FootprintsintheWind.com

Questions can have an almost sacred dimension—asking questions can suggest the presence of something more, the possibility of something more.

:- Doug.

Bring the third, stitching, voice into the room: those who espouse A speak, those who espouse B speak and perhaps seek to debunk A. Then speak, helping people to see that A and B are a part of the entire alphabet of conversation, naming the possibility of something larger, challenging people to see and invent what might be.

:- Doug.

Because our situation is evergreen, so must we converse.

:- Doug.

We need to be working not so much on the future as on the now: What can we do now to change the now? Only the now is in our control: not the future and not so much the past. We can influence our experience of the past and what will happen in the future, but it is our now that we touch.

:- Doug.

How we meet is even more important than the subject of our meeting. For instance, if we are meeting about a living vital issue for our day, say drug use or teen violence, listening to talking heads is less likely to get us a better now than getting to work.

:- Doug.

What do you hear in our community & how do you feel about that?

:- Doug.

If you feel guilt, say about what you believe, you are far away from G*d, and nearer the Accuser. Guilt is far from G*d.

:- Doug.

For ourselves
we can take responsibility
we can create a now
distinct from the past
a now we want
for ourselves
not waiting on power or position
finding our resources
for ourselves

:- Doug.

Let’s roll!

:- Doug.

This is your invitation
And ours
To invent
A new conversation
So we may take up
Our responsibility
For the present

:- Doug.

We are morphing.

:- Doug.

Birds are calling to one another…to me?

:- Doug.

Even now, time seems to be large enough and then some for life.

:- Doug.

What is the perfect desire within you?

:- Doug.

I’m fascinated by the power of a small group to turn the world.

:- Doug.

What is the conversation for which you long?

:- Doug.

What is the work you long to get done in the world?

:- Doug.

Conversation work is akin to Fox’s “answering that of God in everyone:” G*d is action flowing among humans; the easy way is to remind persons of the flow in which they find themselves.

:- Doug.

Each has his or her own measure of truth. If yours seems different from others’, perhaps yours is more; therefore place it before others that those who hunger for it may advance toward it; and if some revile you for it, have compassion for them, not as ones with less truth, but with a different truth and keep in mind that even if a lesser truth you may learn from them.

:- Doug.

Leavening.

Our Saturday night pizza, rising on the radiator. How inefficient, but it worked. And it gave us some of our stupidity to laugh about in later years. What is the heat to be applied? You cannot apply too much, or you kill the yeast and the rising and the work it is doing. Once you have the yeast work done, then you roll out the dough, then you bake it. Before then, you provide it the nutrient environment it needs. A little heat, a little dampness, some food to eat, some time to work. The final product is at the end of the work—and becomes food for the next round of work, work with our muscles, work with our minds, work with our words, work with our laughter.

:- Doug.

Inviting conversations of fun. Inviting people to talk with strangers. Inviting people to find what is within our power. Leavening. This is my fun.

:- Doug.

We do not want to go where we have gone before, so how can we possibly draw a map? The best thing to do is to set a direction (intention) and set out. Get in the presence, invite people into the presence, if they will not, that is up to them, the timing is up to them, and we can move on to those who will come.

:- Doug.

If you will be first in the power of G*d, then you will know.

:- Doug.