FootprintsintheWind.com

Goals are for people who need something external to tell them when they get “there.” More than that, people who need to know they’ve got somewhere (and can stop now). Some surmise that the world is—or at least can be—created to be larger every moment, more complex, more wondrous.

:- Doug.

We don’t need to have a plan nor a goal—only a purpose. And not as well-defined as we thought. Purpose becomes clearer in collaboration.

:- Doug.

Our task
is talk

:- Doug.

We have so many untapped resources—in every person you can meet—that our task is plain—put us all to discovering the barely-hidden blooms.

:- Doug.

What is the most important thing in the world that needs changing or improving? What is first to change in the world?

:- Doug.

Life is life: allow it to happen.

:- Doug.

It would be interesting to read the Bible with the question always in mind: What kind of people were these who wrote this? What was on their minds, what worries, grumbles, wonderings occupied them? Who were they that they might want to record something for others? To whom were they communicating?

:- Doug.

What can we do? This is clearly a use-value question, but has within it a kernel of a being-value question: Who are we that we might work upon the world?

:- Doug.

Do things have to be as they always have been?

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 917

I too have a dream—a black woman and a yellow man and a red elder and a white youth are all sitting down together—at no table—in a circle—all equals—hearing—leaning in—working together—inventing conversation—inventing our world—and you are among us—and he and she—we stand boldly and scared—in the face of complaisance and fitting in—daring to be neighbors—daring to invent neighboring—vulnerable and risking to try—getting our hands dirty—an interactive society—growing on—

I too have a dream—government not abdicated to “them” but claimed by us—pockets and pockets of people in every place—making change—living justice and compassion—taking charge—causing a world people love and live and are all they can be—not everyone taking charge for some have no interest or are ill or weak—

I too have a dream—people inventing conversation—deep enough to include the darkness and the light—wide enough to include all voices wanting to be heard—intricate enough to weave them all together to match the intricate dangers and opportunities of life—causally enough to be able to say We did it ourselves—committedly enough to count on each other—

I too have a dream—enormously tangled problems—put right and whole—by distributed mind and heart—a single community mind and heart made up of all who care—a single mind and heart intricate enough to match the tangle—beyond what we used to try to tackle with one leader or head-bashing politics—communitying: giving together—

I too have a dream—sacredness in the physical world—something more—holiness distributed among us—in each of us—accessible to each of us—in-forming each breath we take—G*d entangled with our human life—G*d whose name is conversation—a divine calling in each action we make to include and open and do—

I too have a dream—that this society—this intricacy—this activity—this taking charge—this justice and compassion—this conversation—can happen not in some possible and hoped-for future—because we need it now—I dream that this can happen now—

I too have a dream—that you will make this dream not just mine—make it ours—and so I leave open for you this dash—

Please pass it on.

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What do people need in order to converse? Another person. Agreement to collaborate on the subject at hand. Attention. Looking forward. A shared desire to make things better. Something to work on bigger than one person. Willingness to try. A story.

These suggest ways to invite conversation: Tell me your story; What in the world could be better?

:- Doug.

Conversation matters: It’s how we make our world.

Do the work: converse. About what do we need to converse? Everything. About what do we grumble, wish someone would do something?

:- Doug.

Interesting that I can look through the airplane’s window and another person can do so too at a different angle and the light rays do not bump into each other. If you did the same with water, the streams would. Touch and smell similarly. Taste too.

:- Doug.

The first leg of the plane ride on the way back home had me seated next to Alex from Haiti. He is a civil engineering student in Portland, Oregon. We talked a lot about the differences between Haiti and the US. I was going to ask him what was the difference between what was most important for Haitians and what was most important for Americans, but he volunteered it first (recall that Haiti is the “poorest” country in the hemisphere): For a person from Haiti, it is family; for a person from the US, money.

:- Doug.

Where is our heart?

:- Doug.

We are a mystery-loving, more-more loving species. We grasp to know more, to organize it, to capture and manipulate it, and yet…we want more. There is more of a story to elicit. The truth is we love the unknown, reach toward it, rush toward it. The unknown is pregnant, the question calls us to quest, the answer leaves us unsated. The poet, the mystic, the dreamer are our reaching edge.

:- Doug.

We see the pendulum weight swing, but what of its anchor and its cord? What are they? What might we find them signifying? What can we make of them? A still point of a world not able to make up its mind—or a still point of a world that connects all (apparent) dichotomies. A cord that holds us together—weight and center and cord all one—telling us if we have eyes that we are all one. Certainly more.

:- Doug.

Do the work

:- Doug.

Poems do not prove
We suggest
Pregnancy is proved
In birthing
Humans are proved
Togethering

:- Doug.

We are to be about inviting gathering.

:- Doug.

Invite openly, widely

:- Doug.

What have we learned? What are the most significant things we know beyond book learning? More to the point, What are the most significant things we still have questions about? What don’t we know? What are we guessing about?

:- Doug.

Make the effort to turn our attention, again and again, to natural beauty, truth, goodness, wholeness, oneness. Speak the language. Speak our language.

:- Doug.