FootprintsintheWind.com

People listen. People are heard. People change things. This is our great work. Invite me.

The me is not Douglas Germann. The me is someone you would not think to invite. Invite a Palestinian and a Jew to your living room for dialogue. Invite a homeless person into your home. Invite the scowling person you see everyday. Invite the person standing next to you in the crowd.

:- Doug.

Toward what am I aimed? Toward making the world a place for everyone to flourish. Toward preventing the preventing and opening the opening.

My interest is in finding persons who want to open the opening and working together to invite more opening.

:- Doug.

Is it even possible to have a world that works for all? Do we care—shouldn’t we just get to work?

:- Doug.

There are some things only a group can do—for example, make peace.

:- Doug.

The space to open is our arms as wide as possible and then a little more. Draw a larger circle, enlarging.

:- Doug.

Conversation is a tool, however essential. The real work is the real work: meeting, flourishing, helping flourish. You cannot separate flourishing from meeting: we are in this world together.

:- Doug.

There is a grey cloth societal, cultural: separatist in base, individualist if you will. The grey cloth keeps us from seeing who we are together, and that at least half of who we are and the ideas we hold and espouse, and the good we accomplish is together. So we must rip the grey cloth not just from over individuals but from groups. Sure it is still over the heads of individuals: this grey cloth separates us not just from our own colors but those of others and significantly of the group.

:- Doug.

G?d inhabits us and we inhabit G?d.

:- Doug.

All living is change.

:- Doug.

Engage people with others to see what good we can make.

:- Doug.

Why do the religions not teach us to have compassion for G*d?

:- Doug.

Into the weave
leap
broad and soft
inviting and welcoming
it is

:- Doug.

Gulp and say it anyway. They might or might not want to hear it, it might or might not seem to fit, but say it anyway.

:- Doug.

I need to be willing to meet and be met; I need to start the weave, knowing that other hands will help the pattern.

:- Doug.

If we do nothing, nothing will change. If we do something, something may change. The results are in our hands when we do nothing. So if we do nothing, we are voting to have things stay the way they are.

:- Doug.

Refusing to recognize your power is not an option.

:- Doug.

Instead of seeing others as other, let’s see them as others.

:- Doug.

Why should we seek answers? Questions travel wider. Answers the schoolmarm, questions the playful mate, pulling.

We want answers, but, O, we want questions so much more. Would you help me seek more questions?

:- Doug.

Let us make
conversation on purpose

:- Doug.

A promise is a conversation.

:- Doug.

The best comes from
great labs sparking
individuals sparking
great labs
not one alone inventing
there is a wisdom
known only in groups
compost heaps transform
each node of the branch
a contribution makes
do your best
work together

:- Doug.

If each circle were of gold, which would you want? The smallest is you; the next is your family, brothers; then people like you; then all people; then all life; then all. Choose. Open.

:- Doug.

What can people do, working together, to help the world work for all?

:- Doug.