FootprintsintheWind.com

Conversation takes place in the spaces between words. Words, gestures, glances, thoughts are all instruments for the conversation.

:- Doug.

G*d and us: we are more alike than we are different.

:- Doug.

Around the planet we are beginning to catch glimpses of the power and ingenuity of ordinary people working together. There is something afoot here, some possibilities we have just started to explore. Perhaps we have never had the numbers together to make it work. Or the will. Perhaps we are just now understanding the true meaning of democracy. Or we have a critical mass of people able to grasp a larger view. Perhaps there is something else behind it, but it is a gentle spring rain washing the air in many places.

What is central to this discovery is that people have good in them. They want what is good and true and beautiful—what the ancient Greeks saw and named was really something deeply entwined in the human. We aspire. We seek what is good not just for, not even primarily for, a selfish little me, but for an expansive we.

We gain health when we serve others. We see a larger world. We make things happen for good.

Even the terror purveyors seek to do good, however twisted their notions may have become. It is possible that they might be untwisted if we would but hear them. Many a bomb is thrown because it is the only way someone can see to get heard.

So I seek earnestly to speak to the higher in people, in those who have ever prayed, or been awed by a glimpse of beauty, or earnestly sought after truth, or said “I love.”

:- Doug.

Prayer also for me has been a communion with the larger: it makes me more whole, and G*d too. Cor reaches to cor.

:- Doug.

Analysis leads to paralysis of course: at a certain point in the process of dissection the frog loses the power to move—and never regains it. Likewise, at a certain place in the budget process the schools lose the ability to move the child, the organization loses its ability to be a living community.

:- Doug.

If you have ever prayed, if you have ever been awed by beauty, if you have ever earnestly sought after truth, if you have ever said “I love” and meant it deeply, it’s you with whom I want to speak. The rest of you will not be able to understand.

:- Doug.

We are just now beginning to understand the nature of humanity when people work together in groups. There is a latent potency many are seeing and a few are inventing ways to put to good effect. What we are discovering is something higher in people—a hard-wired desire to do good, a working for the well being of others and the group, a reaching for building up, yes, even altruism. Some of us are finding ways to engage this highest and best. This is what you want too, yes?

:- Doug.

We bring things to the conversation. What do we allow the conversation to bring to us?

:- Doug.

On vacation you can be anyone you say, play any role in the world. Who would know? Who would care? What if the same were true for regular life? You can make it a better place, do larger things. No one cares who you were, only do.

:- Doug.

When we meet we are inventing a piece of the possible.

:- Doug.

What is the “What if” question that would most challenge you, and how would you dare respond to it?

:- Doug.

We have not done badly; still we can do better.

:- Doug.

What do we have in common?

:- Doug.

There is so much capacity we are throwing away! Let us engage all the divinity we can!

:- Doug.

Once we let imagination out
It will never fit back in the bottle
At most it will flit around the opening

:- Doug.

The conversation carries—
Us
On
G*d

:- Doug.

Our task
Opening space
For human spirits

:- Doug.

You do not see G*d
Because you look for a noun
You think not to look
For verbs
For adjectives
Applying to

:- Doug.

We are wise if we seek not to become organizations but communities.

:- Doug.

When we make small our role, we make small G*d’s.

:- Doug.

A study
Some people venerate order
Particularly if they exercise it
Some people elevate reason
Or fear their own imagination
Some people negate all possibilities
Seeing only endlessly repeating numbness
All these people of course are us
And yet there is among us the more
The more—the well-known
Is not the all there can be
The world is more than order imposed
& Reason is a fine helper but no explorer

:- Doug.

If you can contend with G*d
You can open yourself to anyone

:- Doug.

If G*d is not our puppetmaster
G*d is free to stand over against us
This too generates life—
If G*d be against us who
Can be for us?
& yet life comes to
Exhausted wrestlers
If you dare contend with G*d
What then?

:- Doug.