FootprintsintheWind.com

Giving is the only living.

:- Doug.

You live only when you give.

:- Doug.

Our work
—we must—
release the power of vision
that the ordinary people possess
—in the direction of love—
the new Heaven and Earth

:- Doug.

The length of the line presented to us in a goal is just long enough to conceal the fat is is a great circle coming round again to repeat and repeat. Love appears to us a tepid embrace so little do we see its straight to the heart line which breaks the other cycle to carry us forward to the new.

:- Doug.

How big can you imagine G*d?
G*d is bigger than that.

:- Doug.

This is the only way to live, as I have seen: to give yourself to your community. It means more than mere parties where no one really gets to know one another, but only talk about wines and trips through Texas. I want more life than this! Have a project. Work on your calling. Join your neighbors and make a better world. The only way to get life is to give it.

So that is why Johnny Appleseed, The Man Who Planted Trees, Peace Pilgrim, Jesus, and others appeal so much to all of us: they gave it all up for other people, larger life. It looks like a sacrifice, but it is opening to receive the gift.

Is this cultural? There must be a large chunk of American culture in this desire to change things, make them better. But it is also human to want to reach out to your family, ever larger, ever larger. To all my relations say the original peoples. How you reach out is your choice, and about what, but reaching out, giving your life for others is a choice we all aspire to.

This is perhaps a big part of the higher appeal I have been looking for. It is not a negative, look how bad thing, but there is hope, there is a better way: We can find it. We are the ones. We can give our lives to larger.

:- Doug.

Footprints in the Wind^sm # 818

The sword does not stop the sword
only poetry can end wars
only story
only song
We need a new story field
one which reminds us
our hearts are flesh
not gun metal

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

If we live solely for ourselves, we shrivel into nothing, we are a negative. What do we negative? We negative the body of Jesus. We say the rest does not exist and it is only for us.

:- Doug.

The fuller we give, the fuller we live.

:- Doug.

The way to life
Offer your self
For others
We live not till we live
Together

:- Doug.

Life calls forth life
Life eats what kills and gives back life
Hair to soak and mushrooms to munch
& soon humus and from the humus—
Humans!
Perhaps life expands
If we encourage
Life addressing life

:- Doug.

We must be willing to mill around in the muddle till we catch the golden string and can start winding. Our solutions will never come from outside: what we are looking for from outside is someone to shake up our thinking, to get us to look in a different direction. But looking alone is never enough and we must get to work. That we can only do together.

So let’s shorten our muddling journey and work together at the start. Yes! We are in a muddle and…. Hmmm… Let us attend to thoughts and emotions and feelings and aspirations and imaginations and all things human. Let us relax and see what is here.

Here is a magic circle. Mill round in the muddle, seek it out from each other, when you see the golden string start winding.

:- Doug.

A goal by roots is a limit, a boundary, an end, a stopper: it is terminal. A purpose is to set forth on a trek, to reach forth; an intent is to extend or reach forward; both suggest a starting and a continuing.

:- Doug.

Every story is outside of you and so is, in its direction, larger than you. You are that which exists before all stories, before all directions, in all directions: therefore, what is left of you once all stories, boundaries, directions are removed is limitless. This is when the story is understood.

:- Doug.

What we need is a stage. Our stage is people. What can this mean? Our stage is in people’s hearts and imaginations and so we must place our feet there—to stand to dance lightly to move.

:- Doug.

If I think I am giving you power you lack, then I am saying I have it and you lack it. If I empower you, I disempower you. One writer says that pure presence is the way to empower someone, with which I do partially agree: Present your presence to me and I find my own power.

This is something that is going on in open space: we are present to one another, so we are releasing from each other our power.

:- Doug.

Here is a way around the singular “their” as in “If you want someone to X, first get their attention.” The way is to make it personal—“someone” is impersonal—so it becomes “If you want me to X, first get my attention.” It is an exemplary me, which gives us shorter sentences, grammatically correct. Useful thing.

:- Doug.

Be still and know Me.

:- Doug.

To touch me, hear me.

:- Doug.

Yes! We must go beyond where our thoughts have taken us. When someone says we need to shut down certain populations and certain imaginations, then do not say No but to say Yes! Yes! We must get the ideas we have and put them to work and we must encourage the gifts of all the people.

We have tried that before: Yes! And we must keep trying it till we get it not right, but best! Till we get all the good out of it that we know is there and the surprise good that we did not expect. Good arises. Good emerges from the whole.

These clients don’t know what is best for them: Yes! And they do not know what will not work! So they are not held back by what would hold us back: they have a clean slate!

Those other people will try to steal the money away from us: Yes! And will you try to steal it from them? You want what is best for these people we are all serving, and so do I and so do the other people, or they would not be in this work like you. We have all come here to work on a better way. So Yes, we need to give it a chance!

This will take too long: Yes! And so will not hearing all the voices, for they will nag us for years to come. It is worth a few days to get everyone heard, everyone into the mix, all the ideas in front of us, for we have a supermarket full of imaginations and ideas and we do not want to check out with empty calories when we could have had a satisfying meal.

That cannot work: Yes! That is what many people in many situations have said too: and they were proved right by all the new work that got done. One person told me: “I didn’t see how this could be doing work, but I am getting work done here!”

So the formula is, whatever they say, say Yes! Then go on from there.

:- Doug.

Our world work is to awaken each other’s imagination, to set the green afire and see what we can make of this world, this heaven, more precisely to see what new worlds and heavens we can make.

:- Doug.

I can picture you as Jesus—a man who had and has an edge and a point, a man who loves and lives and gives others permission to do so.

:- Doug.

G*d is the one with whom I hear.

:- Doug.