FootprintsintheWind.com

We don’t have to suspend or name our assumptions as the first step to dialogue: we need merely meet one another as human beings and the assumptions will dissolve or fall of their own weight.

:- Doug.

In the world do we want to be known as The Good Guys, or as The Rich Guys?

:- Doug.

The story is told that at a certain time in a big city somewhere in the world it was traditional for poor people to go to the doors of others to seek aid. At this time a boy of about 11 years knocked on the apartment door. A father and his son, of about the same years, answered the door. The father said to wait while he and his son went to see what they might offer. The father took out some money and said, “Son, go get your favorite toy to give to the boy.” “But, father!” “Your favorite, the one you play with all the time.” “No!” “Son, go to your room and get it.” Slowly, glumly the youngster did as he was told. “Now go to the door and give him the money and your toy.” His son was at the door a long time, but the father stayed with his curiosity in another room. Finally, his son came back with shining eyes: “Father, can I do that again?”

When it comes to our reluctance to welcome immigrants to our homeland, we are this son.

:- Doug.

It is only through disturbance that we have life. The winds, the waters bring food and drink to the trees. We measure life by breath and by movement. All these are change, disturbing what was. What is, if it is life, is no longer what we saw or met a mere moment ago. Nor can we predict its position nor direction nor speed a mere moment from now. Life disturbs.

:- Doug.

Since we don’t know what’s on
the other side of today
how will we choose to address the day?
As if we did know? Is that sanity?
Exploring, looking for surprises, disturbances?
Looking for how we can surprise, disturb
and connect?

:- Doug.

What do you want to happen? Why don’t you see to it? is also a good prescription for world changers.

:- Doug.

What is the idea that would change the world for good?

:- Doug.

A Community of Practice seeks working together toward something, but the something is secondary to the together. The together is generative of many actions. First the chickens, then the egg.

:- Doug.

Talk till we’re
new in the face
of the world.

:- Doug.

Rather than to evolve
consciously
perhaps it is more important
to evolve fully
engaged
rapt
unwrapped

:- Doug.

Is wholeness possible? Or is everything constantly emerging, so that any picture of wholeness is history and therefor untrue of the present?

:- Doug.

There is something that arises in meeting that cannot be predicted. That’s why we have to meet.

:- Doug.

We are here
not as a gathering of individuals
but as a
gathering
—more—
we are not simply
connecting
rather bringing
a new living being
into life

:- Doug.

If problems can emerge everyday
so can new worlds

:- Doug.

These days I am seeing often that all this is G*d. Not that we worship our fellow creatures, but that we see we are all shot through with G*d. As Thomas Merton puts it in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, p 141, “people…are all walking around shining like the sun.” It is as if we are not subject to G*d as to some manic ruler, but caught in a web of love. This web is G*d, so we are all G*d: as the Bible says, “ye are all gods.”

:- Doug.

It may be that because of our ears we hear “no one comes to the father but through me” inside out. We might hear instead that since Jesus went the way of men and stands in that way, all men trod the way—no exceptions. No one comes to the father but by the way I went. These too stand in this way, beckoning: Rumi, Rilke, Abraham, Buddha, Lao Tzu….

:- Doug.

What is your work in the world?
Is that as big as it gets?
What is our work?

:- Doug.

Truth
wisdom
do not reside
in any one node
or person
but in the
spaces
in between
it takes two
often more
to touch

:- Doug.

To our good friends–

The last day or so I have been noticing that our President seems to be stuck in some ego warp around an undefined “winning.” Just what is this winning? In Iraq, we are the Redcoats who battle in straight rows and neat uniforms against rebels behind every tree and in civilian dress. We cannot bomb away all their weapons caches. We cannot find someone to surrender to us. How will we know we won? When our last soldier dies? When the last widow and baby die? When the last green shoot in Iraq dies?

Is it possible that winning means something bigger? What if winning were large enough for all sides to win? What if it means making friends, finding the people of goodwill, and other difficult work? What if it means we have to give up some cherished idea of our own?

:- Doug.

We are wired but not connected. Even our cell phones, wireless as they are, only connect us to people to whom we have given our number code. In the wholer world anyone can bump into anyone. If they choose, connection can arise. Do we choose? Do we open to the larger connection.

:- Doug.

Why should we expect the world to welcome the parts of us which are our specialness? Yet precisely here is our valuable gift.

:- Doug.

G*d is not about dominating
rather opening to us
with us

:- Doug.

Wide open
Open the space, wide open
Open our hearts, wide open
Open our world, wide open
Wide, wide open

:- Doug.