FootprintsintheWind.com

Small groups, large message.

:- Doug.

Conversing begets bettering.

:- Doug.

What could we improve about our experience of nursing homes? Of aging?

:- Doug.

A bird to be set free
perhaps in our tree to sing
or to chatter at us
or with our hearts
to wing away
here is meeting G*d

:- Doug.

Music throbbing
hearts along
baby gurgles
here is found
G*d’s meeting

:- Doug.

G*d is the background
within which all this
happens

G*d is the rhythm
with which our melody
sings

G*d is the pattern
within which our hair gaily
weaves

G*d is the old crate
draped with cloth as an altar us
alters

G*d is action
doing and modifying us who
act

G*d is moving
prayer is moving; here
meets

:- Doug.

You are gods
You are the salt of the earth
I am there that I am there
Like us

:- Doug.

The wind touches
each of us
all of us
from no where
and everywhere
lightly on the face
deeply to the marrow
whispering
sometimes demanding response
in the wind
the footprints of G*d

:- Doug.

You want to change the world—so talk, breathe together!

:- Doug.

Be still
Be still and know
Be still and know I am

:- Doug.

For you, about what is creating this work? Is it technique? Craft? Losing yourself? Perhaps to state the question is to answer it.

:- Doug.

Your writing is not a thing but a space of mind.

:- Doug.

Love first. Hear. See what is necessary, what the body language is screaming, pleading. Be still and hear.

:- Doug.

We don’t need a community of care nor of care-givers. Remember, the ones who need you care for you—and you need them. Love first. Then we can rid ourselves of the care giving that is selfish, for us, and really be present to love.

:- Doug.

I’m not going to talk it up. I’m going to ask the people in this place to talk it up—in their circles, living rooms, cafeterias—work out their own best ideas, their own way to love. Talk it up!

:- Doug.

Love is not blind—love opens its senses and sees—and hears—the beloved as she or he is—and responds, meeting.

:- Doug.

Is there life after nursing home?

We can make that life, if we have the gumption. We can get out all the books and articles about helping children learn to read and to become independent, and see what makes sense. We can go into the head of our father or mother and see that they want us to slow down to their speed when we are around them. We are making it bad for them if we are demanding they hold the newspaper right side up, put the playing cards in order in our hand, talk about what they want to talk about. Can’t I just be me? Will you just hold my hand, sing to me the way I remember? Even if I do not remember what you remember?

We can get beyond expecting. We can share pictures of children. We can bring animals to hold and to listen to purr and to pray with and sit in silence with. We can ask for stories. We can pretend we are their mother whom they have not seen for many years. We can provide routines. We can sing songs together. We can show pictures of children—we all love children, don’t we, love to hear what they’re up to, what they tried last week?

We can try to get beyond our own sense of loss and be with them with what they still have.

We can share anyone’s pictures because they trigger our memories. We can share the music Mom and Dad grew up with. We can share our pictures and songs with the people in the next room, at the next table.

We can be in community. Now. Not 15 years ago, even though we’d love Mom or Dad to be in that place 15 years ago. Where they are is a problem only for us, in our heads: they do not see themselves in a problem—unless we press it on them.

We can keep a gratitude journal and see what Mom or Dad are thankful for.

We can remember that quiet is a safe place from people telling us we are doing it wrong. A sanctuary from the turmoil our children and our caregivers set upon our days. A place away from confrontation. A place they can trust.

We can remember that communication slows down—it might take a long time to process a good response to “Good morning,” and we need to be present and hear it even when we’d usually miss it. We need to be trustworthy and safe. We need to hear.

We need to hear voices and whispers and body language and silence. We also need to hear what our voices and whispers and body language and silences are saying.

Can we? Yes. Will we?

:- Doug.

A goal is whistling in the dark, a way of saying you’re not just passing time till you die. It’s hubris—thinking you control the wind by the direction of your glance, the future by crossing your fingers. Life is to be met, not mastered.

:- Doug.

G*d is about belonging, not proselytizing, not trying to believe something: just being part. That is our work: people being part of our world, belonging.

:- Doug.

Lawyers should advocate to their clients. Here—among our friends—we can have our greatest effect. Here we can advocate for a kinder, more humane, more livable world. What higher calling can there be?

:- Doug.

When you’re not being paid you can be more inventive about how you do your work in the world.

:- Doug.

Salvation is not about ones
Rather about togethers
Not about life then
Rather about increasing life now

:- Doug.

There is a One which means All.

:- Doug.