FootprintsintheWind.com

If reality is determined by what a group of observers agrees upon, then getting a larger conversation going leads to a larger reality.

:- Doug.

The way of conversation leads to mystery.

:- Doug.

I roll over as the old earth rolls over to face the gentle morning light.

:- Doug.

I invite a radical shift in perception. Why do we need a radical shift in perception? Is the world working for us all now? We cannot create a new earth let alone a new Heaven by logic and degrees. We must die—not a pleasant prospect—for us to be born more open.

:- Doug.

We don’t know how to start a conversation, particularly with our familiars.

:- Doug.

Open Space Technology is to: 1. Find out what really matters to people 2. Get on with it.

:- Doug.

Open the G*d channel.

:- Doug.

The living edge of life is meeting.

:- Doug.

Conversation is love.

:- Doug.

Conversation adds to the meanings and possibilities of life.

:- Doug.

What is the role of courage in conversation? Courage is necessary to enter into conversation, for we suspect that in a twinkling we may be offered the opportunity to change. We may be found out. Conflict is inevitable. Conversation generates courage.

:- Doug.

We have a responsibility for the way we see the world: how we exercise this responsibility changes the world—for centuries to come.

:- Doug.

My work is people among people. The beginning level is money, property and things; the advanced level is spirit, intercourse and action; the most advanced level is G*d.

:- Doug.

How then shall we live? In community. Doing what our hand finds to do, and doing that with all our presence. Doing our being. Doing our meeting with G*d and with persons. Being. Fully, wholly being, here and now.

:- Doug.

We are given the power of creation: to use, not to lament. We are given the power of conversation: to meet, not to shrink.

:- Doug.

Our question today: Do I feel with G-d’s pathos?

:- Doug.

We can do better: that’s why we’re here. We are here not for our own soul’s salvation but the world’s redemption, growth, becoming new.

:- Doug.

Conversation starts with commonality or polarity. It is nurtured by curiosity or story or other means by which persons open. The world flowers, changes, as persons see more. Both commonality and polarity are needed: their intercourse produces relation and difference, constituents of creativity, work and all radical change. Contrariety is meat of the nut of relation.

:- Doug.

Conversation is how vision catches us.

:- Doug.

Don’t live within the confines of your society and circumstances, live beyond: transcend limits. Be limit-less. What are circumstances? For me they include my religion, community, financial position.

:- Doug.

We want things fast because we have short attention spans. We want things clear because to figure them out is work.

:- Doug.

Beyond “What do you live for?” ask “What is the central question you are contending with now in your life?” There may be a whole storm of questions: How do I live my calling? Who do I make a living? What do I do about redesigning the Website? How do I get to work today now that the car is in the shop? But these swirl around a larger one, the eye of the storm: How do I serve G-d? Or, Who exactly am I, once the baggage is stripped away? These contending questions are not to be answered, nor even overcome. They wrestle you at night and give you their blessing–and a curious limp–in the morning.

But what is beyond questions? The wrestling, the blessing, the limp, the story, the conversation? The new life, the compassion, the growth, the invitation? Happiness, acceptance, service, seeding?

Questions involve a certain striving after, a certain lack thinking, an amount of analysis. Even asking What does all this mean, What are the patterns, the tunes? is taking things apart, trying to put them into categories, rather than letting them be what and who they are. It is fiddling instead of enjoying. It is putting constructs on things that may not have been there to start.

What is beyond the questions?

:- Doug.

The fearsome part of conversation is that in its purest form it lets people in. They may challenge us, even kill us, or worse, our pet ideas. Yet this is its promise: more eyes, more minds, more hands, more life. Let people in. In so doing you chance to meet G*d.

:- Doug.