FootprintsintheWind.com

We can only invite; little can we direct and nothing there is that we can control. So stand in bewilderment and awe; be willing to be the fool, the lost; throw yourself into what lifts your heart: this is how life grows. Flowers still bloom in the meadow even if there is no one to see or sniff; there is a chance, a chance, that a wayward bee or butterfly will happen by. Flowers can’t hold on to their bud; eaglets learn to fly; babies ever progress to walking. Hold not back, run, soar, dive into this.

:- Doug.

G*d of the ducks and ducklings,
G*d of the rain and trees,
G*d of the cities and the open spaces:
You we embrace.

:- Doug.

What questions tug?

:- Doug.

If you will just
set out to do amazing things–
like meet
and have a conversation

:- Doug.

Sometimes I get tired of word studies
and just want
with G-d
to be

:- Doug.

In powerlessness there is power
In power powerlessness
Yet the two can still speak with
when they try
or maybe when they give up trying
Oh what we all have lost
for lack of conversation

:- Doug.

Be in the assembly
be gentle there with yourself:
Hold your tongue
Stand in your bewilderment
Give up your pond of knowledge
for oceans of G-d

:- Doug.

Is it possible to travel so far into the land of lost that you are lost of lost and thus have reached found?

:- Doug.

It is not just that the center of the heap has knowledge and energy and wisdom to solve their own problems elegantly and copiously; it is that there is human capacity here, capacity to the power of capacity, bouncing off of capacity, just skittering to be loosed.

:- Doug.

Notice those capacities, anywhere, anytime; seek intimacy, ideals (what else should we expend our lives seeking?); be foolish enough to seek the ideal, the meeting, the intimacy and bewildered when you do find. Make room, not space. Make home.

:- Doug.

Notice those capacities!

:- Doug.

What we are fighting is who we are.

:- Doug.

Capacities
Anytime
Intimacy
Every tip
Every hair
Be foolish
Bewildered
Roomy

:- Doug.

Is it something grand or something ill with our society that we have car seats that are heated and cooled?

:- Doug.

To my good friends–

My spirit at the moment is like the landscape in front of me: it looks cold and barren, but I know beneath the surface things are sleeping, things are growing, things are doing what they have need of doing. The spirit is blowing around and through, and some dancing is going on somewhere.

:- Doug.

When the chips are down, someone will ask for dip.

:- Doug.

We are of many lights.

:- Doug.

Contemplation (and living) is
not about clearing the world out but
being fully in the world
open with G-d.

:- Doug.

Conversation helps us glimpse inside others to see who we really are.

:- Doug.

What would happen if we opened space in our lives for G-d, continuously?

:- Doug.

In conversation we are able to fulfill each other. This is one of the meanings of open.

:- Doug.

There is a magic here: a live unknown ungraspable of which we are a part which is beyond the borders of our skins. It vivifies. It is more. We can describe it only partially: we can stand there with it, shaking, knowing we are more in its more and that there is more than we could touch in a million lifetimes. It is a good magic, drawing out of us, for us to live within, all the best of us. We help others. We lift up. We grow. We become more. It is done together in such a way that each shines in his or her best ways. Flash. Quicken.

:- Doug.

When I think of your qualities, I am no longer meeting you. Meeting consumes.

:- Doug.