FootprintsintheWind.com

We do not “know” how to converse. We have to create it anew each time. We have to create it anew this time.

This means for one thing that we have to invest ourselves—giving all.

This means second that we have to invest ourselves in receiving the imperfectly communicated ideas and soul of the other, sweating out what they mean.

This means third that we have to invest ourselves in sweating out what we together might mean, be, and do.

:- Doug.

To open people to their own imaginations, to what we can do together, requires conversation.

Not includes, requires. We must not just communicate, but we must meet, we must create, we must give birth: to life, to love, to do-be-doing. There is a distinction between conversation and communication. Communication assumes a message, a sayer and a hearer: the message already exists. But in conversation of an intercourse nature, it is possible that something new will be birthed. The something new might be an idea, or it might be three new persons.

:- Doug.

Only a G*d who is free
Of the strings
Placed by the puppets
On the puppeteer
Is truly free

:- Doug.

We can have a now
Distinct from our past

:- Doug.

I have a vision of now—
Of community inventing conversation

:- Doug.

G*d intervenes in history
Through G*d’s people

:- Doug.

When we truly meet new life arises always.

:- Doug.

Attending G*d: G*d attends us, we attend G*d.

:- Doug.

Some questions which can lead to a better now:

What are you still surprised to hear other people see as your gift?

What do you see as the possibilities for our community?

What are the choices our community faces today?

What surprised you that you were able to pull off, and what contributed to that?

What gifts are you surprised to see in your community?

Who are those on the margins ready to make this community better now?

:- Doug.

Evolution is back up and running.

:- Doug.

G*d comes to me
A-living
A-loving
A-do-be-doing

:- Doug.

My work is to engage people today in work that matters for us.

:- Doug.

Forms and rituals are useful to us, to bring us into the presence through the door of “As if.” There are other doors: other people, nature, days, stars, birds, frustrations.

:- Doug.

In Meeting, you don’t speak until spoken through.

:- Doug.

What if Genesis 1 were a liturgy of the week for us? The first day of the week we create light: what is the role of light and dark in our lives, in our daily rounds? The second day we create water and skies in our lives: how do things flow, what do the waters cover, to what do they give birth, when do we feel like we are being drowned, from what do we see ourselves emerging, what gives us breath, what do we see in the skies? The fifth day—Friday?—we bring forth creepy, crawly things upon the land and birds in the air: what are those in our lives and how do we respond, do we reject and run away and put away, do we love and welcome and embrace all of us, do we wish we could fly? And so it goes with all the days until we rest: do we rest and ponder what we have created, do we play, do we work, and if we work do we get to feeling good about it?

:- Doug.

I experience G*d as a living, loving, active ground of all.

:- Doug.

From single cell
To Behemoth
Life! Instances of Life!
Outcroppings of Life!
Underneath it all
—one Life!

:- Doug.

We are people who are up to something.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 869

If I don’t choose I’ll just keep spinning.

Please pass it on.

© c 2008, 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

This is not a lawyer debate where we have to answer each other point for point; instead, it is conversation where we weave threads of a new now, and loose threads are woven somewhere else. Everything is used as best it is used.

:- Doug.

I don’t care whether you agree with me or not; I care that we work together to create a world that works for all, and for which all who care work. I care that we work together for a better now. I care that we work together. We have never done that, never had to do that, before.

This is my chance, my opportunity, on which I will work. I have no idea what will come out, but I will work toward it and toward us.

That is really what it is about for me—working toward us, for in the us is the community of G*d. We experience and create life, love and being.

:- Doug.

The language of worship, adoration, confession can be heard as joy, appreciation, living, loving, and confession to self and one another. These are legitimate—after all, they are part of the experience of being human which wells up in us, and so cannot be denied—the issue is what sort of G*d we express them to, and how large a G*d: one conceived in human image, or one beyond the image of a human?

:- Doug.

The present is waiting to be created
The presence is waiting to be created

:- Doug.