FootprintsintheWind.com

Bringing “them” together reconstellates G*d.

:- Doug.

We shape community by conversing.

:- Doug.

Wherever two or more converse, there is possibility. There is shaping. There our community is shaped.

:- Doug.

Shaping community is within reach of every person.

:- Doug.

Societies transform their worlds in several ways. We mistake a paper drawing for the world when we think the only ways and the best ways are top down or bottom up. Threads radiate from each of us in all directions: much of what happens is radiating out.

:- Doug.

Don’t first speak of conversation as the world’s essence. It is more productive to go down the others’ roads and their heart-paths, and let them see that their path is conversation.

Once they are in the circle, then they will see and start to ask questions. Questions lead to learning. Questions lead to stories (experiences), which lead to hearts and minds. Engage me and I got it!

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 1043

I am seeing
G*d is personal
yet not an old man on a big chair
who hands out sweets
who does our every bidding

G*d is more the all there is:
the wind,
the weeds,
the wonder,
the foundation that holds it all up
the one who mourns when we mourn
the one who surprises us

Please pass it on.

© c 2010, Learning Works, Incorporated. All rights reserved. Easy reprint permissions: 574/291-0022, or by e-mail to mailto:Doug AT FootprintsInTheWind.com. Back issues available at http://www.FootprintsintheWind.com

The way the world spins
We may not much change
Yet we can round us
Shape the spaciousness

:- Doug.

We are in this together with G*d. Maybe you would not say we are divine, yet we are by divinity touched.

:- Doug.

The great conversing that is yet going on is how I see G*d. Let us speaks to humans, too. Let us make the world in our image—and what should that image be? Ego-centered? Loving, creative, life-giving? Let there be light. And there was light. Is this happening today? Can it, through us? Can we decide to have light and move toward it? Can we decide the opposite if we do not decide for light? Let there be expansiveness: inclusiveness, extending. Let there be life. Let us make life.

:- Doug.

The world is made out of conversation
Not stitched together with it
Nor the ground out of which the garden grows
Rather the very growing
The all that is is the great conversation

:- Doug.

There is something going on. Others have noted it. It is evident in the many methods of meeting being developed (OST, TWC, Future Search, et al.), in the websites (http://www.greenteaparty.us/) and books (Wheatley, Turning to One Another, Block, Community) calling for conversation.

There is of course the opposite pull—people screaming at each other at “town hall meetings” and terrorists throwing bombs because they are not getting their way—but I think even those have an element of people not being heard, and that that is somehow at the root of it. There is of course the factor that some people enjoy being contrarians, and violent ones at that, and there are some people who do not want to be part of the community. But those are aberrations which are statistically small, even if the damage they cause is significant. But we cannot build a living breathing world around the concept that some people will hold their breaths until they get their way. We need to proceed for the 99.9% who will live and breathe normally.

What this says is that our work is to remind us of us. There are these aspects of us: 1. Together: we have gone so far in the direction of leaders and rugged individuals that we have forgotten that we are social beings. We can benefit from consciously bringing to mind that we do most things together. 2. Others: have essentials to add. Diversity gives us a richness of lookout points on the world, and experiences of what works, and ideas of what might work. 3. Doing: we can expand our possibilities by seeing that we have the ability to do things, and we do not have to wait on someone else to do for us—whether that be the government or the corporation or the leader. 4. Divinity: the human divine connection is present and we have some larger things in us as well as our defects. We can do bigger things.

The key here is together.

There is a movement across the face of the whole earth. It is fed by cheap, fast, ubiquitous communications, such as the Internet and cell phones. What it communicates is these things: the likenesses of all peoples, particularly in what we encourage and discourage; that we can affect what happens, especially together.

This is what’s going on: people are seeing with their hearts and their minds. Your work is part of this. Remind us of us.

Dimensions of us:

Together
Others
Doing
Divinity

:- Doug.

Ritual is a crutch to help us into relationship, into remembering and finding and making meaning. The day will come when we will not need reminding.

:- Doug.

If I take away all the little things, the labels, the I ams, then G*d is. And I am in G*d. Is that not enough and more?

:- Doug.

My mind could go away, as in Alzheimer’s for instance. My ability to write, to think, to pray, to meditate. And then would I not be meditating all day, just being present to what was happening inside and out?

:- Doug.

Maybe I will disappear as a drop in the ocean, and the ocean dry up, and yet, the salt from the tear drop will remain. God will cry it. I cannot know this, yet it warms me.

:- Doug.

Definitions limit us, as much as they liberate.

:- Doug.

Today I am sitting alongside while God hears me.

:- Doug.

Moving beneath all moving
Community beneath all community
Verb not noun
Holomoving, personal, intentional,
conscious, loving, living
G*d hears

:- Doug.

Get your ears out there
Be hear-some

:- Doug.

Where are there people who are doing the same things in ones and twos who maybe don’t even see their need, don’t see that there are others who might have pieces of the puzzling next steps?

Of course they are all around us, but what noises do they make, what actions do they take?

:- Doug.

Get your ears out there
For people needing each other

:- Doug.

In conversation is hope
In conversation is responsibility
In conversation we live

:- Doug.