How does G*d suffer over us—these days?
How does G*d suffer over us—wring hands over what we do—these days?
:- Doug.
Archive for the 'Conversations' Category
What was the promise spoken over us/As we were born?/…
What was the promise spoken over us
As we were born?
Is it still active?
Or even imaginable?
What part of your life
Are you willing to give for it?
:- Doug.
Life as we know it is dying, worth grieving….
Life as we know it—this is dying, worth grieving. We enter the darkness and cannot know the way through. But we know there is a way through and life (aka G*d) will prevail. Hearing and being heard will prevail. Community and conversation will prevail. The new way will be the way of humanity: touching, feeling, dying, suffering, grieving, weeping, rejoicing, imagining.
:- Doug.
We sit on sofas and watch the tube….
We sit on our sofas and watch the tube (we did not even notice the tube is going away), and care not—we have become numb. It is good to see all the help flowing into areas where there is major media attention on a tragedy, but how many of us grieve for those in Darfur, and the 100s of other tragedies in our neighborhood? Do we get up and plant the community garden? Do we meet our neighbors to improve what is on our own block or the next one over?
:- Doug.
…numb to the life of our brothers, sisters, grandchildren….
We are in danger of working too much on the economy and getting that we are numb to the life of our brothers, sisters, grandchildren and all our relations.
:- Doug.
Before you protest to the powers that be….
Before you protest to the powers that be, see if they have the power to make the change you seek: they may lack imagination, or will, or political strength.
:- Doug.
Life is not ending/But the as we know it part is
Life is not ending
But the as we know it part is
:- Doug.
We have no natural enemy except/ourselves/and we are actively at work
We have no natural enemy except
ourselves
and we are actively at work
:- Doug.
It is not so much the system we need to work on, as our abdication of our responsibility for us.
It is not so much the system we need to work on, as our abdication of our responsibility for us.
:- Doug.
Out beyond the ordinary and reasonable:
The ordinary and reasonable is to keep on with what we have. The wearied is to remember that we have done that, been there. Out beyond is to try something different, to try to make it better: to bring along our hearts and heads and hands: community.
We are too big, our problems and interactions are too complex, for one brain on a stick. We need all of us, all of each of us. If we don’t get it, we will continue to stumble and may just fall. Our grandchildren will be less, live less.
This is what is urgent.
:- Doug.
…we will have no better tomorrow if we do not today.
Our lives are made up of our days: we will have no better tomorrow if we do not today.
:- Doug.
In gathering a meeting, what do *you* do?
The question is, when you are gathering a meeting, what do you do? Do you seek to inform the uninformed, or do you look for action? Do you seek to rally the troops, or do you open the space for our best reflective attention? Do you work to gather all our diversity and ingenuity and hearing of all our voices, and provide us a nurturing place to grow something new and bright? How do you tell when a meeting is good?
:- Doug.
Thoughts are not the only things in us….
Thoughts are not the only things in us, and thoughts might be not the deepest parts of us. Then there is the question of the ground beneath our feet and the stars above our heads and the voices outside our heads. What do we see in the flames of a camp fire?
:- Doug.
Friend, what do you see? What healing is needful?
Friend, what do you see? What healing is needful?
:- Doug.
For people on the margins/This only will do/…
For people on the margins
This only will do
Not mere justice—but being heard
For people in the center
This only will do
Not being heard—but hearing
:- Doug.
