windows, doors and especially skylights.

:- Doug.

Groups constrain and energize their members This is evident when someone is ostracized from a group, whether through subtle or overt means. But it also works with those staying: as a question and everyone works on this and not some other. This energizing brings forth the persons from the group.

:- Doug.

There are profundities which reside in no individual but only in the group as a whole. Take, for instance, a story: it resides not in the words but in the way they meet and interact. Or a song and its notes. Or a sauce and its ingredients.

:- Doug.

In spirituality, what does going to depth mean? It means going to the core essence of an individual’s being. It means going to the in betweens where divinity moves. It means going to movement where love loves.

:- Doug.

Open the boundary between other and self.

:- Doug.

Where do we need God in our community?

:- Doug.

People are organic stuff. You can’t go straight from conception to delivery and skip, say, the first trimester. All stages are necessary, although for community work they might come in different orders for different groups.

:- Doug.

The constellation of human depths:

:- Doug.

Imperfect hearing
—the accent in our ears—
can bless us
with new glimpses

:- Doug.

Head knowing
Can be hid

:- Doug.

We are complex beings
G-d is more complex being
Allow for all our plaiting

:- Doug.

We can move from taking in to bringing forth. We can be forever pregnant and become more pregnant—eventually we will have to give birth or we burst!

:- Doug.

We are a distinctly undemocratic culture. Big entities, outside of governments, are directing our lives. And there is no way for us to even communicate with them efficiently. The directors of these enterprises have locked themselves behind thick board room doors. They are as much prisoners in there as we are out here. So they come up with things that do not make sense, that kill us all.

:- Doug.

We can be more than merely welcoming: inviting as well: Let us have at the ready a gathering question.

:- Doug.

More spaces, more community.

:- Doug.

After presence, enchantment.

:- Doug.

Our work is realizing the divinity of this community.

:- Doug.

Divining person
All are divining persons

:- Doug.

“Ism” is turning an action into a thing so we don’t have to meet.

:- Doug.

Glimpses of God
Compassion & Hearnow
To send us forth Holy Goad
God, our Who and our Why

:- Doug.

Say Yes to divine offers.

:- Doug.

Time and again I see straight lines
Nothing changing
And then randomness plays!
Changing everything
Someone outside calls
Something outside my straight lines
The unexpected can be expected

:- Doug.

Poke holes in your shroud
I’ll do it from this side
Rip! Rip! Rip!
Poke wholes

:- Doug.